Home Boy

It's 7:30 in the morning and Zach Pfeffer is trying to make sense of cosine functions and tangents. The 17-year-old is reviewing for a math analysis and trigonometry final the following week, for the one class the junior takes at Upper Dublin High School. It's an exercise that might be difficult under normal circumstances, but it's especially hard on three hours of sleep.

Just a few hours before, Pfeffer got back from a soccer game in southern Maryland. Although Pfeffer didn't play, he still made the trek, knowing the following morning he'd have his head buried in a trig review.

"I do it all the time, I am used to it by now," Pfeffer explained. "You're body just gets used to it. I am not going to lie, it's tough some mornings, but it's school. I have to go to school. Thankfully, we have an off-day so I definitely plan to go home and catch up on some sleep."

The hourlong class is one of the few environments in which Pfeffer is still allowed to be a teenager. Despite classmates parting like the Red Sea as he strolled down the halls (due in no small part to the photographer furiously snapping pictures of him), he is mostly left alone. No fawning. No asking for tickets. "When I first signed it was a little weird, people looked at you a little bit differently, but in a good way," said Pfeffer. "But now, I'm in school with a lot of kids I've been in school with since elementary school, so it's not that much different. Now with the one class, I just go in, go to class and leave."

Jill Morgan, director of guidance at Upper Dublin, isn't surprised that Pfeffer opted not to take a day off from his review session. "He's very mature beyond his years," Morgan said. "He has a fine balance that a lot of students I see don't in that he is just as focused on his academics as his soccer career."

For most high school juniors, of course, talking about a soccer "career" might seem a little premature. Not Pfeffer. Two years ago, he joined the Philadelphia Union out of the MLS Homegrown Player initiative, a program started in 2006 to allow MLS clubs to develop local prospects. Since he was 15, in other words, Pfeffer hasn't been just a high school student: He's been a high school student with an incredibly unusual after-school gig: He's a full-blown professional athlete.

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To understand how Pfeffer got here — to a place where he's balancing trig and defensive tactics, high school and home games — it's necessary to back up a bit, to the year before he was born. When Major League Soccer was founded, shortly after the United States' successful turn hosting the 1994 FIFA World Cup, it looked a lot like this: 10 clubs spread out across the country, composed of players from various countries. It was thought that the league's success would be predicated on enticing aging European stars to finish their careers in the United States — often overpaying them to do so. MLS officials soon realized, however, that the strategy placated well-informed soccer aficionados, but didn't do much for casual fans looking to catch a game. For the most part, Joe Schmo didn't know — and didn't care — who Roberto Donadoni or Carlos Valderrama was, and it quickly became apparent that it was important for the league to help develop American stars — recognizable faces it could keep in MLS as long as possible. Instead of Donadoni, fans followed Landon Donovan. Instead of Valderrama, it was Brian McBride, Taylor Twellman and current American star Clint Dempsey.

Union interim manager John Hackworth is among those who believe that the latter strategy saved the league — and will allow it to continue to grow. "For me, this idea will continue to decrease the number of foreign players we have in our league," said Hackworth, who's also coached for various U.S. youth national teams. "It makes sure that those foreign players that we do have are big names and they're really important to adding validity to MLS. Look, there are foreigners that are really important even on our roster, but the scale should start to tip where the American player develops, and the American player — if anything — gets a little more benefit of the doubt. When that happens, our league is going to shoot up and join the ranks of some of the other big leagues in the world."

The Homegrown Player initiative provided, in other words, a way for MLS clubs to identify and develop promising players the way their counterparts around the world do.

Pfeffer, for one, believes he joined the league at the perfect time, given the current direction of American soccer. "I think it's great for soccer in this country. We are trying to catch up to the rest of the world and in other parts of the world, guys are 16-17-18 as top players in those countries all turning pro. I think for us to catch up, this system is the best and quickest way."

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When he's in the classroom, the only outward hint that Pfeffer might not be a typical American teenager are his diamond earrings. His life, for the most part, is devoid of pomp. His car of choice at this moment is a black Honda CR-V. "It gets great gas mileage and I can lug all my stuff," he explains.

He tends to listen to a lot Spanish reggae and pop before essentially every match. "A lot of people like to listen to serious music before a game, I just like upbeat stuff," Pfeffer explained. "I like a lot of Spanish music, actually. It loosens me up. A little Latin reggae like Don Omar is great stuff. I have a little Spanish heritage ... my mom's side of the family, her father and his family are all from Cuba, so it definitely rubbed off on me, I think."

What else has rubbed off is a good-natured charm that is rare in teenage prodigies. It's not every 17-year-old who can go home and throw on the FIFA12 video game and play a match — as yourself — or makes $70,000 a year, as Pfeffer does playing for the Union. And yet he tries to retain as much normalcy as he can in his life. Normally a big fan of comedies, he's hooked on the latest action movies, specifically "The Avengers," which he's seen twice. The only difference between his life and all his friends' is that while they're hanging out at the lunch table, he's in a locker room.

