Soccer Education | Champions Soccer School

We are Soccer Education

What is the difference between training and education?

Education captures the essence on, a deep and sophisticated football ''education'', not merely ''training''.

Education values, concept over drills, guidance over correction. This modern method teaches players "How to" create and understand how to make correct solutions in games on their own.

Champions Soccer School moves the development of players from

Drills to game specific development

Athleticism to soccer intelligence and understanding soccer concepts

"Soccer education" which values exercises that involve small soccer games to bring out soccer concepts and guide players to understanding correct soccer concepts.

Players must have excellent technical skill and understand how to play the game. Players must be able to solve soccer problems with the correct solutions. To do this, they need excellent ball manipulation skills and extensive knowledge of the way the game is played. With educated and professional coaches, players are taught not only the skills required to play the game, but the intelligence to pick the right solution to the problems they face on the pitch.

Football Curriculum

It’s a challenge for soccer Federations, coaches and academies such as Champions Soccer School to understand how to develop and educate a culture of soccer that is in line with the other leading soccer cultures around the world. We welcome the challenge and we offer the most up to date educational football program for our aspiring youth.

The Champions Soccer School Coaching Philosophy is based on but not limited to the 4 main components or soccer.

Technical (Skills) - Being able to manipulate the ball, where you want, how you need it, accurately and consistently.

Control
First Touch
Dribble
Shooting
Heading
1 v 1 moves & turns
Speed of skills mentioned above

Tactical (Game Intelligence) - Knowing where to be, where to go. Being creative - creating goal scoring opportunities. Individual and collective solutions in game situations.

Psychological - Mental abilities, playing the game in the mind, and decision making.

Physical - Athleticism, movement, muscle memory.

These components are most important in the game of soccer. Only being an expert at one and mediocre at the others are not enough to play adequately.

Other parts of our curriculum cover:

Concepts of Soccer - Scoring goals, not conceding goals, keeping possession of the ball to create scoring opportunities

Player Attitudes - Leadership, teambuilding, and individual control. Becoming a well-rounded soccer player on the inside is just as important as the outside.

Moments in the game -

Roles/responsibilities with and without the ball.
Transition periods in the game

Phases in the game -

Build up
Consolidation
Incision
Finish

Game specific training sessions - Realistic situations that players come across in games. Less concentration on drills and more focus on small sided games whenever possible.

Champions Soccer School is a community academy assisting in the development of players.

Champions Soccer School practices only the best, up to date philosophies of football and makes it available to the community for everybody and anybody that wants to learn and loves the beautiful game.

Football Culture - Team Philosophy

Champions Soccer School embraces the playing cultures of soccer from around the world and incorporates this knowledge into the way Campioni coaches teach soccer to its players.

Brazilian Flair, Italian Defense, Spanish Tiki Taka, Dutch Total Football are just a few countries with brand-like soccer abilities. Argentinian soccer has produced excellent players like Diego Maradona and Leo Messi, the best players of their time. There are excellent female soccer players like Marta, from Brazil. Young players watch these players perform every week and they aspire to be like them. We teach players how to be creative and promote freedom of expression in their own game.

Its no accident that these countries produce such high quality players and these players constantly win tournaments at the highest level.

Leo Messi and Diego Maradona grew up in an excellent culture of the beautiful game. A culture of soccer that should not be ignored. It's this culture and with it a soccer philosophy that values.......

The Ball and Skill -

Over the athlete and strength.

The physical component of a soccer player is very important. We are not playing its importance down. If we break down the development of a soccer player to the years between U5 to U12, motor skills are critical at these ages. At adulthood, it slows down and make it more difficult to learn these crucial skills. Match participation, skill building, a little tactical instruction and all soccer training executed with a ball will make for good player development at this age.

All the greatest players, past and present, at the highest level all have a fantastic relationship with the ball. This is built over time and many years by playing with the ball in the park alone, with friends or in a team. Juggling the ball, trying a few tricks or even playing in the house with a soft ball.

It is the core elements of becoming a good player on the field. It’s a fact that the formative years of a youth player is in the growing years, 5 to 18 years of age. This is the only opportunity to build long lasting skills. After this age, it is increasingly harder for the adult body to learn new skill and refine the skills that may need.

Imagine if you didn't learn to walk or didn't go to school when you were young. As adults, how hard is it to learn something new? Without correct development and correct development at the right times, players are hindered from reaching optimal levels as a soccer player.

One of the most common errors for young players is they spend too much time running and focusing on athleticism. Playing in a team that does not value technique, tactical understanding and soccer concepts and playing without the ball for long periods in a game is the worst case scenario for a developing player. Excellent soccer players learnt to play the game first and then became athletes when the body was ready, usually at 16 years of age. The physical component plays a big part in football but we must remember that there is an order of importance that is focused on.

In the United States, sports develop the best athletes but they fall behind in the skill and tactical intelligence that soccer players need to go from a good to a complete player.

Football Intelligence

(Art of football) -

Over athleticism, grit, hustle and determination.

Take in a game at a random youth game today in the United States and you will see many youth players running and hustling, kicking the ball anywhere and playing at a speed that they just can’t handle. This type of game is the type of soccer being played at grass roots level and in many select teams across the United States today. It is an outdated and ineffective style of soccer.

It is the culture in the United States that produces world class athletes who can run, jump and give outstanding effort and determination for 90 minutes.

Athleticism and determination has its place but cannot stand alone in soccer. It is to be commended and encouraged although it is not in the best interests for youth players to continue to play only relying on their athletic abilities alone. There must be more time devoted to a soccer education that produces and educates players on the fine art of how to play the game intelligently, finding solutions to the problems the players face in the game with the use of the ball, skill and insight.

Athleticism, grit, effort and determination alone does not equate to players being able to think during a game, be confronted with a problem in a situation in the game and provide the answer with a pass or dribble or shot a run off the ball or produce a moment of absolute magic with unpredictability because they improvise.

These types of players that put in thousands of hours of technical and tactical work into their game.

These types of players have such a high level of understanding of the game, an education built over many years learning. They train with the ball in game specific exercises and achieve success through trial and error. This can’t be matched simply by running harder or passing better or a coach telling the players what to do next.

The Barcelona team of 2009 to the present days plays a style of soccer that keeps possession for as long as possible and creates goals through individual skill, intelligent movement off the ball and again high level skill with the ball and insight into the game. It's this part of the game that these players begin with in their youth and become outstanding athletes once they are complete players.

Development and Learning (discovering the beautiful game) -

Over winning at all cost at youth level

Winning is everything, it’s what competition is all about. It’s why we as a people engage in sports or any other competition.

One of the hardest things to understand is that the art of winning consists of playing well or earning the right to win the game. Incorporating all of the elements of soccer (technical skills, tactical intelligence, physical abilities and psychological characteristics) and combining those into your game gives you the resources to play the game well and have fun while doing it. Although this doesn’t guarantee you victory every time you go out onto the pitch showing off these wonderful arrays of talent you have, it will certainly over the course of a season bring you success.

This culture is practiced throughout the soccer world, to many aspiring soccer players in South America and Europe where developing your game in the early years is the focus. Winning comes after when you're a complete player as an adult, and is widely understood and accepted.

At Champions Soccer School our goal is to provide the correct soccer culture and with it the best practices. Practices that exist that are being taught to soccer players in other countries. Here, we want our players to learn and play soccer the way it is meant to be played and learn what we see at the highest level of the game.