Good afternoon. We bring you this newsletter in an incredibly unusual time. It has been just over three months since our last newsletter and coincidentally when Covid-19 caused us to cancel practices indefinitely. Recently, we got the news we have patiently waited months for, “Return to practice approved!”. However, we want to look back and reflect on the last three months to highlight what Crossfire has done during the lockdown.
Return to Practice Protocols
Firstly, I’d like to start off by confirming our approval by King County to return to small-group practices from Monday, June 15 th at 60 Acres. It is important that Crossfire families read the protocols. Each player must be registered to Crossfire AND signed our Covid-19 waiver. I’m sure you share our excitement to return to the field and start playing again! (6/12/2020)
Free XF Buff and Hand Sanitizer

In order to maximize the safety of our players, we are providing each player with a free XF buff and bottle of hand sanitizer. Each player will be able to sanitize before and after practice while wearing their XF buff, optimizing player safety.
XF Support
Coach and Player Financial Aid

We created a plan to alleviate the financial burden on our families, so you could commit to the upcoming soccer season and confirm your place on the team without needing to pay fees when not training/playing. After the initial payment of $235 when registering, there will be no further payments until we’ve resumed training. For example, if we begin training on July 15, your first payment will be August 1. Any payments deferred due to the club not training will be deducted from your total annual cost of participation, so monthly payments will remain the same amount and end on schedule as in other years. 

Additionally, we mirrored our support to our coaches. We committed to paying our coaches their full salaries through September 1 at least.
Shopping
Free delivery services for any families in need. If you have family members with immunodeficiency, older family members or are in quarantine due to having been exposed to COVID—19, our Crossfire coaches can help by shopping for your necessities and delivering directly to your door. We want to help make certain none of our XF families go without during these trying times and we are willing to help out in any way possible. 
Tax talk
George Koutelieris, a XF parent graciously offered to present tax information related to the changing times. George is a shareholder at Johnson & Shute, P.S., a local CPA firm, adjunct professor for the Golden Gate School of Taxation and an educator to other CPAs on the West Coast. For anyone interested, the presentation is still available here.
XF Amazon Smile

“The Crossfire Foundation will be redirecting all AmazonSmile donations to a local charity supporting COVID-19 relief efforts. When you shop on AmazonSmile, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products to the charitable organization of your choice. All donations from April 1 until soccer operations resume at Crossfire Premier will be donated to the Seattle Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund. Crossfire Foundation will also  match   all donations we receive , doubling the amount we are able to donate to the fund.”
NEW Virtual Classroom
While we were unable to improve our skills on the field, we created a ‘Virtual Classroom’ so our players could continue to enhance their soccer IQ from home. We have presented and posted over 18 topics that cover multiple aspects of soccer on and off the field. We have 3 main categories: personal development, attacking and defending. In our personal development topic, we have presentations on: nutrition, sleep, leadership, diversity, mental toughness and body image. In our attacking section: counter-attacking, finishing and outplaying 1 vs 1. Finally, our defending content included: pressing, 1 vs 1 defending and counter-pressing. We highly encourage every player to take time to access our virtual classroom to strengthen their understanding of the game.
Live Zoom Workouts
Every Wednesday, 12:00pm for the previous 9 weeks, we offered a live individual workout via Zoom. Throughout the weeks, the workouts would alter their focus to the following: ball mastery, 1 vs 1 skills, agility and speed, balance and core, upper and lower body strength. While not every workout was recorded, we have 5 workouts accessible in our virtual classroom .
Individual Training Plans
At the beginning of lockdown, when public fields were still open. We provided a weekly plan for players to follow to stay in shape. We also left the small white goals at Marymoor in case any players were at the fields together and want to play 1v1, 2v2, etc. An example of different days within the weekly training plan included: day one: Ball Work — Technical Skills, day two: Fitness & Core Exercises, day three: Ball Work — Change of Direction / Change of Speed.
Cooking with Keith
Our very own Chef Keith Brunell, executive corporate chef for Nordstrom Restaurant Group, hosted live cooking classes over Zoom to help share some tricks of trade. Keith provided the ingredients, then a full cooking experience including drinks. Crab deviled eggs, bacon/crab mac n cheese, cilantro lime grilled steak, Wild Alaskan penne with sausage, broccoli and parmesan and linguine white clam pasta vongole were some of the amazing dishes.
College Prep: Scouting Zone Tutorial
During the quarantine period, Tara at Scouting Zone hosted an incredibly informative and beneficial presentation to Crossfire, and specifically our older players. We recorded the presentation here (password: 2T=%550u ) In addition, I am including Scouting Zone’s 4-week recruiting plan , which can further prepare you for the next step. For more information, please reach out to [email protected] our College Prep Coordinator.
Upcoming XF Events
Tournaments
At this time, we remain hopeful we will have the chance to host our tournaments, but of course we’ll only make that determination once it’s deemed safe. Get prepared by getting up-to-date for our summer tournaments at the amazing 60 Acres soccer complex: Crossfire Challenge , Redapt Cup and Proliance Cup which has been moved to Labor Day Weekend .
 
Camps
In addition to tournament season, Crossfire is still preparing for two weeks of Residential and four weeks of Day Camps for all skilled players from 6-18 years old. Summer camps are the perfect way to continue playing while school is out of session. Camp pricing and information: Day Camps | Residential Camps
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Keep up to date with Crossfire news as it happens on our Instagram page @crossfire.premier or Twitter @crossfireprmr.

Did we miss something? Email [email protected] with XF news!
GO CROSSFIRE!