Parents:

The USA club’s philosophy is to develop young soccer players to enable them to play the game at the “next level”. The Next level could be a high school team, State Olympic Development team, Region IV team, college team, professional team…. In order to help them reach the next level, young players need to have good basic technical abilities. The first principal of soccer development is that players should master the basic techniques before they can learn the tactical side of the game.

The main objective of the USA club’s Soccer Academy is to promote and emphasize the technical abilities of young soccer players; at this age mainly dribbling skills. Why dribbling skills? First of all, the best players in the world are exceptional dribblers. Dribbling is the foundation and preparation for all the other fundamental skills of soccer, such as controlling, passing and shooting.  It takes years to become a comfortable and confident dribbler. Players have to learn to combine body control, agility, coordination and balance with the mechanics of dribbling and the sooner they start the better. Young players at this age do not get discouraged easily if they do not succeed. If we wait for the players to mature before we emphasize dribbling, many of them lose their confidence and simply kick the ball away.

What is the difference between the USA Academy and County/Recreational programs? The County/Recreational program usually involves volunteers with limited or no playing or coaching experience.

County/Recreational coaches usually do not have any licenses or specialized training. Training sessions are often aimless without specific learning objectives. There is no systematic progress based on a yearly plan that states objectives that players need to achieve and where players need to be in terms of abilities after one year of practice.

Academy players will have training twice a week.  You will also have the opportunity to play scrimmages, friendly games or small-sided games set up with other teams/clubs for added experience.  Some benefits of using small sided games include: More player participation, more touches of the ball, more passes attempted, more 1v1s attempted, more goals scored, more goalkeeper participation and different games mean different problems to solve and skills to use.

Benefits of the USA Academy Program:

• Improves the skills and enjoyment of the players, regardless of ability level.
• Trainings  are run by highly qualified club coaching staff
• Quality preparation of players and teams for state x-league and competition.
• Implementation of 3v3 and 4v4 games. These types of games, because of the small numbers, allow players countless repetitions of skills learned in the practice session.
• Opportunity to participate in friendly games against other academy programs from around the valley.
• Opportunity to participate in local tournaments and play against other academy teams.

Skill priorities:

• Dribble out of trouble.
• Soft first touch on the ball.
• No kicking allowed except when finishing on the goal.