About us
Who are we?
Excel is a sports brand located in Maine created by the former professional and college soccer player Yuri Nascimento. Excel’s mission is to support athletes, soccer players & goalkeepers to achieve excellence in their performance.
Coach Yuri (EXCEL’s founder) has been coaching for almost 14 years. He’s the goalkeeper director at the Pitch in Warren, Maine where he mentors all the DSA United goalkeepers. He started EXCEL with the goal of developing the best goalkeeper gloves possible in the market and to offer the mentorship athletes and goalkeepers that face many of the hardships that the lack of coaches who care about their players can bring. Our goalkeeper gloves are made from goalkeepers for goalkeepers. The mentorship we offer to our athletes comes from the playing and coaching experience that’s based on Yuri’s passion for coaching, psychology and many of the amazing mentors he’s had in his playing and coaching career.
The 3 pillars that EXCEL offers to help our athletes are:
⁃ Professional level goalkeeper gloves and sports gear
⁃ Mentorship and performance support through our online platforms and YourTube channel
⁃ Goalkeeper Academy, private training, and small group training at the Pitch.
We work with goalkeepers & players at all levels – youth, high school, college, and professional – no matter the player’s skill level we are always willing to develop personalized training sessions to help them achieve their goals.
Coach Yuri Playing Experience
Coach Yuri comes from a humble background. He was born in São Paulo, Brazil where he was raised by his mom. He has played soccer since he was 3 years old. In his playing experience (between his youth development and professional career in Brazil) he’s played for well known teams like São Bernardo, São Caetano, Cruzeiro, Gremio, and S.C. Juiz de Fora. Growing up he played a lot of futsal and learned a lot of things that he transferred to soccer on the big field.
After moving to the United States, Coach Yuri experienced playing at the collegiate level (NAIA & NCAA) while he was working on his Psychology degree. Yuri came to the United States not knowing any English. He learned English & Spanish as the years went by while he was playing and going to school. He was also part of the first team in the Brazilian national team of indoor soccer in 2018/2019. Between soccer in Brazil and in the US, youth, college, and professional, he believes that his hard work and discipline on and off the field really helped him to achieve many things such as playing professionally, playing for 2 national championships, all conference and region awards, being called up for the Brazilian National team, etc.
He started coaching youth when he was 16. He’s been coaching now for almost 14 years.
Coach Yuri Nascimento has a background where he has been mentored and coached by high level coaches from Brazil, Italy, USA, England, Netherlands, and Jamaica. He believes in bringing the best of all these different schools to his athletes.
The Excel’s Project
Our Why
Yuri’s background was the main reason that inspired him to create Excel. He grew up watching a lot of kids (including himself) that struggled to have access to life basics such as food. Never mind top quality gear because of how expensive they were. Working since he was 12 to buy his own gloves he also grew up watching many athletes suffering with coaches that only cared about their own results and not about the players’ development. He watched many coaches that would only show they “cared” for the athletes that were already ahead on their development and could bring some kind of immediate results for the coach. Yuri had a few coaches that were pivotal in his career that besides being amazing coaches, they really showed him they cared. These coaches ironically were the ones that helped him the most to get to the professional world. They helped him to stick with the game and he believes that because of coaches like those, lives can be changed.
Excel was an idea to advocate for inclusion and to support the understanding that athletes can achieve excellence and still have fun. Athletes can develop to be their best version by working hard and still find joy in the game preserving their mental health. We believe that all athletes should have access to quality goalkeeper gloves and gear for an affordable price. In addition to that, we also believe that all athletes should develop to be their best with coaches that genuinely care about them and want what is best for them. Those are the main things that we strive to offer within our services.
Our Methodology
We believe in meeting the players where they are and building their skill level up with a holistic approach. We support their development towards excellence keeping the goalkeeper academy & training sessions always with the focus on what the player needs.
We believe in developing not just technical players, but great decision makers. Our sessions are designed to stimulate their technique, decision making, cognitive & soccer skills, and reaction.
We believe in always discussing with the athlete why they are doing the exercises they are doing. We believe in asking them guided questions during the sessions in order to develop their soccer IQ and game understanding. By doing that we assure that besides developing their technique, they will be able to apply them with the right decision based on what is happening in the game.
Coach Yuri Coaching Experience
Coaching Resume
Coaching History & Mentorship
Yuri started coaching youth when he was 16. He’s been coaching now for almost 14 years. He started coaching for the Sao Caetano youth academies (a 2nd division professional club in Sao Paulo, Brazil) when he was still playing professionally for the club. He was mentored by Adriano Henrique Goncalves who at the time was the goalkeeper coach of Sao Caetano first team and was the goalkeeper coach of goalkeepers that were playing in the Olympics representing Brazil. He believes that the 6 years being coached and mentored by Adriano were key to his development as a goalkeeper and as a goalkeeper coach.
Yuri was also coached and mentored by Luiz Claudio Laudioza (Cruzeiro’ Goalkeeper Coach) while playing for SCJF. After moving to the United States, Yuri had the experience to be the goalkeeper coach of FNU in Miami, FL under Joao Guilherme Garcia while he was learning English in order to become eligible to play college soccer. Yuri believes that Joao was one of his main mentors in order to learn how to coach. He played for him and coached under him for enough time to learn many things that he takes with him to this day. Joao Guilherme was the Head Coach of Atletico Atlanta in their undefeated National Championship Title in the UPSL of 2020. Yuri has coached for DSA United at the PITCH since 2016 when he had his first summer in Maine. During that period he would coach in Maine during the summers and go back to school to finish his playing career in college while getting his Psychology degree. During that process he also became the club goalkeeper director and started the PITCH goalkeeper academy. In 2019 he graduated and was hired to work full time at the Pitch after moving to Maine permanently.
He was mentored during this entire process by Robbie Krul, Tammy Krul, and Daniel Williams. Robbie Krul is a former professional and college soccer player from Holland who owns the PITCH with Tammy Krul. Tammy is a NCAA National Champion. Yuri believes that their mentorship was extremely important for his development as a coach on and off the field. He likes to say that he still coaches players, but Robbie and Tammy are at the level that they should not just be coaching players, but they should also be coaching coaches. He was also mentored by Daniel Williams who is a former professional soccer player that had a career playing for Brighton in England. Yuri has shared the field with Daniel for many years in the many PITCH and DSA programs. Dan has mentored him and taught him a lot. Coaching for DSA United Yuri has won the Maine State Championships of 2017(u16 girls), 2019 (u13 boys), 2021(u16 girls), and 2022 (u17 boys & u17 girls).
Since coaching the goalkeepers of DSA United, his goalkeepers have had over 250 clean sheet games. Last but not least, Yuri has been the Goalkeeper Coach of the Women’s and Men’s Colby soccer teams since the beginning of the season of 2022. At Colby he has been coaching alongside with Tracey Leone and Ewan Seabrook. Ewan is a former D1 player native from England who has a vast experience in the NCAA world. Tracey is a World Cup champion for the US Women’s National Team and also very experienced in the NCAA field. Yuri believes that anything he accomplishes in life has been through hard work and learning from special people. Learning how to coach and teach excellence only comes when we learn from those who care about things beyond their own personal records. He feels extremely grateful and blessed to have been able to share the field with all these people mentioned above. People who are not only winners, but win with the right principles and with the emphasis of caring about the players more than themselves.
Our Team
Yuri Nascimento
Founder & Coach
GK Director, Former Professional & College GK
Adie Hughes
Assistant Coach / Media Director
College Goalkeeper & Former DSAU Goalkeeper
Paul Anderson
IT Director
Web developer, UX/UI & Digital Marketing