MLU is pleased to partner with Mario Vega to run futsal clinics at Lenape High School this winter.
Mario has 20 years of experience as a soccer trainer, coach, and professional and semi-professional soccer player in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Peru. He has trained young people on high school and recreational teams, elite travel clubs, at summer camps, and individually. He has worked with Tab Ramos' New Jersey Soccer Academy, Delran Football Club, Pittsgrove Soccer Club, and Mount Laurel United, as well as many other recreational and traveling soccer teams and was a trainer for the Philadelphia Independence women’s pro team. Currently, he works as a trainer for the Cherry Hill Football Club and Winslow Township Youth Soccer Association.
Mario was born in Valencia, Spain, and brought up in Lima, Peru. His Peruvian father, Mario Vega, Sr., played professional soccer in Spain with Atlético Santander, Sevilla, and Atlético Madrid. Mario Jr. started playing seriously at age 11, when he joined the youth program of a Division I Peruvian team, Atlético Chalaco.
At age 17, he started playing semi-pro with the Washington, D.C., All-Stars in Arlington. (In an exhibition game celebrating his father’s retirement from soccer, he scored on an assist from Perico León, considered one of the best forwards in Peruvian soccer history.) Mario went on to play professionally over 10 years with Brujos de Guayama in Puerto Rico and later Atlético Chalaco in Peru. An injury cut his professional career short and he returned to the U.S., playing with the semi-pro Long Island Rough Riders for a year before embarking on a successful and rewarding coaching career, starting with youth soccer in Virginia at the high school and elite club levels and continuing in New Jersey, where he has been coaching youth since 2001.
He holds a National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) State Diploma, a Peruvian Football Federation’s FIFA-recognized Category B License, and has completed the NSCAA’s Special Topic Course and Goalkeeping Institute Course.
In his free time, Mario watches a lot of soccer and stays healthy by working out, listening to many kinds of music, and dancing salsa.