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iSoccer Featured Player: Magnus
We’re excited to present Magnus as our latest Featured Player! He raised his iSoccer Skill Level from White (1) to Green (5) in just 6 months, and is a great example for young players everywhere. Check out how Magnus and his family play iSoccer together!
Name: Magnus – Age: 10 – Lives: Maryland
iSoccer Level: Green, 5.0
- “Without question, he’s learning lessons that he will take with him for the rest of his life: setting achievable goals, working hard, and having fun doing it. Magnus may not realize it right now, but iSoccer is creating a foundation within him for future success on and off the field.” – Dad
- “I feel more comfortable when the ball comes to me in the air, when before I was hesitant.” – Magnus
- “We practice with him and compete against him on many of the skills – it’s great exercise for us and a nice way to relax after a day at work.” – Dad
- “I haven’t done this in 20 years, so it’s fun to relearn it with my son.” – Mom
A big thanks to Magnus and his family for sending in the video footage and helping inspire players all over North America!
Magnus shows that no matter what your scores are when you start iSoccer, if you spend time working on the iSoccer Skills, you will get more comfortable with the ball. And to all the parents out there – challenge your kids on a couple iSoccer Skills! It doesn’t matter if you’ve never played soccer before – have fun with it!
Cheers!
The iSoccer Team
Check out our previous Featured Players, Teams, and Club!
Takumi – Age 9 – Level Brown
Luca – Age 11 – Level Red
U12 Synergy
Bozeman Blitzz
Newest Featured Team: Girls U12 Synergy
In 2009, Bill Miles became the coach of a rec-level U10 girls team in Hanover, NH, a small town of 10,000. Three years later, they won the U12 New Hampshire State Cup. Let’s take a look at what happened during those years, and why their coach thinks winning wasn’t their greatest achievement.
Coach Miles believed that skill training was key to his young team’s development, but he wasn’t sure how to get his players excited to spend more time with the ball. He had played D1 soccer at UPenn, but couldn’t use the drills he learned in college – they were too advanced, and emphasized the wrong part of the game for U10 players.
He discussed these issues with another coach, who introduced him to iSoccer. After using iSoccer at only one practice, Coach Miles said a light bulb went off. “iSoccer gave me a repeatable process that was fun, focused on the basic skills necessary for young players, and actually worked!”
- They started using iSoccer at the beginning of every practice, sometimes as a formal assessment, and sometimes as a quick challenge.
- Throughout practice, they used 20 seconds, and even came up with some new skills on their own.
- Coach Miles set short and long terms goals for everyone to achieve.
- iSoccer helped create a strong bond among teammates, and led to healthy, fun competition in training that motivated the entire team to spend time with the ball away from practice.
*The concept of a “growth mindset” was pioneered by Columbia and Stanford psychologist, Dr. Carol Dweck. She explains that, “in a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” You can read more about her groundbreaking studies with school children.
iSoccer uses games to create a fun path that shows kids how to improve in soccer and in life. Coach Miles used iSoccer as a foundation, applied it to his personal coaching philosophy, and ran with it. How you use it is up to you!
Cheers!
The iSoccer Team
What coaches are saying about iSoccer
We just received this letter from Gary Buyagawan, a coach in Washington who has recently started incorporating the iSoccer Assessment and training tools into his curriculum. It’s so exciting to hear positive experiences like these taking place across the country! Thanks for sharing Gary.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for providing such a great tool like iSoccer for the soccer community. While we, as a club, are admittedly still getting up and running with the iSoccer program I have taken the opportunity to run my own GU-17 team through some of the assessment drills and they absolutely love them. From a players viewpoint there are a number of great things about iSoccer.
- The players love the competitive nature of the drills. Not only against their teammates but also against themselves to see improvement each time.
- The players have found the drills fun and exciting and are anxiously awaiting to have full membership access to the website.
- Videos that the players can download onto their iPods are a huge plus. This makes their individual training portable and convenient. Players like the ability to clearly see what is being executed before trying to replicate it on their own.
From a coaching standpoint I could not ask for a better online program than iSoccer. Here are a list of benefits that I’ve seen (and remember, this is only with very limited usage thus far).
- New tools to help player development. The iSoccer program has been a great help in keeping the players and coaches focused on technical development.
- As we all know, keeping the older age group girls focused on their training rather than boys, work and/or other things is hard. This was the right tool at the perfect time to get my players focused back towards soccer in a competitive, yet fun fashion. Getting GU-17 players to actually focus on technical development is a huge challenge that can be easily corrected by using iSoccer.
- Immediate and truly measurable results. You can clearly see improvement or regression via the assessment process. There is no gray area for players to hide in. Either they are moving forward and improving or they are not as the assessments tell the full truth of player strengths and weaknesses.
- The drills and assessments emphasize balanced development with both feet and don’t allow players to favor one foot heavily.
- Players are excited and have repeatedly asked when the next assessment is going to take place. This means they are mentally engaged in their own development. Which, to be honest, is absolutely huge for players of the age group I’m currently coaching (GU-17).
As we had discussed on the phone I have been looking for an online program to support our club operations for a long time. I was looking for a program that would truly help the coaches develop their players as well as keep the individual player involved in their own progression. Something that I felt the coaches and players would both buy into because not only did it help foster improvement in their technical skill level but was fun for everyone involved. After a very long search, and regretfully a lot of misspent money, I found out that this type of program did not exist in the form the club needed… That is, it didn’t exist until iSoccer came along.
Even with the limited exposure to the program that we’ve provided out players, I cannot say enough about the positive impact iSoccer has already had on our club. I have spoken with all of the Velocity coaches and they have in turn contacted their players/parents regarding the iSoccer program. Further, rumors have already been floating from our club players, parents and teams to other local clubs and associations about this “new training program” that Velocity will be using. Needless to say, everyone is very excited and is looking forward to the upcoming year with iSoccer and Velocity Futbol Club.
Thank you,
Gary Buyagawan
Head Coach – Velocity FC ’92 Green (Washington State League, GU-17)
Program Director – Velocity FC (Girls Competitive Program with Cascade Soccer Club)
Learn more about iSoccer at www.iSoccer.org
iSoccer for Coaches – Rob Becerra
Rob Becerra, Associate Head Coach of Stanford University and the Director of Coaching for Palo Alto Soccer Club, talks about some of the benefits of using iSoccer with his players, teams, and club. To hear more from other coaches, players, and parents about the value of iSoccer visit our YouTube channel and click on the Testimonials playlist.
More places to follow iSoccer
