Increasing the Quality of Performance — James Bunce Joins U.S. Soccer Staff
James Bunce joins the U.S. Soccer staff as he is appointed High Performance Director. Bunce joins U.S. Soccer after serving as Head of Performance for the Premier League in England as well as being Head of Athletic Development with Southampton FC.
Soccer News: The focus is clearly on the future at U.S. Soccer Federation — with an eye of developing world class players who can earn a spot on the National Team, there is “new blood in town.”
Realizing that America is a young country in the world of soccer, U.S. Soccer is borrowing from the experience across the Atlantic — and has created a new job for England’s Premier League sports’ scientist, the talented James Bunce.
America is a huge country – with millions of kids playing the beautiful game and only a fraction being trained to take their game to the top level on an international pitch.
As High Performance Director, Bunce will bring new insights into the long term process of player development. Raising the standards of play involves many facets of the game and many American youth soccer coaches have has long ignored the scientific data side. While sports science and sports medicine may be less well known in the USA, England and the rest of Europe have long been embracing this information to help develop successful players.
“We are adding a world-class level sports performance expert to our staff,” U.S. Soccer Director of Sport Development Ryan Mooney said. “James possesses the right balance of theoretical and practical experience that we are confident will lead to an acceleration across all of our player development initiatives.”
“I am honored and humbled to join U.S. Soccer,” Bunce said. “The Federation is an organization that continues to dedicate the right resources to high performance and development growth. I am looking forward to getting started and confident that we will be able to accelerate U.S. Soccer’s ability to develop world-class players, coaches and referees.”
As U.S. Soccer’s High Performance Director, Bunce will lead the supporting personnel and initiatives focused on enhancing elite athletic performance and improving the development of younger players.
Bunce’s high performance leadership will cover physical development, nutrition, recovery, strength and conditioning, mental conditioning, performance data and performance research and innovation.
In his most recent role with the Premier League, Bunce developed new national performance projects including national injury surveillance, national physical profiling, and technical, tactical analysis for all 20 Premier League teams. He was also responsible for supporting performance departments across the league.
Prior to his promotion as Head of Performance, Bunce was the Premier League’s Head of Sport Science. In that role, Bunce’s developed the first nationally required accreditation for sport scientists in soccer within the UK and the development and introduction of national growth and maturation player profiling.
Prior to his time in the Premier League, Bunce was Head of Athletic Development with Southampton FC.
Photo Credit: U.S. Soccer
