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United States Soccer Federation

Author of Soccer for Dummies

12 Works 73 Members 2 Reviews

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Works by United States Soccer Federation

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Common Knowledge

Canonical name
United States Soccer Federation
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Nationality
USA

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Reviews

If you don't much about Soccer, this is a good place to start. I knew very little, and it has helped me quite a bit.
 
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MickeyMole | Oct 2, 2023 |
Our recreational soccer league has been around for almost ten years now. We've gotten through those turbulent first few years, and now we're looking to provide more continuity for those kids who progress through our haphazard coaching. We had just started the process of creating a year-by-year outline of what the kids should be learning. But then the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) announced their idea of a proper foundation. While I'm generally impressed by the document, I'm not sure that it will work for us.

The U.S. Soccer Curriculum provides a good chapter on coaching guidelines. In just a few pages, it outlines many of the standard concepts like width and transition play. The diagrams aren't particularly helpful in explaining the ideas to a novice (the pictures for "zonal defending" and "compactness" are essentially the same), but the brief summaries are a good reminder to an intermediate or advanced coach. The "Coaching Content Summary" on page 33 is a great menu for selecting ideas for practices.

It's the last two chapters that cause me such exasperation. There are really good tips hidden within, but there are other parts that leave me scratching my head. The USSF recommends U6 teams -- five-year-olds -- practice for 60 minutes twice a week, plus a game. Not many other soccer leagues agree with this (AYSO generally encourages a single one-hour "practice" that has a 30-minute game at the end). The time commitments only increase as the kids get older; high school children should practice four times a week for about two hours each night. This is almost impossible in a smaller community where the same kids play football, basketball, and baseball at the same time they play soccer. (Granted, a "great" soccer player should be concentrating on soccer pretty much completely, but Joe Montana and John Elway both played Little League baseball during their early years, and they became hall of fame football players.)

Then there's the inclusion of sample lesson plans. Any good all-in-one coaching manual must include ideas for practices ... and this one does, to a point. It takes quite a bit of deciphering to figure out how these practice plans are arranged (some have seemingly random numbering, like "Practice 7" following "Practice 1"). They're provided to show a template, not necessarily to provide a coach with a "perfect" print-and-go lesson plan. I think it would be a challenge to give a parent-turned-brand-new-coach the document and expect them to pull anything meaningful out of those sample practices.

So the U.S. Soccer Curriculum has some fundamental flaws for anyone coaching in a recreational league, especially newer coaches. (There are certainly other questionable concepts, like promoting the "1, 2, or 3 touch maximum" playing style -- which is something that Barcelona, currently one of the top teams in the world, steadfastly rejects.) But this publication is a first step in creating a broad training structure for soccer coaches in the U.S.. It will be interesting to see how each state implements these guidelines into their own training programs (some of which they are already doing, like increasing the opposition during training from none to weak to full). It won't be long before a number of organizations break down this "big picture" document, and produce something that would be immediately useful to any new (or even long-term) coach.
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legallypuzzled | Sep 5, 2011 |

Statistics

Works
12
Members
73
Popularity
#240,526
Rating
½ 3.4
Reviews
2
ISBNs
6

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