"During the week, I'm just relaxing hanging out watching some movies at home," says Pfeffer. "And on the weekends I hang with my friends; you know, typical teenager stuff. You have to find time to be a kid and I make sure that I do. It's not really difficult at all, actually. At first it was, but I know how to manage my time now. In the beginning, just adjusting to everything and everyone at first looking at you in a different way. Like I said, it was a good way, but it was still a big change in my life. Something that has become regular now."

Pfeffer's maturity is evident in his game, too. To call Pfeffer a cerebral player would be an understatement. He has been a student of the game practically since birth, and he plays like it. He grew up playing on club teams like Yardley-Makefield and FC Delco, a highly respected soccer club based in Downingtown that has been an incubator for many of the region's most promising players. On the field, he's quick and deceptively strong, but his best skill is that he tends to "see" the field better than most. That soccer IQ is particularly important for someone who plays midfield, as Pfeffer does, where the purpose is to distribute the ball and control the tempo of the game. It's also something that all the great midfielders — from England's David Beckham to France's Zinedine Zidane — share.

Through soccer, Pfeffer has gotten a chance to see the world. He's trained with teams in Europe, including stints in France and recurrent trips to Germany. In 2010, he spent a semester at U.S. Soccer's youth national team residency academy in Bradenton, Fla., where promising youth players get world-class coaching each morning before heading off to school each afternoon. And he recently returned from the U.S. under-18 national team camp in Florida.

Aside from his parents and his twin brother, Jared, his coaches and teammates on the Union also do their part to keep him grounded. "All the young players and the rookies have responsibilities within the locker room," said Hackworth. "There is the boot room where shoes have to get cleaned, there's managing the equipment, and the transport of that equipment to and from the training facility every day. If you go on trips, a lot of those players are responsible for getting those bags on and off the bus. Those are the [things] our younger guys are responsible for, and it's important to teach these guys that, yeah, they might have made it, but there is still a lot of work to be done."

What's more difficult is waiting in the shadows of the starting lineup. Now in his second season with the club, Pfeffer appeared in just three matches last season, none so far this season. He gets most of his playing in with the reserve team. Some blame his size — he's generously listed at 5-8, 145 pounds — or the fact that he is on a team laden with midfield talent. Pfeffer would like to believe that it's just a matter of experience, that he'll get his chance when the time is right.

"I'm biding my time, but it's definitely frustrating," said Pfeffer. "No matter how old you are, you want to play. And for me, with this being my second year, I am getting more anxious, but I know there is still so much time. As hard as it is to say sometimes, I know have to be patient, train hard and put in the work. I usually put in work after training, too, so I'm just waiting to see where that takes me."

Pfeffer doesn't have to look very far to see the perils of being rushed into action. One of his teammates, after all, is Freddy Adu, the youngest player to ever sign an MLS contract — and a cautionary tale for the entire notion of making professionals out of teenagers. When Adu signed with D.C. United as a 14-year-old wunderkind in 2004, he was expected to become the future — and the face — of U.S. Soccer. He failed to live up to the hype and spent years hopscotching around the globe, playing with teams in Portugal, France and Turkey. Last year, Adu's career came full circle; he was acquired by the Union as its first "designated player" (an MLS rule that allows teams to sign players who would otherwise fall outside the team's salary cap). Still just 23, Adu says his career can be looked at by younger up-and-coming players as an example of what not to do. "Obviously when I came in, there was a lot of pressure, I mean, people wanted [me] to come in and be Pele right away," said Adu. "Obviously that wasn't the case, and I had some growing up to do.

"So what I hope my teammates, especially guys like Zach, learn from my career is that there is no rush when you are this young. There is pressure, sure, because every young player wants to play, but there is no rush — and there is always tons of learning to do. The beauty of guys like Zach and [fellow Union homegrown players] Jimmy McLaughlin and Cristhian Hernandez is that they are getting the development stuff first. They have to come to work hard every day, but there is no pressure for them to come in and make an immediate impact. I think in the long run that actually makes you a better player because you can just focus on you and not the pressure of what people expect from you."

But there is pressure. Less on Pfeffer to succeed, but more on what his success — and the success of Major League Soccer's homegrown-player system — could mean for the future. For the league. And for soccer in the United States.

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Pfeffer sees himself doing big things in the sport, but he also realizes what's possible right now. He's mapped out his goals over a 10-year period. Given that he's already a professional, you would think he's miles ahead of the game. But you can tell he still has big dreams. Dreams that are realistic, but will take time to accomplish. "I think the first thing would be to try and succeed here, with the Union. But I think it'd be every young player's dream to get over and play with a top team in Europe," he said. "That would be a goal of mine in the future — in addition to spending some time with the national team as well ... It's why I try to do the best in everything I do — especially soccer, because I want the coaches to see how committed I am to moving my career and whatever team I am on in the right direction."

That may explain why Pfeffer is so good at math (his teacher at Upper Dublin High, Barbara Mass, says Pfeffer is an A student). He has the sum of his efforts already mapped out; now it's simply doing the legwork to get there.

At the moment, though, inside a classroom at 7:30 in the morning, he's just another teenager doing schoolwork. Calculating what has to be done — even while dreaming of what his career can become once the sum has been figured out.