An estimated 2.3 million youth played soccer (6- to 12-year-olds) in the United States in 2016. Yet, 70-75 percent of kids quit playing organized sports by 14 because it’s not fun anymore. Here at Hotspurs, we are dedicated to our athletes keeping their passion for the game.

Our mission is simple — develop individually creative athletes that with a team can achieve great success.

We believe we can create top players (and humans) that are responsible, disciplined, accountable, motivated, committed, and respectful. Athletes that make positive decisions on and off the pitch and respect the game and those surrounding them.

Our developmental approach is built on the mission of helping each player achieve success and truly be their own player. With that, we believe in two fundamental elements throughout all three phases of our player development: 1.) growing the love of the game and 2.) empowering players to be responsible for their success.

Here’s how we do it:

Enable athletes to be their own player.

We have great coaches. But our coaches, indeed, are their own player. Each athlete has excellent potential and ability and creative views of the game. If we put every player into the set style of a specific coach, we’re doing them a great disservice. So, we empower our athletes to be responsible for their success.

Love taking a player on 1v1? Great! Able to thread the needle and put the ball on the 9s foot every single time? Perfect! We expose our players to the skills to make each of them as well-rounded of a player as possible, but we are not going to force them into a mold of another player.

This is achieved by placing a strong emphasis during the foundation phase on individual technical development. We give the athletes the skillset to be successful and the power to make decisions.

Make players accountable.

“Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life.” This couldn’t be truer when it comes to training sessions.  When a player loves the game, enjoys coming to the pitch, gets excited to put on their kit for game day, they are genuinely invested and accountable for their success.

We instill this love of the game that inspires them to push themselves harder than they thought they possibly could by allowing them to play the game. We provide the goals to aim for and guide their development, while continually holding them accountable for training sessions achieving optimal success.

Remove boundaries/limitations.

To be the most successful athlete possible, we believe in athletes being able to play the game they love regardless of who their coach is or who stands next to them on the pitch.

By focusing on individual development and how it contributes to team success, we’re able to remove the boundaries and limitations that face many American players. We expose players to a variety of coaches throughout each phase, allowing each athlete to gain a broader soccer experience that caters to a range of learning styles.

The true development comes from love, passion, the ability to decide, create, and play regardless of the changing circumstances around you.

Encourage failure to learn to succeed.

By empowering our athletes to be responsible for their success, we’re also allowing them to fail. This ability to fail, and learn from mistakes, paves a path to greater success. We train during the week to teach our athletes the skills they need — both technically and tactically — to make the many decisions they’ll face when playing the game.

Some weeks, they’ll make the best decision each time they touch the ball. Other weeks they will not. And those are the experiences we build on.

Shape thinking outside of the box.

We don’t accept “No,” or “it has always been done this way so why change it.”  

We believe the American youth soccer system is broken and unclear, and as a club, we are working to clear the way to move the game forward. Our program is constantly innovating and working out new ways to improve, all while not taking for granted the effort a family has to put forward just to become better at the game.

We don’t accept that dragging our players to 10 tournaments a year is the best way to get noticed. And for as much as we value individual creativity and the power of winning a 1v1, we don’t believe 100 1-on-1s is required to be a top player! We want to help our families get their athlete to whichever destination they want, so every innovation we make has to be for the good of the game, the player, and their family. 

Instill a long-term involvement in the game.

We want our athletes to play forever. By growing a love of the game now, we are empowering our athletes to continue to develop and grow as athletes and individuals. We wouldn’t have the coaches we do if it weren’t for each developing a love of the sport at a young age.

The reality is 1.4 percent of NCAA soccer players will go on to play professionally. We aim to set our Hotspurs players up to be in that 1.4 percent if that’s their dream. But too, with soccer a lifelong sport, we don’t want any of our athletes ever to lose a love of the game and walk away. We want them back as coaches, refs, parents taking their kids out in the backyard to play.

Above all, we want our players to get excited about the game and it’s our mission, where a soccer culture does not exist, to become creative and bring that love for the game!

Posted in Player Development Approach