For real estate developer Mark Hall, the path to building a cutting edge soccer training facility and owning a pro soccer team started with a simple dilemma: what to do with a commercial property he owned in Walnut Creek.

After buying the sprawling former Contra Costa Times publishing plant in 2013, Hall decided to turn the building into a sports training facility called the Shadelands Sports Mall. The 215,000-square-foot facility will open in a few months and house a shopping mall full of youth sports and physical activities under one roof, including basketball, baseball, swimming, gymnastics, volleyball, taekwondo, yoga, and soccer.

Through the process of finding tenants, Hall believed soccer should be the anchor tenant for the center since it is the most popular sport played in the world. As he learned more about the game, he became convinced that no one could create a youth soccer training facility better than his company and he established the COPA Soccer Training Center.

“Once we made that decision, then it just became a quest,” explained Hall.

COPA stands for ‘Comprehensive. Objective. Performance. Assessment.’ The soccer center will focus on using data-driven quantitative tools to analyze and set a path for youth soccer players’ physical and cognitive development. The idea is revolutionary for youth soccer training, especially in America.

“Part of the benefit for me is that I’m not a soccer guy, was never a soccer guy,” he added. “I came in with no baggage, no pre-conceived notions.”

Hall felt that soccer development in America needed to be based more on analytics and data-driven talent assessment, similar to what the Oakland A’s accomplished in the early 2000s. The Athletics’ quantitative analytics system is commonly referred to as Moneyball, because the team was able to identify talent overlooked by other MLB teams and field a winning squad with one of the lowest payrolls in the league. After their success, the Moneyball analytic model is now emulated by most MLB teams.

The problem Hall discovered in instituting a quantitative analytical approach to youth soccer development was that most of the cutting edge technology being used and developed for pro soccer teams in Europe specialized in training athletes after they had become professionals. The challenge has been importing these technologies and then making them commercially applicable for youth soccer development at an affordable price to the general public.

His company bought rights to some of the technology to use and distribute in the United States. When he was unable to find the specific technology needed for the soccer training facility, Hall created a company, COPA Innovation Laboratories, to develop it themselves.

“Everyone is really interested in what we are doing here cause it’s so unique,” said Andy McDermott, the Sporting Director for USL East Bay and the Director of Community Relations for COPA Innovation Laboratories. He noted that the soccer training center will be a neutral ground where players from all Bay Area soccer academies and clubs come to improve their skills. “We provide value to these clubs where their players come to use, and they go back more athletic, more technical, and more cognitive.”

“We don’t want to compete with those guys,” he added. “We don’t want to steal their players. We want to train their players.”



At the COPA center, Hall notes that each room in the facility will have technology integrated into its structure and they are not just fields or training areas.

One of the most exciting technologies that Hall’s company has developed is a two-story tall, cube-sized structure dubbed the “COPA Cube.” In the cube, a soccer player will have to perform a series of assigned movements that will be tracked by sensors that are embedded throughout the structure.

After their session in the cube, each individual youth soccer player will receive quantitative data and about their abilities in multiple soccer tasks and what skills they need to focus on improving. The technology will be able to track the stats for individuals in numerous categories, and even compare them to other youth in the training center.

Most of the spaces at the COPA soccer training center have been designed to be multi-modal and can be converted for different uses. For example, a technique studio where kids can focus on a specific skill can also be quickly cleared for small field soccer games. Hall said the training facilities could be used by up to 200 soccer athletes at a time and up to 2,500 athletes weekly.

The building will not only house technologies built by COPA Labs but will also showcase other groundbreaking soccer development technology. One of them is know as the ‘Speed Court’ by its German manufacturer. The court uses motion based training techniques that teach agility and speed. The technology is currently being used by Bayern Munich, one of the largest and most successful soccer clubs in the world, and Bayer Leverkushen to help train its players.

VIDEO: Bayer Leverkushen players train on Speed Court



“The Speed Court product while it is being used at the top professional level we think its most important application is with little kids,” said Hall. He noted the soccer center will also have training facilities for kids younger than seven-years-old.

“It’s a long play,” added McDermott about offering soccer training at such a young age. “If we start with a 3-year-old or 4-year-old and 10 years down the road that 15-year-old is a world-class talent, then we could look back [at the analytics] and say ‘this is what you were doing as a 4-year-old.”

Another technology Hall invested in is a virtual reality cognitive training center for soccer players that is known as the ‘Skills Lab.’ It was developed by a company in Austria. Hall was so impressed with the technology he licensed it and will be its North American fabricator. When the Skills Lab is built in Walnut Creek, it will double as a showroom for the technology. He said there has been interest from many teams, including one in the MLS, to tour the facility after it is up and running.

“We will always be introducing and looking at new technologies and trying to stay current and fresh,” added Hall. “We will use [the COPA Training Center] as a testing and training center for the technology itself, not just the players.”

After delving head first into youth soccer development, Hall decided to further his investment in the sport by buying the rights to a professional soccer team. He acquired the territorial rights from the United Soccer League, the second division pro soccer league in America and created USL East Bay. He plans to start a team, and possibly several, in a region stretching from Santa Rosa, through the East Bay, and down to Turlock. Currently USL East Bay is focusing first on building an 18,000-seat soccer stadium in downtown Concord that could open as early as 2023.

Hall believes the COPA Training Center will play an integral part in the success of his pro team when it launches. He plans to have the professional players train along with the kids and the general public and not be separate like it is for most soccer academies in the world. It is even possible that the kids training at COPA could one day make the USL East Bay squad.

“Once we do get the pro teams going, we’d love to feature local talent” that trained at COPA added McDermott. “That’s a win for everyone.”

Although Hall admits he isn’t sure how everything will evolve in his soccer training center, since it has never been attempted before, he is excited by its possibilities. If his model for analytical youth soccer development is successful, he may build other COPA Soccer Training Centers around the county.

“The thought has occurred to me,” he said with a smile. “We have property in twenty states, and we are looking at sites.”

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Douglas Zimmerman covers the “beautiful game” in the Bay Area and around the world. He recently released a photo book documenting the fans of the World Cup that he started in 2002.

Follow on Twitter: @zimpix