THE FRONT ROW WITH BRUCE BOURQUIN: Friday, March 18, 2016

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, and raised in Northampton, England, Patrick Muhlberger has some ambitious goals as the new director of coaching of the newly-formed North Idaho Inferno FC club soccer program, based out of Post Falls.

The teams combined the Post Falls clubs of The Academy Idaho, which has been around since 2013, and Post Falls Thunder, which started in 2007.

North Idaho Inferno will have more than 250 boys and girls players on its rosters, ages 7 to 18.

“It made sense to unite the two teams,” Muhlberger said. “It makes us more competitive; it seemed like a good thing for the area.”

The new club, which is working on coming up with its registration fees in the near future, will look to have 16 to 20 teams combined among all the age groups. They will primarily come from places like Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Rathdrum, Athol and Sandpoint, and Muhlberger said the club could eventually try to draw players from the Spokane area.

“Some of our better players go to the Spokane area,” Muhlberger said. “We want to keep them in North Idaho.”

MUHLBERGER, 33, has seven years of youth club coaching experience in Utah and another three years in England. He was born 130 miles west of Nuremberg. After he played for a professional youth academy as a 16-year-old, then he played for semiprofessional teams until 2006. He moved to Post Falls in 2007 after eight years as a personal trainer in England and has family in the area. He has been the director of coaching at The Academy Idaho since June.

“My mom from Germany, Ute, stepfather Will Hathaway, and sister Jamie, all live in Post Falls,” Muhlberger said. “My wife Jaime and I and my 11 month-year-old boy, Makai, live here. We used to travel up here in the summer and loved it.”

One of the primary goals is to increase the number of players and teams, of course.

“Ideally, we’d love to be able to have two teams in each age group on a highly competitive field,” Muhlberger said. “We will compete against clubs from Sandpoint, Moscow, Spokane and Wenatchee and Moses Lake. We’d like to compete in tournaments against Seattle and Portland and start winning them. I think we’re on track to do that. I coached a U13 girls team that made it to the quarterfinals in Redmond, Wash.

Muhlberger took a somewhat unconventional way to get into club coaching.

“I was a personal trainer in England,” Muhlberger said. “As enjoyable it was helping people lose weight and meet their fitness goals, my passion was always soccer. In the UK (United Kingdom) it was hard, but I took off going to the states and coaching club soccer in Salt Lake City. A friend of mine was a doctor in Salt Lake and said they needed coaches. In 2007 I was a full-time coach, since then I was getting players to develop to get D-I scholarships. There are two high school juniors who verbally committed to Utah State University in Logan. They were all dedicated and I’d anticipate more going to play in colleges.”

In Post Falls, Muhlberger sees a lot of promise in the current crop of Post Falls players. In recent years, Oregon State sophomore forward Timmy Mueller and University of Washington freshman midfielder Kelcie Hedge have come out of the Post Falls soccer programs, as well as quite a few players who have played at places like North Idaho College and other four-year schools. Last season, Muhlberger served as the assistant varsity boys soccer coach for head coach Gabe Lawson’s squad.

“We’re developing players constantly,” Muhlberger said. “It’s an up-and-coming team. We are trying to empower players to make choices and get them to make their own choices. I like playing an attacking style of soccer, where they have freedom to be creative and solve problems on their own.”

For now, the new director is full-time and he wants to have two part-time coaches to join the club, along with all the other coaches. Their home games will be at The Dome in Hayden for younger players and Post Falls High for the older players.

He said the club was operating on word of mouth among its players in the schools across parts of North Idaho. Consider the word spread.

For more information, call Muhlberger at (208) 457-2442 or email the club at infernoidhofc@gmail.com

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013, via email at bbourquin@cdapress.com or via Twitter @bourq25