I want to tell you a story about the U15 BNT in 2013 and Hugo Perez and why everyone loved him so much and why his expulsion from US Soccer was such a shameful exercise in misplaced priorities.
In December 2013 the U15 BNT, which Hugo coached at the time, guest played against three U16 teams in the DA Showcase. It was a telling exercise because the teams Hugo picked were always undersized anyway. Against guys 1/2 years up? Mismatch city.
I did not catch their first two games on account of there being an avalanche of teams I needed to see (that was the first time I'd seen Jordan Morris and Matt Miazga play, both of whom were Raw But Very Promising), but I made a point to catch their 3rd against the Red Bulls 16s.
The Red Bulls were, clearly, the best U16 team in the nation that year. They sprinted out of the gates and went straight over the top of Hugo's boys. It was a blitzkrieg. The Red Bulls were faster, overlapped the backs and just shouldered the U15s off ball at every turn.
By about the 50-minute mark, when the Red Bulls went up for good, it became clear they would run away with it. They were just bigger and stronger. And yet I noticed something curious. Hugo refused to compromise. His guys kept building. Every goal kick went to the CB or the LBs.
The Red Bulls won that game 4-1, and Hugo, coaching 14 and 15 yos and in a few cases 13 yos, never. changed. They built almost every time downfield. They were so good to watch. Even when they broke at the back, Hugo just coached through it and had them work it through again.
This is what Hugo told me after that game. 
And then he said this. 
I remember just fidgeting excitedly because he'd just lost *4-1* and been summarily overrun and here he is just beaming because Lucas Del Rosario rondo'd a guy in traffic and beat the press to keep a build alive. I was floored. I'd never heard this from a USSF coach before.
I look at the boys who went through Hugo's system now and it's incredible how much higher their IQ is than their peers. This is not complicated. He was, by a significant margin, the best thing to ever happen to USSF's youth system. And he was thrown to the curb. Politics.
I'm sad he is no longer in the system because he's a leader of men, but I am even more saddened by what it means that a coach of his quality was not valued. My hope is this changes because those 2013 U15s are still in my memory.
