Four Best Presents For Your Soccer Player

1. The PerfectKick!™ Soccer Ball: Learn how to “practice perfection” every time you kick a ball. Poor practice leads to life-long bad habits. The patented PerfectKick! Ball gives you “color fusion” real-time training feedback so you quickly break bad habits and start making perfect kicks. Free online QuickStart Training Guide has instructions to help players perfect their push passes, backspin passes, inside spin kicks, and outside spin kicks.
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2. Triple-Target™ Cleat Socks: Learn how to strike the ball with the right part of your foot (Slip on these cleat socks and you’re suddenly aware of what part of the foot you’re using to strike the ball. Start with a simple push pass and you’ll be amazed by how many times you’re striking the ball with your heel or your toe  (why? you’re eye’s not on the ball or you’re lifting your head!), but a few sessions with the cleat sock on and you’ll start breaking these bad habit.
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3. Portable Net (6′): If you can afford it buy your favorite soccer player two of these. Why? Because most players have a bad habit of shooting right at the goalie. Playing with one small portable net just strengthens this bad habit. How to break it? Place two 6′ (actually 6′ 6″) portable goals 12 feet apart. Make your goalie stand in the gap and your players shoot for the corners: soon they’ll be doing it in the games. Pop-up goals are best because they’re easy to carry so people don’t think twice about bringing them to play. But if your favorite soccer player plays in the street (or on a hard-surface where you can’t use pegs) the skip the pop-up and get this weighted goal.
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4. “Really Bend it Like Beckham” Training Video: Beckham was never the fastest player and never the best dribbler–he has always lived off his incredible skills. Learn how he developed them by watching this video (it turns out he’s a very good teacher).

What’s the PerfectKick! Soccer Advantage? Real-time Training Feedback!

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A perfect Push Pass…         Set up for the Outside Spin…

How “Color Fusion” Training Feedback Works

A rough cut –we re-film this weekend professionally–but it does answer a Question we’ve had from visitors: What does it look like when you mis-kick a ball? Answer: You see a “Mixed Colors” ball…

Watch the Video! to see how Real-Time Training Feedback works:

See how the “Color Fusion” real-time feedback you get practicing with a PerfectKick! Ball helps you “Practice Perfection” every time! This video covers the Push Pass:

1. A “Mixed Color” ball tells you you need to work on your form (head down, strike ball on PK! Target, follow-thru)
2. A “Color Fusion” Pure Color Stripe means you made a perfect kick!

Look for other videos to learn how to make a perfect Inside Spin Kick, Backspin Kick, and Outside Spin Kick.

The PerfectKick™ Training Ball

patent pending

Your Perfect Kick is Our Goal!™

How to make a perfect kick, every time? Easy, with the PerfectKick™ Training Ball there are 3 Steps to a Perfect Kick:

1. Keep your eye on the PK! Target;
2. Keep your head down; and
3. Follow through properly.

If their form is correct,  player– and  coach– will see a pure color stripe as the PK!™ Ball flies away. If the technique is not correct, they will see a “Mixed Colors” Ball.

Using this real-time training feedback–and the free training videos and  QuickStart Training Guide– players  soon learn to adjust their kicks to get it right, every time!

Falling in Love With Practice™

Kids of all ages are immediately attracted to the PerfectKick™ Ball (and will choose it out of a crowd of other balls). They soon get caught up in the game of trying to make a Perfect Kick so they can see the patented ‘color fusion” pure color stripe.

PerfectKick™ Triple-Target Cleat Sleeves

Every PK! Ball comes with one Triple-Target!™ Cleat Sleeve set….

Notice there are three targets on the cleats (a big improvement on the cleats or cleat sleeves with one-target–often in the wrong place!– for only one kind of kick). With the PerfectKick™ Cleat Sleeve players get:

1. Inner Target: for Push Passes; for Inner Spin Kicks (Bending it around the wall on a Free Kick or into the goal on Corner Kicks).
2. Center Target: for Power Shots on Goal, and lining up BackSpin Kicks (follow the dotted line!)
3. Outer  Target: for Outside Spin passes or shots.

What is “Color Fusion”? This is Color Fusion!

The PerfectKick!™ Ball
With Color Fusion real-time feedback for a perfect kick every time.
Passes Long & Short, Shots on Goals, Corner and Free Kicks where you need to “Bend it Like Beckham”!

If you make a Perfect Kick– (1) Hit the right target (2) Keep your head down, and (3) follow through–You, or your coach, will see a pure color stripe (Orange, Blue, or Green, depending on which target you hit) that means you are practicing perfection!

Video: This is a Perfect Kick!

