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Fusion FC Club Philosophy

Fusion FC Club Philosophy

Clarksville Fusion FC strives to provide the optimum environment for player development.  Our professional coaching staff is trained to follow the US Youth Soccer recommendations for age appropriate training for all of our youth players.  Our club is invested in the long term development of our players and we are committed to providing the opportunity for players to progress appropriately so they will meet and exceed the guidelines establshed by US Youth soccer at each age level. 

Our porgram is focussed on the long term development of our players so that we can produce players that will compete at the highest level.   Our program will provide every player with the necessary tools to become a complete, well rounded player.  The key components to a players' development encompass technique, tactics, physcial and mental preparedness.  It is our goal to ensure that every player that enters our program will progess at each age level with an understanding of the game that is expected for their age level while provdiing a postiive, fun and engaging environment that will nurture a life long passion for the game. 

PLAYER STAGES (US YOUTH SOCCER CURRICULUM)

Initial Stage:  Fusion FC Academy Programming (U5-U8 players)

Basic Stage:  U9-U12 Fusion FC Teams)

Intermediate Stage:  (U13-14 Fusion FC Teams)

Advanced Stage:  (U15-U18 Fusion FC Teams)

 

US Soccer Youth Curriculum

US Youth Soccer has developed a Player Development Plan that our club, Fusion FC will follow these guidelines with our programming.  US Youth Soccer's Technical Director , Claudio Reyna, published the following information:

Key Points to the Curriculum ("...excerpt from Claudio Reyna's Technical Report")

1.  DEVELOPMENT over WINNING. 

"Our players are naturally competitive...We don't need to ramp that up anymore. The whistle blows, our kids want to win.  That's one of our strengths and we're proud of it.  But if we're maniuplating and thining winning over devleopment, we're making a huge mistake. We're short-cutting the development of the players...Our aim is to produce skillful, creative, confident players...Some youth academies worry about winning, WE WORRY ABOUT EDUCATION"

2.  Quality Training

"Make every session a quality session, come prepared, don't waste time.  Keep players focussed and active...If you have 12 one -hour sessions per month, and waste 10 minutes each session thatn you wste two sessions each month. 

3.  Age Appropriate

"Providing players with too much too soon leads to confusion and hurts development.  We don't need coaches teaching 8 year old's zonal defending or an offside trap, just like we don't teach a second grader calculus. Kids learn rapidly, but at different stages in their lives"

4.  Have fun and inspire your players

"If we make it fun, we're going to inspoire them. Soccer is a great, fun game.  let's make sure we create an environment so that our players want to come back to our training sessions and be part of the fun"

 

Principles of Age Appropriate Development

Initial Stage (5-8 Yrs Old)

Very young players at this age love to play, all practices will be based on FUN games.  Players must spend maximum time possible in contact with the ball and experiement by themselves.  For the first time the player has to build a relationship with other players. Give different responsiblities to the players in order to develop a sense of team.  Basic motor skills like walking, running, jumping have to be combined with the ball handling and ball control.

 

Basic Stage (9-12 Years old)

Pre-pubesecnet plaeyrs from 9-12 have a specail ability to learn.  Therefore, this is the right age to work on specific soccer technique and skills.  Developing good technique is essential at this age.  1 v 1 and 2 v 1 attacking and defending situations are important to develop individual sklls as well as the passing technqiues to develop the necessary team game.  Use small-sided games to develop basic attacking and defensive princpiples.  Other important aspects of tactical training are possession, combination play, transition, and finishing in the final third, as well as zonal defending.  Players will roate in two or three different positions to avoid early specialization.  Speed, Coordination, Balance and Agility are the main physical aspects to improve at this stage. 

Intermediate Stage (13-14 Yr Olds)

At this stage, training sessions are oriented more towards tactics and the player practice in bigger spaces.  Players must practice all different types of technqiues at this stage.  Strength and endurance should be part of the fitness training.  Coaching methods have to consider and preserve the player's health since they will be experiencing many changes due to puberty at this stage.  Warm-ups and cool downs are essential as is dynamic flexibility.  Players must develop discipline at this stage by following the instructions of the coach both during and outside training sessions.

Advanced (15-18 Yr Olds)

Tactical training and small sided games are essential part of training at this stage.  Attacking and defending principles must be a part of all games.  Important aspects of tactical training are speed of play, quick transition, counter attacking and finishing in the final third as well as pressing.   Technqiue will focus on speed and accuracy.  Passing and finishing are two of the main technqiues emphaisized at this stage.  A part of the technical training will be position specific (defender: passing, center midfielder: recieving to turn and strikers: finishing.  The physical aspect of the game is a key element at this stage:  endurance, strength, speed will be part of the weekly training routine.  Players should be expected to show committment to the team, concentration in training sessions and competitiveness in the games.