Category: Youth Soccer Insider

Proper player development leads to good match performance, which often leads to wins. But there are shortcuts to winning, particularly with players younger than high-school age. Just get the biggest, fastest kids around — then outrun and outmuscle the opposition.

Wilbur Avataria is a good soccer player. He’s been in touch with a dozen or so college coaches, visited a handful of those schools, and scored a stunning goal at Dallas Cup. Recruiting is moving along pretty well for him. But there’s one glaring exception: he has no idea how serious any of these coaches are about having him on their teams.

It was 35 years ago when Manfred “Manny” Schellscheidt became the first coach granted an “A” license by the U.S. Soccer Federation. He has since coached at every level of the U.S. men’s national team program and is now enjoying his role as technical director of U.S. Soccer’s U-14 boys development program.

Coaches spend an awful lot of time teaching tactics, often telling players, for instance, that they need to stay in their positions. But what’s sometimes lost is the fact that soccer is a free-flowing expression of how you want to see the game unfold.

While coaches do a lot of calling, players don’t have to wait around for the phone to ring. Instead, pick up the phone, shake the nervousness out of your fingers and make the call. But then what?

As a coach it is natural to have your “favorite” players. However, the positive and negative expectations you form about players on your team affects not only your own behavior toward them but also the feelings and performance of those players.

If college recruiting had a motto, it would be this: “What the [insert expletive of choice] am I supposed to be doing?” It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Most players and their parents have never been through the process. Or maybe they bumped and scraped their way through it with an older sibling. The pressure mounts as they realize each player only has one chance to get it right.

In the 1980s, tournaments took on another focus. They became the main revenue stream for many clubs. Proceeds helped to build facilities, greased the wheels of local governments and business to support soccer by their financial impact on a community. The profits made even helped to create jobs within the clubs for administrators and coaches. Certainly many positive types of fallout from tournaments have aided in the growth of soccer in our nation.

It’s one of the most common screams heard on the youth soccer fields of America: “Pass it! Pass it! Pass it!” Unfortunately, parents and coaches often aim their shouts at young players who are at a stage of their development when they should be encouraged to dribble.

Clearly, coaching your son or daughter isn’t easy. If you are able to find an appropriate balance between encouragement and pressure, however, it can be a wonderfully rewarding experience.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing youth soccer coaches is getting their players to play ball on their own.

For sure, the first step is making practices so much fun that players fall in love with the sport. But children today have such a vast variety of pastime options that even those who are passionate about their soccer may need prodding to get the soccer ball out.

A player can always improve his fitness by working out hard. He can comprehend certain tactics by studying the game. But how far he goes will be determined mainly by how well he has mastered ball skills. Those are acquired by playing, day after day, year after year.

By Eric Steege Youth soccer players who invest countless hours to improve conditioning and technical skills and sacrifice their spring break and summer vacations for the soccer field expect to play on game day. When hard work fails to be "rewarded" with playing time, an athlete can quickly become frustrated and unmotivated. Unfortunately, many players […]

Feedback from Soccer America readers on “Reviving the Pickup Game,” by Sam Snow, US Youth Soccer’s Director of Coaching Education.

There can be many reasons why so few pickup games happen in youth soccer. They include a sedentary lifestyle, the vacant lot doesn’t exist any longer, even the design of neighborhoods nowadays means there is little or no yard on which to play, parents are reluctant to let their kids play away from home without adult supervision, soccer facilities are closed except for scheduled events, or the kids simply don’t know how to organize a game.

Competitive pressures are encouraging elite clubs to professionalize training at younger and younger ages. But is this development good for youth soccer as a whole, or even the kids on the select team?

The temptation as a parent purchasing cleats for a growing child with a growing foot is to buy cleats that are a bit too large, thinking that your child will “grow into them” and thereby save you some money in not having to buy another pair too soon.

Soccer is constantly immersed in a dynamic of strategic change and physical demand as players become stronger, faster, more agile, and fit at younger ages. Manufacturers of soccer cleats are now required to meet the needs of youth and adolescent players by integrating concepts previously reserved for the elite professional player.

Committing to travel-team soccer can have a profound impact on family life.

“What is the optimal parent-coach relationship?” That’s what Positive Coaching Alliance trainers address during the Double-Goal Coach and Second-Goal Parent workshops we conduct throughout the country. The answer appears in the very names of the workshops.

There is much to do as a high school soccer coach. New uniforms have been ordered and sent to the silk-screener. Balls have been stored in the garage waiting for the night when I will pump up each one. Assistants have been lined up and forms distributed. The fall schedule has been carefully worked out with dates and times. An accident to one of our goals required a piece be sent to a local welder to be repaired.

It is possible to scientifically understand the youth soccer culture, to consider the experience of all constituents, and to take practical and developmentally solid steps to do a better job.