Menu

Parent/Player Education

P7270068 (1)

Football Initiation Program 5-6 Year Olds

What is our Football Initiation Program?

This program provides opportunities to:

  • discover their physical abilities and limitations through basic motor skills, incorporating the ball
  • communicate, integrate, and cooperate within small groups with and without a ball
  • orientate themselves in space whilst being aware of their surroundings
  • visually experience the movement of the ball so that they can evaluate how to relate and react
  • control the ball on the ground and in the air

Why our program should be your child’s entry into football?

  • Expert coaching – Vio has over 10 years of experience coaching with kids and relevant qualifications in the Discovery Phase (ages 5-7) and Skill Acquisition Phases (ages 7-12) .
  • Facilities – Players will get to train on a synthetic futsal court. The playing area is fenced, which prevents the ball from going out of play, increasing time spent on the ball.
  • Small groups – A low player to coach ratio means your child gets the focus and support they need to learn effectively, catering to individual needs.
  • Practices – Players will be consistently engaged with the ball and active participants throughout the entire session – no waiting in lines! The practices are designed to satisfy a young player’s need to possess the ball for as long as possible.

Skill Outcomes:

  • Dribbling the ball
  • Receiving, controlling, passing, and shooting the ball
  • Taking the ball away from an opponent (tackling)
  • Considering teammates or opponents in attack or defence (teamwork)
Register Here!
P7270075 (1)

My aim,

 Is to support the healthy development of children who start out motivated to practice their favourite sport, football. 

DSC_0377

Relative Age Effect

I have been looking forward to my youngest son beginning his club football journey, U7s the youngest age for competition. Since the start of the season to now we have had minimum contact time – we started to train for pre-season but of course restrictions forced us to stop until last week. So I have little understanding of their individual needs.
During a conversation with the team manager we were impressed by the skill level displayed by one particular player in the squad at training return. I was asked to guess the month that the child in question was born in and without any hesitation I replied “He must be in January”. I continued to list them all chronologically from oldest to youngest very accurately without knowing their dates of birth. (Incidentally my son is one of the youngest on the squad).

This leads me to tell you about the Relative Age Effect. Studies have shown that players born at the front end of the year are over-represented in professional football. Why?

I believe that there is a culture of winning within the junior years of football. This leads trainers to select the more mature and more developed players in a bid to win. The consequence of this is that there is an imbalance as to how we view player development as a whole. There is less opportunity given to players born later in the year. Conversely the ones selected for being born early in the year are being misused because they guaranty a win.

Each child needs to be given the same opportunities to grow and develop. We are missing out on potential talent.

Winning games is NOT the same as developing players.
At 𝗩𝗙𝗦 we understand that not all children are the same. Their development is influenced by what is called the 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁.
  • 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗴𝗲 – this is the actual date of birth of the child.
  • 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗴𝗲 – maturity level. Children of the same biological age may be up to 3-4 years apart based on their rate of maturation.
  • 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗴𝗲 – years of practice. Two children with the same chronological and biological age can be poles apart in terms of skills and understanding of the game if one has trained substantially more.

Before placing a child into our programs we try to work out the current stage of development of each child based on the combination of the three different ages. This has proved to be very successful, with children developing to their full potential

DSC_0381

Three Ages of Sport

#1 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗴𝗲, #2 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗴𝗲, #3 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗴𝗲