CASA GRANDE, Ariz. – The Grande Sports Academy is pleased to announce that Real Salt Lake has signed defender Justen Glad to a Homegrown Player contract. Glad, 17, is now the tenth player to turn pro and the sixth player to join Real Salt Lake since the inception of the Grande Sports Academy in 2010.
Glad hails from Tucson, Arizona, and joined the Grande Sports Academy at the beginning of the 2012-13 season. Glad helped the RSL-AZ U-16 team win the 2013 U.S. Soccer Development Academy National Championship, where he scored the match-winning goal in RSL-AZ’s 4-2 win over Solar Chelsea. For his efforts, Glad was named to the USSDA Western Conference Starting XI and was recently named by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America as an All-American in 2013.
Glad emerged as one of the most promising prospects in the Real Salt Lake – Arizona academy system when he was offered a spot in the Under-17 Residency Program in Bradenton, Florida, after he impressed in a lone showcase match at the 2012 U.S. Soccer Winter Showcase in Florida.
Glad participated in the 2013 U-17 CONCACAF Championship, which determined the 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup participants from CONCACAF. After the U-17 Men’s National Team were eliminated from the FIFA U-17 World Cup, he continued to receive call ups to the U-17 Men’s National Team and saw action in the Caspian Cup in Azerbaijan and an international tournament in Niigata, Japan. More recently, he was included in U.S. Soccer’s U-18 Men’s National Team camp in early January, and participated in another U-18 Men’s National Team camp in Carson, California, in April.
Glad saw extended playing time with the Real Salt Lake Reserve League squad in 2013. In just his second call up, Glad became the first active academy player to be named to the starting XI. Glad was originally verbally committed to Stanford University.