About 40 miles south of Los Angeles in the Costa Mesa area of Orange County, TOCA Soccer’s headquarters demonstrate a vision of why USWNT Women’s World Cup stars Alex Morgan and Emily Sonnett have previously visited.
The premise for its beginnings was simple: former United States and Premier League player Eddie Lewis wanted to share his secret. As a youngster, Lewis was a talented but unremarkable footballer, by his own admission. He was good enough to win a scholarship to UCLA as an outside recruit, but a career as a professional – let alone an international playing in the world’s most popular league – was far from a given.
He had all the physical and mental attributes to succeed but lagged behind his peers technically – his first touch was often missed and he describes his weaker right foot as “shocking” (bad shock , that is). As a youngster, he spent a lot of time trying to get the ball under control, while his head should have been raised in search of a pass.
According to him, the catalyst for an eventual career at the highest level of the game was a chance encounter with the UCLA basketball team. With the football locker room in the basketball arena, he would watch the basketball players practice on the court and once noticed that they were using smaller balls and smaller baskets.
The idea: if you can shoot a three-pointer in a smaller hoop, you’ll be able to do it in a regulation-sized net. So Lewis grabbed some tennis balls and started practicing on a garage wall. If he could control a smaller ball, he would be able to control a size five football.
Within weeks, his touch had improved significantly. He then bought a tennis ball machine, set up his “studio” between two parking garages, and shot 1,000 balls a day for himself. He credits that to taking him from a fantastic college player to an eight-year career in England, playing for Fulham, Preston North End, Leeds United and Derby County, as well as an 82-cap US international.
Eddie Lewis against South Korea in the 2002 Gold Cup. (Photo: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
As he headed toward retirement with the LA Galaxy, he began researching how to evolve his training methods. Tennis balls were great for improving control, but they were too small to shape and bend, limiting how he could hit and manipulate the ball once in his possession. He began researching engineers to develop a machine similar to a tennis ball machine, but with a smaller and lighter football. After developing a prototype, the first TOCA soccer venue opened in 2014 in California. Nine years later, the company is closing in 40 countries across the globe, with the majority in the United States and Canada.
The layout is relatively simple. At the Costa Mesa location, where founder Lewis, CEO Yoshi Maruyama and most of the company’s day-to-day management are based, the area of operation is divided into five networked segments.
Each segment has a ball machine (touch trainer) controlled by a dedicated trainer on an iPad. The mini goals (smart targets) can be moved between all areas of the area and have LED lights attached, indicating at what height the ball should hit the goal for that activity.
Houston Dash goalkeeper Jane Campbell trains at a TOCA facility.
For example, if it’s a floor exercise, the lights will be on the floor. If a shooting exercise, the trainer will illuminate the entire target. Sometimes all the goals will be illuminated, sometimes just one, developing the player’s body awareness and positioning. During a one-hour session, the player will touch the ball at least 200 times at different speeds, accelerating their development through constant exposure.
“We see it as early as age five,” says Lewis Athletics. “The ability to control a real soft ball that comes out and for players to learn how to control and hit the ball without hurting their foot and helping them feel comfortable hitting it with both feet. It does several things. No. 1, it improves their technical ability, but also their confidence. Instead of playing on the fringes of games, we help them have the confidence to go in and win the ball because they’ll feel comfortable knowing they can do something with it. Our goal is to eliminate that technical barrier.”
While children make up a significant portion of TOCA’s client base, some of their most effective work has been in helping professional and college players recover from injuries.
like Athletics visited the country, 18-year-old Mia Stuart was playing in a net called Christen Press, one of many USWNT players, including Morgan, Sonnett, Mallory Swanson and Kelley O’Hara, who have used TOCA resources in the offseason. As Stuart prepares for the upcoming season at Westmont College, an NCAA Division II school based in Santa Barbara, she is using TOCA to recover from an ACL injury. of prevalence of this injury in the women’s game is not lost on Lewis, who sees their resources – using softer balls and a ground surface – as a perfect way to help return-to-play (ROP) players recover.
“There’s a certain recovery period when you’re fit enough to play, but you still have to be careful,” Lewis said. “The club doesn’t want the player in a 100 per cent game-like environment, and maybe they’ll put them on a different colored sheet, but it’s not an ideal set-up because you can’t control the variables. What if they linger too long after a bad touch, pluck something, or react incorrectly? At TOCA, we control all those elements.
“We can control how much a player moves, the pace at which the ball comes to the player and the physical load they will be working with. We find that we get players back faster, but in many cases, much better than they were before they were injured. During their recovery period, we are able to spend so much time not only helping them recover from their injury, but also improving their technical deficiencies.”
Last year, TOCA announced a 10-year partnership with MLS “aimed at growing the sport and developing future players in North America.” Outside of brand opportunities, TOCA and MLS will collaborate to develop training programs for young talent in MLS academies using TOCA’s player development, analytics and data capture expertise, leveraging the engineering and coaching teams of full-time companies.
This filters into MLS Next programs, where several youth affiliates of clubs train using TOCA facilities, including the Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas. The NWSL hasn’t struck a formal partnership, but two of its most recent success stories, Olivia Moultrie and Melanie Barcenas, have used TOCA for years. Moultrie became the youngest player to score an NWSL goal in 2022, and in April, 15-year-old San Diego Wave forward Barcenas became the youngest player ever to play in the league.
The supplemental individual training model is common across American sports, with young athletes known to hire trainers for individual sessions to develop skills. While there is an acknowledgment by TOCA that it will be more difficult to integrate this style of training in more developed football nations, with a single 50-minute session ranging from $20 to $69 depending on location, there is an appetite to grow up overseas.
It has two centers in Sweden and the Middle East, Australia, Japan and South Korea are considered sensitive markets for expansion, given the cultural appetite to pay a premium for individual training. Even the Hungarian federation, in an attempt to qualify for the first World Cup since 1986, has contacted TOCA about a wide spread of their technology.
TOCA plans to develop its social brand as well. With its first 30,000 sq ft location at the O2 Arena in London from 2021, it offers football-themed entertainment based on the principles of Topgolf, where users can engage in football activities over food and drink. There are plans to open locations in Birmingham, England; Dallas, Texas and several locations in Mexico.
“The initial question was, ‘Can we create a fun soccer experience that’s not just for soccer fans?’ The answer is an overwhelming yes, based on what we’ve experienced in London,” says Maruyama, whose background is in themed entertainment at Universal Parks & Resorts and DreamWorks Animation. “We did additional research in Dallas, where we created a box social media and guests – from both the family and adult demographics – overwhelmingly supported the concept. The excitement around the sport due to Lionel Messi, the upcoming World Cup and the growth of MLS will only accelerate it further.”
The business is backed by West River Group, which made early investments in Topgolf, and counts Tottenham Hotspur forward Harry Kane and Arsenal defender Leah Williamson among its ambassadors. For Maruyama, TOCA’s potential, given the simple nature of picking up and playing soccer, is about 20 to 30 times greater than Topgolf. For context, Topgolf attracts over 20 million visitors annually to more than 60 locations across the United States and was acquired by golf brand Callaway in 2021 in a deal that values the company at $2 billion.
Chances are it won’t be long before you see a player develop using TOCA facilities for your favorite team, or using TOCA on a night out with friends.
(All photos courtesy of TOCA)
