2026 US Youth Soccer Grassroots Symposium

Over three days, participants will move through a shared journey designed around one central theme: Moving Legacy Forward.

Rather than sitting through presentations, attendees will engage in facilitated conversations, community-based learning experiences, interactive workshops, networking opportunities, and practical sessions that encourage collaboration and real-world application.

Every aspect of the Symposium has been intentionally designed to maximize interaction, movement, and connection, creating opportunities to learn not only from speakers, but from one another.

Whether you’re leading a state association, coaching at the grassroots level, building community programs, shaping public policy, or investing in youth development, you’ll leave with new relationships, fresh ideas, and practical strategies you can immediately bring back to your community.

Every session throughout the Symposium connects back to five shared priorities shaping the future of the game.

• Access & Belonging: Creating a soccer ecosystem where every young person has the opportunity to participate, belong, and thrive.
• Wellbeing & Human Development: Supporting young people as athletes, leaders, teammates, and human beings.
• Community & Connection: Strengthening relationships across organizations, sectors, and communities.
• Climate & Sustainability: Preparing soccer for a changing world through resilient facilities, thoughtful planning, and environmental stewardship.
• Leadership & Innovation: Equipping today’s leaders with the ideas, partnerships, and tools needed to shape the next generation of the game.

The Grassroots Symposium is presented through a partnership between US Youth Soccer, Common Goal USA, and U.S. Soccer’s Soccer Forward initiative.

Together, these organizations are bringing the entire soccer ecosystem into one shared conversation—connecting grassroots leaders with community organizations, coaches with innovators, funders with practitioners, and decision-makers with those creating impact every day.

The result is a Symposium designed not simply to discuss the future of soccer, but to build it together.