In the first session of Day 3, Aaron Negel, CEO of the Colorado Rapids Youth Soccer Club presented on building a successful operating system within youth organizations. The first question he asked was “Why?”, why are we here, why is this club here, what is the club’s purpose”, this led to the development of club values, beliefs, behaviors, attitudes that the club would adapt and that they would be committed to moving forward, this means every decision moving forward reflect at least 3 out of the 4 values and beliefs of the club. Aaron discusses how important it is for a youth organization to have a clear identity, purpose, belief and the people in the right positions to make it happen. As they move forward, the Rapids main motto is “Develop remarkable coaches”, they believe that investing in their coaches will make for better players, a better program and more importantly an organization that is constantly evolving and improving as they are always pursuing to improve in every regard.
Session 2, a field session working on modern attacking and defending trends in youth soccer, Paul Payne worked on shaping the team in those two phases of the game. Paul emphasized that field players must have
- A clear understanding of the positional responsibility within the team dynamic. Communication channels between coach and player must be open and democratic.
- Good understanding of roles and responsibilities in relation to other units.
- Good understanding of specific roles and responsibilities within pair-partnerships (RB and RW).
Session 3, Molly Grisham worked on team building. Molly was quick to establish that team bonding, team building and team development are all different but also simultaneously very relevant in each other’s success.
Team Bonding can be short lived, as they are surface interactions where players find similarities within activities which can be perceived as a positive interaction within the team dynamic. Team building can have a significant impact but also comes with considerably more risk, as players will have to get to the root of issues and consequently requires very careful and deliberate planning from the coach or organizers. Team development is Molly’s bread and butter, which dives past issues, to find leaders within the team, find specific players that fill specific roles and how those players can fill other roles that they are interested in or the team needs them to fill.