Fall 2011 Program
Who: All boys & girls players ages 6 thru 10
When: Sundays 9:00am-10:30am September 11, 18, 25, October 2, 9, 16
Where: Graham Park
Directed by Mark Perry
Fees: $65 SVSA players, $75 for other associations. Free to current Stars United players 8, 9, 10 years old.
The Future Stars Developmental Training Program is a new initiative committed to prepare players for competition. The game shows the tactical, technical, physical and psychosocial development of the player. There will be no tryouts for this program. Future Stars training sessions will be offered to any boy or girl from ages 6 through 10. If you would like your child to receive enhanced soccer training and to be involved in an educational experience that inspires young players to be creative, perform with confidence, and to have fun, while improving their overall soccer skills, then join the Future Stars Training Program.
The program will be offered to all young players who are enthusiastic about soccer and have an interest in representing future Stars United Teams. The Future Stars program is a great way for young players to learn all the fundamental technical skills needed to play competitive soccer. The primary goal of the program is to prepare young players with fundamental skills training to ensure a successful transition through levels of competitive soccer. The program will also offer an introduction to the training methods employed by the Coaching Staff for players interested in progressing through the Stars United club.
The program and will consist of age specific technical training and small sided scrimmages. Coaches from within Stars United Staff will conduct all sessions and monitor the progress of each player.
Future Stars Training Program - Curriculum
The Program is an 6-week program that is age-appropriate and builds skills through a progression. Players will train for 1.5 hours with Stars United Staff Coaches. Staff will monitor individual progress and modify each player’s training as appropriate. The Coaching Staff will focus on teaching fundamentals and improving each player’s technique in the following areas:
- Ball Control
- Stops and Starts
- Turns
- Attacking Moves
- Passing/Receiving
- Shooting
- Finishing
- 1v1’s/2v2’s/3v3’s/4v4’s
- Match-Related Games
Stars United implements the U.S. Soccer Coaching Curriculum
Children do not learn in the same way as adults, especially when the learning process involves both intellectual and physical activity.
Age conditions the way a person perceives and interacts with the world and with others. In any learning process, age is the key component in selecting appropriate content and methodology. Soccer is no different. For this reason we must not train 6 year old players the same way as 13 years old players. Training sessions must be adapted to the age of the players. Taking into consideration the characteristics of human and player development, we have structured the curriculum into four age groups.
1. Initial stage – 5 to 8 years old
At this age children do not have the same capacity as adults to analyze the environment. They explore and have an egocentric conception of the world. Children are still gathering the experience necessary to interact with their surroundings and with others. Also, empathy and the capacity to consider the thoughts and feelings of others is very low. In order to help children build their own experience, many exercises will be individual (e.g. each player will have a ball). The tactical component of the game will be reduced to small-sided games with basic explanations about space distribution. Training sessions will be treated more as physical education than specifically as soccer training.
2. Basic stage – 9 to 12 years old
At this stage, the structure (but not the content) of the training sessions will be similar to that of older players. The main component of the training session will be technical. It is sensible at this age to develop technique and basic tactical understanding. Children’s capacity to solve problems increases significantly. Therefore players will begin working on basic and dynamic tactical scenarios. At this stage, players are pre-pubescent and have important physical limitations in terms of strength and endurance.
3. Intermediate stage – 13 and 14 years old
Players at this age develop a good understanding of the game. However, these players are limited by their physical size and the significant changes, which arise with puberty. Safety should be the number one priority for the coach. The coach must be cautious to avoid overtraining should focus more on tactical and technical elements of the game and less on the physical aspects. Tactical
training plays an important role at this age.
4. Advanced stage – 15 to 18 years old
Players at this age have completed most of their physical and mental development. All components of training can be combined and organized with the purpose of developing the highest potential of the player. The strength of the muscles helps to develop technique at high speed and this speed helps the player to react faster to tactical situations. This stage is crucial for combining all the components of soccer in order to increase the players’ soccer knowledge. These are some of the facts in terms of human development adapted to soccer. In this document these facts are used to develop the most appropriate training methodology for each age group.
