Soccer Field Academy is an Official Partner of Southampton FC, an English Premiership club that is widely recognized as one of the world leaders in developing youth soccer players. Southampton FC has produced some of the most technically gifted British players in the game today, notably Gareth Bale (Real Madrid), Adam Lallana (Liverpool), James Ward-Prowse (Southampton) and Theo Walcott (Arsenal).
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• Southampton FC will send some of their top coaches and staff out to the U.S. whom will interact with players in SFA during their scheduled trips to Columbus, Ohio.
• SFA will invite select groups of players each year to travel to Southampton FC’s world-class facility “Staplewood” to train and participate in exhibition games. Participating players will also have the opportunity to be benchmarked alongside current Southampton Academy players within their biological age groups.
• Southampton will assist in the organization of high level domestic and european opportunities for select groups of SFA players.
• A dedicated team from Southampton’s staff will work hand-in-hand with SFA to give them access to state-of-the-art equipment and methods to help with the development of their players.
• A Talent ID Pathway
• An annual partner evaluation will take place between SFC and SFA based on the criteria used by Double-Pass (the organisation employed by Premier League and US Soccer to assess the status of a player development academy).

Over the years, we here at the Soccer Field Academy have developed a philosophy of growing players, enhancing their potential. This is not only an on-field endeavor, but an off the field one as well. Ensuring our students have the best possible environment for growth is important to us, and that begins at home, with friends and family. To that end, this is the first in a series of blogs designed to help educate family and friends about some simple Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to supporting your young player.

One of the hardest but most vital lessons parents must learn in order to better support their young player is one that seems simple. Yelling is bad. Shouting at players from the sidelines is not only discouraged, but is in fact detrimental, no matter how well intentioned. No matter how tempting, parents must resist the urge to shout instructions to the players. It is vitally important that the only instruction players receive comes from the coaching staff. Even if the advice coming from the parent in question is good advice, it’s important that players learn, especially in their developmental years, that coaches are who they need to be listening to.

As the players grow older and mature, this “no yelling” directive takes on an added dimension. A large part of player development is their “soccer IQ”, their ability to read the game and make their own decisions based upon the situation. As players grow often coaches will take a step back during matches and training, leaving more and more of the decision making to the players. The main reason for this is to sharpen their tactical awareness. For players to continue to develop this must be respected.

That’s not to say that complete silence is expected, or even wanted. Cheering on your young player, and more importantly the team, is always encouraged. Cheering for goals, clapping for good passages of play, anything you’d expect to see a crowd doing at a professional game is generally acceptable, as long as it’s encouraging and not distracting to the players.

​Another vital component to creating a positive learning environment is to avoid placing too many pressures on your child. Critiquing their performance immediately following the match or training session in the car on the way home is usually not the best approach. Children naturally want to please their parents, so this type of immediate critique can be demoralizing, negatively impacting future training and matches. Instead let your child first approach you about the game and stick to asking open-ended questions in order to have them reflect on their own performance. This dialogue not only takes pressure off your young player, but can help them think more critically of their own performance in a constructive environment. 
Stay tuned for more blogs on the do’s and don’ts of supporting your young players, and if you have any questions please reach out via the comments, email, or Facebook!

Our own James Field is currently in Likoni, Kenya, imparting his years of soccer wisdom to the Likoni Community Football League and its coaches and players. Throughout his trip he will be sending home some dispatches, which will be shared here.

“Sunday, March 12-

The day started early after an exhausting two days of travel to Likoni, Kenya. Morning began with coffee and the company of some hungry monkeys that we kept at arms distance with whistles and some yells. They had a keen interest in joining us for breakfast.
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We both hopped onto a motorcycle, known here as a “piki-piki”, their form of a taxi with a driver that took us to Likoni secondary school where the LCFL games were taking place. We arrived to watch the U12s play. The match was interrupted for 5-mins as the coaches cleared the cows, whom had wandered onto the fields.

I was astounded that they didn’t play with any boundaries, though the players, coaches and referees were well aware of when the ball was out of play. A majority of the kids did not wear soccer cleats and instead played in their bare feet. when we spoke to the coaches they informed us that their was simply a lack of shoes available for the kids.
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Following the U14 matches, we decided to go with “Abbas”, the LCFL secretary for something to eat at his favorite local restaurant. When I say restaurant you’re probably picturing something like we have back home, a fancy building with nice tables, chairs, and a large menu. That was not the case. It instead consisted of a couple, whom were serving limited food options from their house. On our 25-min walk through the Likoni neighborhoods it was extremely hard to see the horrific living conditions of the people of Likoni. One thing that stood out for me above all else was the amount of trash that was left in front of the residents houses and on the streets. Apparently it is periodically scoped up by the private owner of the land or property and then burned together with other trash and then left in that same pile. There seems to be no reliable city refuse collection.

