Soccer Nation touches down in Philly

This week, in the same Convention Center space that houses the Philadelphia Flower Show each March, Soccer Nation has taken over.

Stroll down one row, the Downtown Las Vegas Soccer Club will try to lure your club to its International Showcase. Buy some MetaSox if you're interested in serious foot protection. The Voice of America MetroPark of Butler County, Ohio, wants your team for its 2015 College Showcase. Adorn your uniforms with Athletic Heat Transfer Graphics. Laundry Loops keeps the uni sorted as it washes and dries.

If Vegas or Butler County doesn't interest you, the Foley Events Center touts how it is "7 miles from Alabama's Sand Beaches." British European Soccer Training is ready to take your club over the top. Shep Messing, a big name for the old-timers, is signing autographs at the New York Cosmos table. Hexoskin offers Wearable Body Metrics. VidSwap provides Video Editing and Analysis. And that's just a portion of one row.

This isn't just a trade show. The National Soccer Coaches Association of America annual convention includes lectures and clinics. The four-day event that ends Saturday was registration only.

The MLS SuperDraft is grafted on as part of the show, along with the NWSL draft. Landon Donovan talked about his development as a player to a full room. Pele showed up. The Women's World Cup - the trophy itself - was here.

"It used to be just high school and college coaches were here," said Chris Branscome, chief executive officer of Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer, who figured he has been coming to the convention for 30 years. "The MLS staffs, the youth coaches - the casual fans, because the professional draft is here - it's really gone from a parochial event to really kind of a worldwide event."

In Room 112B, Tatjana Haennian, an official from FIFA, the world governing body, explained how increasing the Women's World Cup from 16 to 24 countries is a positive because "once a country has a [real] chance to qualify, it automatically did a bit more" in terms of committing resources to the women's game. If there are more one-sided games as a result, she reminded that there was a one-sided game in the men's World Cup that involved two pretty established powers.

In Room 106B, a coach was talking about developing challenging players, those with ability, but who may have ADHD or be on the autism spectrum.

"A lot of people think Messi is on the spectrum," a coach in the crowd mentioned.

In Room 204, Briana Scurry, goalkeeper of the 1999 World Cup champions, sat at a group discussion about how more girls in urban areas can be brought into the sport.

"Why don't I coach?" Scurry said at one point. "I don't know. I should. We all should coach at least one season in our community."

She meant all her national-team teammates over the years, not just the fabled '99 team.

"I've got some calls to make," Scurry said. "I've got to call on myself."

The NSCAA filled a larger room with a program on Donovan's development, starring the recently retired Donovan, also including his middle-school PE teacher who became a soccer coach by default.

The PE teacher mentioned how Donovan still has the Moore Middle School record for the mile and how the freshman football coach wanted to make him a wide receiver but Donovan wasn't interested: "No, I play soccer. I'm going to make soccer important in the United States."

Asked if he remembered that, Donovan said he didn't. "It probably goes to show what a punk I was."

In a press room, the head of the World Football Academy, Raymond Verheijen, said he thought Americans put too much emphasis on conditioning separate from working on soccer. That's fine for sports where you hold the ball in your hand, said the Dutchman, part of multiple World Cup coaching staffs. It all needs to be integrated in this sport.

"This is such a very competitive society, which is good," Verheijen said. "But when they lose too many games, [parents] take their children to another club that is winning, because they have players born in January."

He didn't mention anything about MetaSox or Hexoskin, but those booths had their own pitchmen explaining their worth to Soccer Nation. This country has one, gaining in sophistication by the hour.

"When people come here for the first time," Branscome said of the convention, "they're kind of blown away by the scope."

@jensenoffcampus