As everyone starts to get ready for the Fall soccer season, I was wondering if any of you had feedback or ideas for the Youth Soccer Guide. The idea was to collect many of the more instructional/informative posts I’ve written through the years in one place for soccer parents, coaches, and league administrators to reference. Then add resources from other parts of the web to slowly build a comprehensive ‘Youth Soccer Guide’. Obviously it has been a slow process, not helped by my hiatus. But it’s still got a lot of info, even if it jumps around a bit topic wise.
What else would you like to see added? Existing posts or ones you’d like to see covered? What other solid resources exist online that you think would benefit from greater exposure? Use the comments to share.
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August 6th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Hi, not had much chance to go through your old posts but something i find that is often overlooked is the physiological aspect and how soccer training, particularly for younger players should take in account their age.
E.g differences between girls and boys, what age they have growth spurts – impact on muscle and bone development and how much exercise is too much.
More of this info would be good!
August 6th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Mike one thing I would like help with is how to manage the interaction between my better players and my lesser ones. Sometimes my stars, boys and girls alike, visibly express their disappointment when one of my lesser lights blows a perfect pass or lets in an easy goal. I really feel for the child in those instances and know that saying “everyone makes mistakes” doesn’t calm hurt feelings. I also think that such experiences inevitably delay development of these players. A topic on this would be great. Thanks, Tim
August 6th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Alan – Very good suggestion. This is what the USSF National Youth License covers and there is a LOT to that. I think I wrote a couple posts about it a year ago, but not in depth. Will definitely try to put some together.
Tim – Also a great suggestion and not an easy one. Will see what I can do!
August 12th, 2010 at 1:04 am
One trend that I’ve seen the past 5 years is how the club teams keep raiding the best players (and many coaching parents) from the rec league to play in club academies. The clubs use the rec program for evaluating and recruiting talent, but they don’t give anything back in terms of coaching or coach training. The result is that the rec program is seeing declining participation and quality. If the rec programs keep declining, soccer will eventually become a “pay to play” sport that poorer families will find unaffordable. This does not bode well for our national teams. Is there anyone else seeing this trend in other parts of the country?
August 13th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Joel – have a couple of thoughts when I have more time.
Soccer Dad – I read on Sam Snow’s blog that a youth development model is forthcoming — perhaps you should wait until that comes out and use that to update your coaching portion, etc.
I would also welcome more thoughts on administration — how to hold effective tryouts, evaluations (we are trying Zoom reports), team formations (keep together or reconstruct every year), etc. Most rec/club teams run on volunteers with room for only limited paid staff (we only pay a technical director) so suggestions on how to run an effective organization when volunteers can mean cliques or politics come into play would be welcomed.