Manteca Rangers building something special
Throughout the Central Valley, the name Manteca Rangers is a name that resonates. The club has been quite well known for 40 years as the city’s largest recreational sports program, along with its competitive club program. However, with a top-flight…
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Continue ReadingThroughout the Central Valley, the name Manteca Rangers is a name that resonates. The club has been quite well known for 40 years as the city’s largest recreational sports program, along with its competitive club program.
However, with a top-flight Director of Coaching, Trisha Gonzalez, on board, a top-class boys technical director in Johnathan Ortiz, a new girls technical director, and an emphasis on bringing on excellent coaches, Rangers are looking to be known more as a proper club.
“Our goal is to start building a really competitive aspect to the club,” new girls technical director Robert Olson said. “Hopefully we can start making some changes to make the club better.”
Those changes, as mentioned before largely revolved around building as good a coaching staff as possible. They’d like to bring in high-level coaches and create a system where ex-players become coaches, as well as make connections with the top high school and junior college coaches in the area.
The club is also preaching innovative and progressive ideas, like new game models, methodologies, and philosophies.
“We are building a player-centric model,” Olson said. “This means that every aspect of our tactical game is built around our players.”
This is instead of building a specific system that every single coach has to use. This gives them the flexibility to fit the system to the players, and not the other way around.
Rangers now have 14 competitive club teams, seven on the girls side and seven on the boys side. The boys feature 04, 07, 08, 09, a pair of 10, and 12 teams while the girls have 05/06, 06/07, 08, 09, 10, 12, and 13 teams. The plan is to take the 2014 team to club next season.
The teams are already making a name for themselves, in particular, the 2013 girls team is standing out, and the 07 boys recently beat Walnut Creek Soccer Surf Club in a NorCal State Cup Round of 16 match.
Rangers are also looking to start a junior Rangers program in the Fall. Olson was excited to make this move because of the imprint he can make on the club.
“I’ve always wanted to be a director at a smaller club where I can have more influence,” Olson said. “Turning over a club and creating something new is something I’ve always loved doing. I’m excited to come in at this time in particular with tryouts being a month away.”