How to organize a successful youth soccer camp
Legal LawSoccer camps for youth soccer players
We do a one-day camp in June or July. We have done one week and three day camps, but now we only do one day camps. Our goals for these preseason camps are just to take a look at what we have in talent, get the kids to understand how they should interact with the coaching staff, and have fun. We have a whole month to prepare for our first game, we can get whatever conditioning we need during regular soccer practice.
Conditioning this away from the first practice and for such a short duration is counterproductive to what we are trying to achieve during camp. We firmly believe that with the highly defined soccer practice priorities that we adhere to, we can have our assessments, basic skills, and schemas put into practice during the soccer practice month prior to that first game. We found that much of what the kids learned at these soccer camps was forgotten once we started in August and often the kids played in different positions, once the teams were optimized. We do not present any of our soccer plays or playbooks during these camps.
We found that just over 2 hours in a day was counterproductive, even for older children. We rarely get much out of the kids once we hit that 2 hour brick wall, especially if it was hot. We do not spend 1 ½ hours for children under 8 years old.
We always bring at least one NFL player to talk a little at the end of Football Camp. We’ve also called the Nebraska Cornhuskers and got players from their FCA group to attend, most college teams are happy to accommodate you, all you have to do is ask. NFL guys can often get NFL money to pay for hats, jerseys and food, every time we invited a local NFL guy they did it for us. All they ask of you is to organize the camp, take the kids there, and do a press release for the media to get there.
Our format has changed quite a bit, but this is the one we use now:
Group dynamic warm-ups
Group position and starts / cadence
Fun Mini-Group Assessments / Competitions – This is where we do all of our fun team assessment.
detailed games / exercises starting on page 69 of the book. This gets the kids excited and excited about being at their camp and playing for their team and tells us what we have and where most of the kids will play.
Skill Development Stations (no conditioning or Frappy agility drills)
Hawaii Rules Football Team – On page 80 of the book.
When they are done with the clinic, the children understand how they should interact with the coaches. As coaches we have a very good idea of the athletic level of our team in general and where 80-90% of our starters will play. Children have fun and clearly understand that playing soccer can be fun and rewarding for us if they follow some simple instructions that we will hold them accountable for. We often get more children to join our program after camp as parents and children get very excited about how fun and well organized our practices are and often invite their friends to play for us.
Our youth soccer league has no restrictions on these types of activities, check your league for restrictions and adhere to them.
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