Gianluca Busio might have been ready to leave home at age 14 to pursue a career as a professional soccer player. But his parents weren't prepared to let him go. “I don't know if it was denial as much as just flat-out refusal to even entertain the idea of him going away,” said his mother, Dr. Dionne Sills Busio. “I was very much against it. I thought it was just another childhood fantasy of his.”
 
Gianluca had just returned home to Greensboro and Aycock Middle School after his first training camp with the under-15 U.S. national team.“I thought he was just full of the excitement from being with those kids,” Dionne said. But the dream only grew as Gianluca researched Major League Soccer’s academy system, where young players can train with similarly talented peers or even move up to the full professional squad if they show enough ability and maturity.