Youth soccer training at The Lab in East Pasadena, for players 5 to 14. Two evenings a week, a written plan with your child’s name on it, and your Saturday stays exactly as it is.
FTBL Academy is a soccer education. We form individual players over years, not seasons. In Spanish the word is formación: the long formation of a footballer, as a player and as a person.
The golden age of learning. What a child learns with the ball in these years stays for life. That is the window we build in.
Many touches, both feet. Stops it, turns with it, moves without looking down. Tries the move and laughs when it fails. Comes back next week wanting more. Nothing here is taught standing in a line.
The same base, verified rather than assumed. The moves that were tricks start to work against a defender, on both feet. The player chooses three moves as their own and practises them without being asked.
Head up before the ball arrives. Knows when to take a player on, when to release, when to hold. Can answer the question every coach here asks: what did you see?
The skills are theirs now, and they hold up under pressure and when tired. Can explain their own decisions and their own plan. Ready to go and compete with the best of them.
Games get the attention. Training is where a player gets better. A ten-year plan, not a seasonal calendar.
Small groups, a written session for every coach, no laps and no lines.
Within thirty days. Reviewed with you in December and May. Growth you can see each quarter.
Every coach has completed the FTBL coach course. No volunteers, no parents filling in. Staff coaches in English and Spanish.
Your player trains the full session with the group we think fits. You watch. Within two days a coach tells you what they saw and where we’d start. No sales conversation.
Enroll, pick your days, and within thirty days there’s a written plan with your child’s name on it.
Same days and times all year. Skills at Home between sessions. Family reviews in December and May. Move up when the coach’s eye says so, not on a birthday.
Same days, same times, all year. Pick your days. Families come from across the San Gabriel Valley.
Ages 5–10
Monday–Friday 5:00pm
Saturday 10:00am
Ages 8–14
Monday–Friday 6:15pm
Billed monthly. Foundation One and Two share the same rates. Freeze and make-ups written down and the same for everyone.
Once a week. A five-year-old trying it out, or a child balancing another sport. Real, and not a development plan.
Twice a week. Most FTBL players train here.
Three times a week. Mostly Foundation Two.
Training + league, fees included
1×/week $200 · 2×/week $400
Per session
New Foundation rates take effect October 1, 2026. Families enrolled before then keep their current rate through January 2027.
Coach Rafa started FTBL in 2020 with one idea: the player, not the position. Six years on, the same written session runs for every coach and every group.
Cindy M.
Foundation One
Flor R.
Foundation Two
Jason T.
Academy Teams
Maria L.
Foundation One
David K.
Academy Teams
Sandra P.
Foundation Two
No. There is no tryout to train at FTBL — Foundation is open to any player. Academy Teams are placed by evaluation, Foundation players first, and a player from outside FTBL when a roster is forming. No tryout fee, ever.
No. Saturday stays exactly as it is. We do the individual work during the week, and the season is when it matters most.
Players 5 to 14, in two groups. Foundation One starts at five; Foundation Two runs to fourteen. We place by the coach’s eye, not strictly by age.
Yes. Our staff is bilingual, and we work with families in both Spanish and English.