Today happened to be the day that the local senior teams were playing in their final tournament game. It was organized and funded by a local politician in an effort to be in the front of people’s minds as the election approached. The match consisted of 2,000 people whom all came together to cheer on one of the local teams. Every time one of the teams scored, the fans invaded the pitch and officials had to escort them off the field again.

Tomorrow, I will be running a coaches education session for all of the local soccer coaches within the community of Likoni.”

Check back soon for more updates from Kenya, and for information on how you can help contact James, or visit LCFL.org!

Day 3
The morning began with me attending the weekly LCFL coaches meeting at 10:00am (although we didn’t start the meeting until 11:00am), (I am beginning to learn that “African Time” is very different to the rest of the world, it’s much more laid back here.) This meeting is also the annual get together of the founder of the non-profit program, Ben Levey and the LCFL management team. We discussed many topics ranging from best practices, to improving the day to day operations of the program, and ways to better serve the kids that participate. One of the main take away’s from the meeting’s was establishing an elite standard for each club to attempt to get too. At the end of the meeting, I was able to distribute many items of coaching apparel that I had accumulated during the past few years that I was an Academy Coach with the Columbus Crew. The coaching staff were very appreciative… and they looked great!

After the meeting, myself and few of the coaches went for lunch together down the street. We ate Ugali (The Kenyan Carb), Mchicha (Spinach) and Nyama (Beef) and water to drink. The coaches love to talk about football, and especially the English premier league and specifically about Arsenal (whom most Kenyan’s support). We had some very interesting conversations!

Following the meeting we attended training at the Likoni secondary school. As we approached the school, what seemed like a couple of hundred school kids were laughing and giggling at the sight of two approaching “Wazungu” (White Men). As we entered the school grounds, the kids surrounded us, and wanted to shake our hands and play with our hair. They followed us, to the area in which we play, laughing, giggling and dancing. We were eventually scolded by the teachers, for disrupting their recess program.

The training session with the kids was amazing! Their work ethic and their desire to learn is enthralling. The players were again anxious at first and as the session progresses they seem to let their guard down and we are having dialogue back and forth. “Should we have a big attacking shape or a small attacking shape?” I would say. Their response is “A big shape coach, a big shape is better for us!” The session began with this over-anxious kids, running 100kph like headless chickens, and the session finished with them playing with more composure and thought in their decisions!

Day 4
Myself & Ben met with Hamisi, whom is one of the local coaches and he agreed to show us around the city of Mombasa. It requires us to cross the channel from Likoni to Mombasa town. Hundreds of thousands of people use this ferry each day to work inside the city of Mombasa. Two to four double-ended ferries alternate across the harbor, carrying both road and foot traffic. We visited the famous Mombasa Ivory Towers, we walked through one of the many gardens (which housed thousands of bats in the trees) and enjoyed an avocado and passion fruit juice drink. Then we made our way to Fort Jesus. Fort Jesus was the only fort maintained by the Portuguese on the Swahili Coast, and is recognized as a testament to the first successful attempt by a Western power to establish influence over the Indian Ocean trade. We walked through the Old town of Mombasa, which was dominated by mosques, as a large percentage of the population is Muslim. The final highlight was the market in Old Town, in which I saw lambs head (still with beady eyes and a fur skin) and Camels meat (with hooves and fur also intact)!

Training was unbelievable! The kids arrived early and wearing their Soccer Field Academy T-shirts (I think some of the player may have slept in them.) Each and every child came up and shook my hand prior to removing their sandals and preparing to play. Word had gotten around that Myself and Ben were in town, as double the number of kids arrived to have an opportunity to participate in the training sessions this evening. We carried on from last night’s sessions and working towards playing with more patience on the ball and playing more side to side, rather than direct with no purpose. At the conclusion of the session, we handed out candy to every player whom was there, 80+ and SFA T-shirts to the players whom stood out from the rest!

It so far has been such a humbling experience, I cant wait for the next interaction with the kids.