Sports
Bethesda Youth Soccer Team Ranked Among the Best in the Country
The Lions won all four tournaments it appeared in during the spring and summer.
As the Bethesda SC Lions Under-13 (U13) boy’s soccer team got ready to begin its season in early March, Lions coach Emile Mbouh couldn’t help but think about his team’s potential for the upcoming year.
Mbouh, who played for Cameroon in the 1990 and 1994 World Cups and also spent 10 years playing professionally, had started working with a good number of the players several years ago, and having seen
consistent progression from them during that span, watching as they kept getting better and better, Mbouh entered this season looking forward to seeing just how much the Lions could accomplish.
Yet, for as confident as he was in his team’s ability, not even Mbouh could’ve expected the kind of dominant season Bethesda ended up putting together.
The Lions competed in four tournaments between March and July, winning all four, and by relatively convincing margins.
They capped their season with a 4-1 win against the Arlington Impact Red from Virginia in the championship game of the U.S Youth Soccer Region I Championships in early July. During the five-game tournament, Bethesda outscored its opponents by a combined 20-2 margin.
Shortly after the performance, the Lions were ranked by Youth1 as the second best U13 team in the entire country, and the best in the mid-atlantic region.
“I’m just very proud of the team,” Mbouh said. “To see where we came from to where we are now, I just don’t have words. I just love the way they work hard and always give their best. I really don’t have words.
I’m just really, really proud of them and of what they’ve achieved.”
The diverse Lions have a roster that features players from 16 different countries around the world.
And aside from just the U.S Youth Soccer Region I championship, Bethesda also claimed titles in the Jefferson Cup Boys Showcase in March, the Maryland State Cup in May and the Potomac Memorial Day
Tournament later in May.
In preparation for the tournaments, Mbouh said the Lions practiced twice a week throughout the spring and the early part of the summer.
He works with the players on everything from basic skills to conditioning while also trying to instill in them all of the knowledge that he gained from his time as a player.
“I had so many good coaches and I’m just trying to bring what they taught me to the kids,” Mbouh said. “I just want them to be confident and to understand that they can do whatever they put their minds to on the soccer field as long as they work hard. I just want us to keep going now and for them to keep growing as soccer players.”
Gerard Walker, meanwhile, one of the Lions’ managers, lauds Mbouh and co-head coach Philip Gyau for the influence and guidance they’ve provided to the players on the team as well as to other young soccer
players around the Bethesda area.
Gyau, a former forward for the U.S National Team, played professionally from 1985-96.
“In Emile and Philip, our kids have the very best in the business, dare I say in the country,” Walker said, “not only for the fact that they are the real deal, with unquestionable credentials, but the fact that they are brutally dedicated to youth development and are amazing with the kids.”
CORRECTION: The story has been updated to reflect that the Lions won all four tournaments it appeared in during the spring and summer. We regret the error.
