About two months ago, a local soccer coach here from the area, had the tenacity to argue the fact that a group of girls ages 11-12 could no longer be developed any further as they had already reached the peak of their soccer development.

Having attended numerous professional soccer club seminars, youth soccer coaching clinics and even the priviledge to have had numerous conversation with well known colleigate, professional and national coaches, I personally knew this was nonsense and this coach had no idea of what he was truely talking about.

Just last year the US Soccer Federation published a Coaching Curriculum which clearly details out all the player stages (Initial, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced State) and clearly states that a 12 year old youth soccer player is at the beginning of Intermediate Stage and clearly has alot to learn!  At this age Tactical training plays an important role in the development of the youth soccer player.  Group attacking and defending are very crucial at this stage as your practices should be geared more for “team” play instead of individual.  The concept of “team” plays important part of this stage.

The following are a couple of supporting graphic which have been pulled straighout of out of the curriculum which clearly state the stages of development by age group:

In ending, I would like to invite all players, parents and coaches to read “Part 3: Age Group Organization” of the 123 page curriculum which can be found at the following link:

Part 3: Age Group Organization

Gilbert Hernandez
Director Of Coaching
South Valley Chivas Academy