Video: “Soccer: The PerfectKick! Ball”

How to Evaluate Your Soccer Players

Great Suggestions from the SoccerHelp.com forum

I suggest you ask a few more questions to get some specifics about the players. Here are some ideas for you to play with that might help you balance the teams:

1. Speed (circle one) — very fast… fast… average, slow
2. Aggressiveness/Bravery — tough and aggressive… average… timid and afraid of contact
3. Attitude and Attendance — Great attitude and comes to 90% of practices and games… average… bad attitude or rarely shows up
4. Skills — Excellent… Average… Weak
5. Best position — This player is best at: Goalie… Defense… Midfield… Forward
6. Can this player score? (circle one) Great scorer… Good scorer… Maybe… No
7. Can this player play Goalie? (circle one) Great Goalie… Good Goalie…Average Goalie… Not a Goalie

As for the coaches evaluation form, I think it’s a good idea for 2 reasons

It will let coaches know they need to be nice and a good coach

If you ask some questions on it, it will give you an idea of what a coach is doing and if you have any problem coaches, or problems in general. Here are some ideas:

1. Did the Coach come to Practice?
2. If practice was cancelled, were you notified?
3. Was the Coach nice to the players?
4. Did your child learn much about soccer?
5. Was the Coach a good sport?
6. Was the Coach a good role model?
7. Would you recommend this coach to other parents? Why, or why not?

My partners and I are now selling a new patented Soccer Training Ball (the PerfectKick!™ Ball) and Coaching System (Practice Perfect!™ Training).

Why this product? It’s really cool, I love coaching and know how hard it is to get kids to “practice perfection” in any sport, and… our stuff really works. But seeing is believing–watch the videos on our site or get a ball and take it out on the field. Today we’re…

Announcing!

* Updates to Perfect Kick web site:
New downloadable PerfectKick!™ QuickStart Field Guide: How to Kick a Perfect Push Pass, Backspin Pass, Inside Spin Kick, Outside Spin Kick

* New Video on PerfectKick Soccer YouTube channel showing how “Color Fusion” real-time training feedback works:
See how the real-time feedback you get practicing with a PerfectKick! Ball helps you “Practice Perfection” every time! This video covers the Push Pass:

• (1) a “Mixed Color” ball tells you you need to work on your form
• (2) A “Color Fusion” Pure Color Stripe means you made a perfect kick! Look for other videos to learn how to make a perfect Inside Spin Kick, Backspin Kick, and Outside Spin Kick.

(Not impressed by our videos?! Don’t worry, we’ve hiring a professional to do our first commercial (English and Spanish) and reshoot the training videos– these 3 videos will be my last efforts, so enjoy them as collector’s items!… and don’t forget to watch for the “pure color stripe” that means you made a perfect kick!)

Great Coaching Blog: “Games Approach” to Learning Soccer

Some great posts on this Soccer Coaching blog by Jeff Pil (a New Hampshire coach)–especially the one about Mentoring Coaches

(and the lessons–use a Games Approach to coaching: lots of solving problems, very few drills...– not sinking in when the young coach goes on to train their own team! I’ve seen this with young teachers–sometimes you hesitate to spell things out with an adult–thinking they’re not a child you shouldn’t… but they are beginners and though they might see your class working perfectly they can’t read your mind and will miss many of the elements that make your learning environment (or coaching environment on the soccer field) work unless you make them explicit!

And this one  Guiding Principles of Youth Soccer: by Dean Conway… again…emphasis on “Games Approach” to teaching/learning soccer:

PracticePERFECT!™ Training Field

This Training Field is designed to develop habits and instincts to complement a players PerfectKick!™ Skills. More detail in second diagram and pdf.

Links to PerfectKick! Soccer Web Site Pages

PerfectKick!™ Ball

PerfectKick!™ Soccer Products

PerfectKick!™ Soccer “Color Fusion” Real-time Training Feedback

PerfectKick!™ Shopping Cart

Playing Possession Soccer – PracticePERFECT! and Futsal

Great Thread…Why does possession seem to be an afterthought in youth soccer?

Five Best Comments (not including these two):

• Possession Play is overrated… until you’re ahead! and
• I hate to see kids play indoor over futsal. Sure indoor is fun for a while, but it builds nothing but bad habits. Futsal forces kids to play passes on the ground and improve their strength on the ball.)

1. There have been some great points in this discussion, so I only need to summarize and add a few things. Keep in mind, all these things are with an eye towards player development, not necessarily what is best for a well-rounded child ;) :

a) Development in youth soccer is progressive — Those habits you learn in U10 stay with you until some coach comes along and breaks them. I was fortunate enough to have an A license coach when I was U14 through U16. He left for our U17 season, and when an inexperienced coach brough in new players, the difference in tactical understanding was incredible.

b) Too much of a premium is placed on results instead of player development – If I were running a soccer association, my league wouldn’t even keep score until U-12. There is no reason that 9 and 10 year old kids should be playing solely long ball to win a game at the expense of learning basic soccer. In my league back home, it wasn’t until U14 or so that you would have 3 consecutive passes in the run of play.

Playing vs Competing (Skill vs Drive): American soccer is weak?

This article is from the November/December issue of the NSCAASoccer Journal and is written by Editor, Dr. Jay Martin.

Center Circle Column

In early September, there was a Division I game between two Top Ten teams, one from the West Coast and one from the East Coast. It was an early season special. Two big time programs went at each other; each hoping to make a statement for the 2008 collegiate season. It was a beautiful day and the stadium was full. After observing the game for the first half, it was clear that the West Coast team had better soccer players. Pound for pound they were more technical than the home team. The West Coast team lost 3-0 – and it could have been more. Good soccer players; who played good soccer but didn’t compete. They PLAYED the game; they did not COMPETE the game.