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GREENSBORO -- The U.S. national team shocked the soccer world last week by stunning top-ranked Spain and taking Brazil to the brink during the FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa.

Those games claimed the headlines, but the lower layers of the U.S. soccer program were training hard at the Bryan Park Soccer Complex. The youthful counterparts to the American stars are members the Under-17 boys national team, which is training for the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria this fall.

The squad is composed of members from the U.S. residency program. Players such as Statesville's Jared Watts live at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., and go to school while training and competing.

After a couple of weeks off, they trained in New Jersey before coming to North Carolina for some more work at the complex while the U.S. Soccer Development Academy playoffs took place.

The U.S. kids played the much older Carolina Dynamo on Monday morning, but they claimed a 4-1 scrimmage victory thanks to a second-half Dynamo red card and balanced play.

"We need to get exposed," said U.S. coach Wilmer Cabrera. "Instead of trying to play easy games, or games against the same age where they're going to look good but they're going to look too confident, we want to make them run, make them make mistakes, and play tough games against players with more experience."

The group is connected to the full-time members of the national squad. They watched the Confederations Cup games as a team, and Cabrera knows they're "dreaming that hopefully one day they could be there."

"With their success and everything, it kind of goes down to us and the youth team," Watts said. "It affects us and how the world's going to look at us and respect us in that manner."

The Academy was started by the U.S. Soccer Federation in 2007 to develop youth players, and 64 youth clubs around the country were initially selected.

During its second year, the program decided to make the playoffs a two-section event rather than just one finals weekend. Each group of 32 split into eight sections of four teams, and the top team from each section this past weekend advanced to Finals Week in Carson, Calif., from July 10-17.

There was a local success story amid the hundreds of players competing, as the Greensboro Youth Soccer U-16 Academy defeated Crossfire Premier 2-0 on Monday afternoon to punch their ticket to the West Coast.

"It really gives the kids a goal and something to focus for," coach Chris Little said of the expanded format.

"Obviously our goal all year has been to make the playoffs, and obviously we achieved that. And from then it was to make the nationals."

The added games allow for more meaningful competition, and with the best players in the country drawn into the folds of Academy clubs, the tournament is also a showcase for college scouting and U.S. Soccer as it attempts to identify talent for the youth national teams.

There was at least one U.S. scout at each tournament game.

"The key to us is that those two things go hand in hand. Our objective is to create a better environment for the player, so that we will therefore get better players coming through," said John Hackworth, an assistant with the full national team and the former U-17 coach.

"And then it's up to us to identify those players."

While the U-17 team watched Landon Donovan and company take on the international elite, the Academy players got a chance during the tournament to watch the best players in their age group train and compete.

As U.S. U-17 keeper Spencer Richey put it, his team is "kind of the place that everybody wants to be."

"This is the level that if &ellipses; any player wants to be here, you have to find that kind of level. So it's a good point of view and a good comparison point for the players," Cabrera said.

"&ellipses; And definitely it's a responsibility for us to show that, what we've been doing."

Contact Jesse Baumgartner at 373-7091 or jesse.baumgartner@news-record.com