Soccer in the US is a “fall sport“. The main season is concentrated on the second half of the year – therefore competition takes place between August and late November/early December. After competing within the regional “conferences” the best teams qualify for the “National Playoff”. Finally, the winner of the “Nationals“ gets the famous trophy of “National Championship”.

Training for „Pre-Season“ usually starts in late July. During this period the teams have several friendly matches and sometimes train twice a day. With start of the season training is reduced to once a day.

In spring the focus is improving your skills like endurance, power and speed/athletics. In this term there are only a few matches – maybe 6-8 nonleague matches and an international trip if the respective college has the available funds/fundraising. The so-called „off-season“ starts in mid/late January and ends in late April/early may. Afterwards, there is a longer break until end of July.

While „season“ and „off-season“ you have courses and exams at your university – similar to Germany you have a winter term (august – December) and a spring term (January –may).