Barca Residency Academy’s rising talents, Kash Held, Diego Ros, and Carson Starrett, have been invited to U.S. Soccer’s first regional mini-camp of 2025 as part of the U-14 Boys National Team Talent Identification Program. The trio will join 80 of the West Region’s top young players at the Elite Athlete Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., from February 27 to March 3. The camp aims to expand and strengthen the Men’s Youth National Team player pool.
The event will be overseen by U.S. Soccer Talent ID Director for Men’s Youth National Teams, Garrett Biller, alongside U.S. Soccer Talent ID Manager – West, Roberto Gimenez. Three additional Regional Talent ID Managers will also be in attendance to assess and guide the selected players.
Held, Ros, and Starrett, all born in 2011, earned their invitations after impressing scouts at the U.S. Soccer Identification Center (IDC) in Santee, Calif., last month, following strong performances at a local IDC in Arizona last October.
The 80-player roster is composed of top talents from Arizona, Northern California, Southern California, Oregon, and Washington. Participants are divided into four sub-regional teams of 20: Los Angeles/Las Vegas, Northern California, Northwest, and Southwest.
The U-14 Talent Identification Program is designed to discover a larger base of top talents at the U-14 age group and build the player pool foundation for the U-15 Boys’ National Team while introducing them to The U.S. Way. The mini-camp format helps to evaluate and inspire high-potential players while accelerating their development in an engaging and challenging environment.
In addition to expanding the YNT player pool at its early stages, this scouting and identification structure allows top players at the U-14 age level time to absorb core principles of the U.S. Way playing philosophy and other high performance education topics such as nutrition, rest and recovery and self-evaluation tools to help them take further responsibility for their own development.
