Company Profile

Footskills, Inc. was established in 1997 to help cater to Minnesota's rapidly increasing demand for qualified youth soccer instruction. At that time, company founder and President Mark Abboud was a professional player with the Minnesota Thunder. He had begun working in earnest with local competitive teams and clubs in 1995, and by 1996 he had more on his plate than he could handle alone.  He began farming out the coaching work to fellow Thunder players, and Footskills was born.

Since it's inception, the Footskills has been one of the leaders in youth soccer development in the state.  From indoor leagues to private training, from summer soccer camps to winter clinics, the Footskills name is synonymous with excellence.  With the ultimate goal of providing positive soccer experiences to young players in each and every one of our programs, Footskills has helped thousands of local athletes build a love for the beautiful game of soccer.

In 2005, the Minnesota Thunder acquired the Footskills Summer Soccer Camp Program, and the combination of the two leading players in the summer youth soccer camp market saw the Thunder program participation top the 3,000 mark in 2006.

Today, along with the continued affiliation with the MN Thunder Youth Development system, Footskills is still active as a separate entity in the Minnesota soccer scene with the progressive winter indoor league, the Footskills Developmental League (D-League).  The company is also venturing into uncharted territory as they look to bring to market a number of soccer training ideas and devices.

Meet the President

All the Footskills training programs are run under the direction of our company President, Mark Abboud.

Mark, a Minnesota native (Rochester, MN), starting playing soccer at six year of age.  After a standout high school career at Rochester Mayo, he spent four years playing under John Leaney at Macalester College (St Paul, MN) where up until 2002 he was the school's all-time leading goal scorer.

After graduating from Macalester in 1992 with a dual degree in Mathematics and Music, Mark realized his lifelong dream of playing professional soccer when he was drafted by the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the American Professional Soccer League (APSL).  Fueled by a successful rookie campaign in Florida, Mark chose to continue his pursuit of soccer abroad and signed an eight-month contract with French Third Division club FC Grenoble (Grenoble, France).

The following summer (1993), Mark returned to Florida for his second season with the Rowdies.  That winter saw Mark set off abroad again, this time training with FC Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and Belgian First Division reserves Lommel (Lommel, Belgium).

In 1994, Mark decided to return to Minnesota to rejoin the MN Thunder where he played until retiring after the 2000 season.  While playing with the Thunder, Mark also served as the team's Director of Player Development from 1996 to 1999, where his passion for working with young players helped spearhead Thunder camp enrollment numbers past the 2,000 player mark.

After retiring from the professional scene in 2000, Mark was hired by the Woodbury Soccer Club as their Director of Coaching.  He spent 4 years with the club before moving to Bangu Tsunami FC to pursue his new Academy vision. 

Currently, Mark is the Director of Player Development with Bangu Tsunami FC.  He is now focused on developing interested and talented young athletes (9 to 12 years of age) through structured, professional-level, year-round training programs.  Mark is also still active in the camp and clinic arena through the MN Thunder and the Bangu Tsunami training programs.  You can gain more insight to his work through his website, www.roadtoregionals.com.