The mission of the Stars United Academy is to provide the best age-appropriate instruction for its players so that they are prepared for future success at the “classic” competition level. The Academy’s primary goal is ensuring proper training; the Club is less concerned with winning matches at these ages than with ensuring proper skill development for future success. The Academy’s experienced coaching staff emphasizes technical, tactical and physical development while encouraging individual creativity and expression. The vision of this program is to not only prepare our young players how to play soccer technically, but do so in a fun, constructive environment. Our experienced coaching staff is dedicated to ensuring that Academy players develop individual skills and an understanding of the team game, in an enjoyable format. Stars United Academy U9 & U10 teams participate in local friendlies with other clubs and attend local tournaments for additional competition.
Tryouts for the Academy teams are typically held in May or June for the season that follows. The Academy provides players with year-round training opportunities and matches, including: outdoor training twice per week, weekend league games, tournaments, winter training and winter indoor matches. Winter training is held at RMU Island Sports Center and Tri-County Indoor Soccer Arena. Winter indoor league matches are also included in our fee structure, unlike a lot of clubs in the area.
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. The first two age groups are:
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.
Interested players should contact the Director of Coaching & Player Development, Mark Perry at director@starsunited.org or the respective team coach for information.
