Ryan Marquez - Beautiful Soccer: Creating Passion and Confidence in Young Players

Beautiful Soccer
Ryan Marquez / Doug Werner

	Tracks Publishing
140 Brightwood Avenue
Chula Vista, CA 91910
619-476-7125
www.startupsports.com
trackspublishing.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Copyright 2012 by Ryan Marquez and Doug Werner
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Marquez, Ryan.

Beautiful soccer : creating passion and confidence in young players / Ryan Marquez, Doug Werner. San Diego, Calif. : Tracks Pub., c2012.

p. ; cm.

ISBN: 978-1-935937-43-2

Includes index.

Summary: This book explores the role of coaches and parents, emphasizes the importance of team identity and a team mindset, and presents the necessary foot skills to help young soccer players both perform better and have more fun. Moreover, this book advocates a soccer culture free from the fear of failure; instead players, coaches and parents are encouraged to foster confidence, passion, creativity and the desire to try and keep trying.Publisher.

1. Soccer for childrenCoaching. 2. Soccer for children Training. 3. Soccer for childrenPsychological aspects. 4. Soccer Coaching. I. Title.

This book would not have happened without the help and expertise of these fine people. Thank you, friends. Thank you, beautiful daughter.

Allie Barbara demonstrated collecting and offensive technique.

Jeff Healy had the idea.

Karl Leckner took the cover shot.

Cristina Martinez Byviks illustrations highlighted our ramblings.

Phyllis Carter, our editor, made sure we sounded reasonably intelligent.

Chris Muranyi demonstrated just about everything.

Fred Muranyi reviewed just about everything.

Emily Tran graces our front cover.

Joy Werner demonstrated the moves and drills.

Its so important to teach the kids HOW TO PLAY.

When little Billy or Suzi is 7 or 8 its more important they learn how to dribble and kick and collect than it is for their tiny tots team to win this Saturday. In fact, its more important that they continue to hone their skills for the next several years than it is to score more goals than the other guys.

Thats a very hard thing to get across because we all want to win all the time at any age. Just learning stuff sounds like a cop out. OK we lost, but boy we sure moved the ball well! I mean, who cares about that! We all should. Thats who. If the kids are not learning skills, if they cannot confidently manipulate the ball, they will play with fear. Teams will rely on a few athletic players to make plays and score goals while everyone else plays some sort of supporting role. That usually means kickball. No skill means fear means kickball.

You hear it all the time from the sidelines. Get the ball outta there! Kick it out! Kick it down-field! Coaches and parents scared out of their minds when players make mistakes and lose the ball. So what happens? Kids dont feel encouraged to expand their talents. They become afraid to try. If the ball comes to them, they just want to kick it away. Thats no fun for anybody.

Let the kids learn how to play. Encourage them ALL to work hard and get better so they can derive real satisfaction from the game. From skill comes courage. We want to develop fearless artists on the ball who can play anywhere when they grow to be high school and college players.

Thats worth shooting for.

Ryan Marquez