Player Development

Stages of Development for Players

Within Mass Youth Soccer's development and instructional group, we have adopted a new way of thinking about player development. We don't intend to suggest anything radical in terms of substance - -just a new way of thinking about the organization of youth player development. This is based on our conviction that practice activities and objectives and game forms for youth players ought to be age-appropriate.

We hope that this "new? organization will help the coaches of Massachusetts to create a more coherent, accurate system of training for their players. The Mass Youth Soccer coaching staff thinks of youth development in three stages:

Stage One: Ages 5,6,7 and 8.

Stage Two: Ages 9,10,11 and 12.

Stage Three: Ages 13,14,15 and 16.

Of course, every child is different. What is true for one ten-year-old girl may not be true for another, and there is a big difference between six year olds and eight year olds. But in this situation, we are content to speak in generalities. Here are some of our ideas about each stage:

Stage One (5-8)

Stage One is the introductory, exploratory stage for kids. They are meeting the ball and the game and the practice environment, literally " feeling their way " into soccer. The most important considerations for practice and games are freedom to move, positive encouragement, trial and error and fantasy.

Practices should be fun: stimulating, low-key, child-like, dynamic events. The central elements of every practice should be the natural curiosity and eagerness of the child?
And the ball. The emphasis at practice: touching the ball, becoming "friends with the ball?, understanding how it moves and acts.

There should be virtually no talk about tactics and no fitness work. No laps, or running without a ball, or calisthenics, etc. There may be goalkeepers, but no goalkeeper training!

Stage Two (9-12)

For Stage Two, the primary emphasis, as always, is on fun dynamic movement. This is the time when technical development ? mastery of the ball and the acquisition of skill ? is vital. Repetition of "soccer movements,? small-sided games, trial and error, and a patient, coherent introduction of basic tactical ideas should form the basis of practices.

Refining skills, absorbing soccer's truths and solving soccer's innumerable little problems are most important now. Still, at this stage, we should not be concerned with strength training and isolated fitness work, nor with elaborate tactical planning.

Towards the end of this stage, 11 ?a-side play comes in, as do heading and goalkeeper
Practice. It's all about repetition and patient advancement as the kids seek to become all-round "ball players.?

Stage Three (13-16)

In Stage Three, technical progress is still most important. But now, increasingly, the players have to learn to apply their skills, under pressure and quickly. Everything is still " with the ball,? but now concentration on the organization of players on the field.

But even now, the critical element is fun, dynamic movements and freedom of expression. The players are investigating all the positions, the different "climates? around the field the endless tactical options of this free-flowing games.