Year-Round Involvement

More touches on the ball leads to more development

This is really a no brainer for me.  Like I've said elsewhere on this site, if you want to be good at piano, you don't take lessons for only 6 months during the year.  Same goes for soccer, as with most everything else in this world.  The more you practice, the better you'll be.  And this improvement is not always tied to the level of training you are receiving.  Meaning, that if a kid played Street Soccer (pick up games) throughout the year, he/she would likely see more improvement over that year than someone who may have only participated in a summer or fall season.  This doesn't mean the the Street Soccer player will be better than the part-time player.  It just means that the each individuals improvement relative to where they started the year at will likely be different.  I know there are exceptions, but I say this as a generality. 

I've seen this first hand with the girls that I've worked with in the last 5 to 6 years.  Our basketball and hockey players who commit to those sports over soccer in the winter months have not improved as much (again, relatively speaking) to others who have made soccer their prime commitment all year long.  Not only do these players miss the coaching education in the training sessions, but moreover they simply miss the touches on the ball.

Have I had some basketball and hockey players who were still among the top players on their team?  Of course.  But in general, these players who compete at a high level in soccer as well as in another sport are usually good at both sports due to athleticism, so at the younger age groups they are still considered at the top on the soccer field.  However, rarely have these dual-sport athletes shown more relative improvement over the kids whose main focus is soccer. 

With this said, I will NEVER mandate a 100% soccer commitment from anyone I coach.  It's not my place to make decisions for the players and their families.  I will simply continue to offer up what I do and try to make things as enjoyable I can for the dual-sport athletes so that they will WANT to come to soccer in the winter, even though this makes for hectic winter schedules sometimes.   

Setting up a year-round training program is not easy.  To read more about this, see Keys To Successful Year-Round Training.