Santa Monica Surf is the elite soccer club and developmental program on the Westside of Los Angeles. Our playing model creates a pathway for our players to reach tangible goals both as athletes and as people.
Across the club, Santa Monica Surf is singularly focused on player progression. For our younger athletes, this goes all the way up to creating opportunities at the developmental academy level. We are a trusted advisor and soccer program with these professional clubs, which means our players are evaluated early and often. Our player progression focus shifts to college programs for our older players, where we have a demonstrated track record of elevating our players to elite college programs.
Academic development is as important to us as athletic progress, so the club is purposefully constructed to create an elite, competitive soccer environment without the everyday commitment of a developmental academy. This balance feeds our college commitment by allowing the time for both academic and athletic development.
Federico is a 2005 graduate in business from Boston University where he was a 4-year member of the Division 1 men’s soccer team. As a senior, he was the captain and he led the team to the America East conference title and a NCAA tournament appearance, losing in the second round. He was awarded the America East Tournament Most Valuable Player for his performance in the postseason.
Immediately after college, Federico played stints with the LA Galaxy reserve team and a few United Soccer League teams, including the Long Island Rough Riders and the California Victory.
After his professional playing career, Fed quickly knew that he wanted to continue to be a part of the game of soccer and began his coaching career. In the past 16 years, he has coached multiple club teams and semi-professional teams. He is currently a Head Coach at Santa Monica Surf and he is the Head Coach of the Crossroads Boys Varsity Soccer Team. His Crossroads coaching accomplishments include 5 league championships, a CIF-SS Championship, and two CIF State Championships in 2011 and 2020 (the first two in school history).
Fabian Amezaga has been a part of the Santa Monica Surf family since 2012, with nearly 20 years of experience coaching Youth Soccer. In his time with Santa Monica United, he has served as a coach for both Boys and Girls at the middle and high school level, celebrating numerous Championships and Promotions over the years. His accomplishments include 2nd Place in California Regional League, qualifying for USYS National League for the 2019-2020 season and qualifying for 2019 Far West Regional’s with the G’01. He has won State and a National Cup Championships along the way and has won 3 Coast Soccer League Premier Division Championships. He continues to take pride in help placing players in the Santa Monica Surf program into college without the ECNL or DA platform.
Fab was the recipient of the CalSouth Nike Excellence in Coaching Award in 2016 and is current holder of a USSF “B”License which he obtained in 2018.
In his practices, Fab focuses on player’s personal growth and team play. He is a strong believer that no one player is bigger than the team. Fab believes that soccer is truly a team sport and that a team does not depend on individual star players, but rather the cohesiveness of the entire roster working towards one main goal and objective. “Soccer is about making sure we do the simple things really well. In training’s I push the players to problem solve and find solutions that they will encounter on match days.”
Fab lives in Santa Monica and when he is not on the soccer field, he spends time with his wife, 10 year old daughter and 7 year old son. Fab is looking forward to collaborating with his fellow Santa Monica Surf Coaches to develop your daughters and take them to the next level.
At Santa Monica Surf, we embrace the fact that we live in a city that is culturally and racially diverse and we want our club to reflect this diversity. We expect our club to be made up of young athletes from all socioeconomic sectors of our society. Our reach extends from Santa Monica to other areas of the city of Los Angeles where we work with various youth organizations to find young boys and girls who embrace the game of soccer who do not have the means to participate in a professionally run soccer club without some assistance.
Our club uses its non-profit tax-exempt status to raise funds to enable participation across all levels of our society and to provide an environment of soccer excellence to all of our members. We hope you will consider donating to our scholarship program. To donate directly to the club via check, please contact Club Treasurer, Donata Takahashi at: donata.takahashi@yahoo.com
