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Coaching Education Opportunities

Do you currently coach a house or travel team?  Do you assist with a house or travel team?  Would you like to be a coach in the future?

Please think about attending a one-day coaching course on

Thursday, January 12th from 630-930 pm at the Village Glen. 

This Youth Module will give you the foundation and philosophy of US Youth Soccer and help prepare you to coach.  This is a great first step for U8-U12 coaches or for those parents who may want to coach their child moving up to U8 next year.  To register, go to www.nyswysa.org under the coach section.  ASA reimburses coaches for the cost when you complete the course. 

Space is limited.

(All parents who assist a travel coach must attend either this course or the E license course being held on January 20-22.  All travel team head coaches must attend the E license if they have not in the past)

Dynamic Warmup
Excelsior Sports Training
Soccer Specific Dynamic Warmup presented by
Excelsior Sports Training and Amherst Soccer
for all Amherst Travel Soccer teams
 
 Ron Brissette from Excelsior Sports Training
 
 

 

United States Youth Soccer (US Youth Soccer)

U.S. Soccer Federation unveils new coaching curriculum for coaches of players ages 5-12
April 20, 2011

From Soccer America

 The U.S. Soccer Federation has unveiled its new coaching curriculum for coaches of players ages 5-12. Youth Technical DirectorClaudio Reyna presented the "age-appropriate roadmap" to player development on Wednesday to youth soccer coaches and directors at the Nike International Headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. The curriculum is available for download on ussocccer.com at http://www.ussoccer.com/Coaches/Coaching-Education/Zone-1.aspx

Reyna, who captained the USA at two World Cups, said four key points of the curriculum are:

1. Development over winning.

"Our players are naturally competitive," Reyna said. "We don’t need to ramp that up anymore. The whistle blows, our kids want to win. That’s one of our strengths and we’re proud of it. But if we’re manipulating and thinking winning-over-development, we’re making a huge mistake. We’re short-cutting the development of players. ...

"Our aim is to produce skillful, creative, confident players."

Reyna, who made several references to Barcelona’s famed youth program, quoted star playmaker Xavi: "Some youth academies worry about winning. We worry about education."

2. Quality Training.

"Make every session a quality session, come prepared, don’t waste time," Reyna said. "Keep players focused and active. … If you have 12 one-hour sessions in a month, and you waste 10 minutes each session, you can waste two sessions in a month."

3. Age appropriate.

"Providing players with too much too soon leads to confusion and hurts development," he said. "We don’t need coaches teaching 8-year-olds zonal defending or an offside trap, just like we don’t teach a second-grader calculus. Kids learn rapidly, but at different stages in their lives."

4. Have fun and inspire your players. 

"If we make it fun, we’re going to inspire them. Soccer is a great, fun game," said Reyna. "Let’s make sure we create an environment so that our players want to come back to our training sessions and be part of the fun."


(FURTHER READING: Members of the U.S. Soccer technical staff -- Dave Chesler, Tony Lepore, Jill Ellis and April Heinrichs -- discuss the curriculum HERE.)

 

"Assistant Coach"
Some links and documents to help with coaching
Ball Handling and Footwork progression
 
Passing / Communication / First Touch / Combination / Off the Ball Movement
 
Small sided games allow for more ’touches’ per player
 
Dribbling / Ball Control
 

 

SHOULD A 7-YEAR OLD PLAY ON A 10-YEAR OLD TEAM?
by Maureen Dracup, ODP and NY State West coach

     If a child is the best reader in the class, moving him out of the classroom and into the grade above is not typically considered. We might provide a more challenging book or focus on reading comprehension. So he can read, but does he remember and understand what he’s reading like the kids in the grade above can? We might even create a separate reading group to give him some opportunities to challenge his reading. But parents and educators recognize that there is much more needed to ensure proper development than being a good reader to justify moving up a grade in school.


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