Luke Stauffer, originally from Owensboro and currently attending Shattuck St Mary’s in Minnesota, recently attended the US Futsal Elite Player Identification Camp from September 12-15 at South Coast Soccer City in Torrance, Californina. The ID camp from September 12-15 was designed to identify the top Futsal players in the country, with an eye toward strengthening the U.S. team that will attempt to qualify for the 2012 FIFA Futsal World Cup in Thailand.
After four intense days of training against 55 other players, Luke was invited back to California September 24 to October 1 with the goal of being selected as part a roster that will represent the United States at the 2011 Grand Prix of Futsal, an elite annual international tournament taking place in Brazil from October 14 to 24. At 16 years old, Luke was the youngest player at the original ID camp with most of the players over 18. There were even two players whoare currently playing professionally in Japan and Italy, so getting a call back came as a bit of a surprise.
Luke got his start playing futsal under his father’s leadership, Ty Stauffer, at Sports Tutor in Owensboro before moving to United 1996 FC, Louisville, KY. Luke was a celebratedState and Regional ODP player and was named as part of the U14 US SoccerFederation National ID Program.
Good luck to Luke in the coming weeks.