With Labor Day now behind us we look forward to the rhythm of the Fall season. While I enjoy coaching the older players, the fall season is the best time of the year for a full-time coach charged with player development. The fall brings fewer distractions, a longer season, better weather (except daylight issues), and a much better training:games ratio.
U.S. Soccer Staff Coach Roberto Lopez has already visited twice and is set for a third in October when we host the USSF "C" License re-test. His first visit on August 25 was aimed at evaluating our academy training program and providing feedback to our players and staff. It was invaluable! On his return yesterday, he was able to work with our top training pool and then review the changes we made to improve the product. Just getting another set of respected eyes to provide feedback to me and our staff is huge, but when you consider it comes from a full-time U.S. Soccer Staff Coach, who worked with the U-14 BNT and will be in Florida later this month to work with the U-17 BNT we couldn't be luckier.
Beginning this fall we have implimented true academy training with 2 program enhancements - the Tuesday Academy Night and Open Training.
Tuesday Academy Night
We bring in invited U-10's and all the U-11 through U-14 players and coaches for a 2-hour session. Players are put in training pools that change every two weeks based on several criteria. We have players training up/down age groups and later in the season will look at adding positional play (U-13 & U-14 primarily) to the criteria. The academy training is based on developing the individual player. We use the other 2-3 days of training to develop the player within a team concept.
(Note: I made a comment in an earlier blog that I believe high school freshmen shouldn't play Varsity soccer and that has some how been spun to say I don't believe in kids playing up when in fact the opposite is true. A 14 or 15 year old boy playing and more importantly socializing with 17 and 18 year men is a far different argument than a kid playing up a year or even two.)
Open Training
When I first arrived at OE I told the parents that our training sessions, except the Development Academy, are open to all players provided both coaches are notified. I re-iterated that policy this season and we are seeing many more players take advantage of it. Personally, I'd like to train 4 days/week, but the reality is a majority of families have lives outside of soccer that would make it improbable. With the rule of 10,000 (it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something) in mind we don't want to hold the those kids who want the additional training back. We now have a couple dozen players who have trained or regularly train an additional day with another team. An additional 90-minute session each week over the course of a 12-week season is an additional 18 hours of training.
