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To achieve the club’s goals the club Technical Director- Mohamed Mohamed has assembled an outstanding group of coaches and trainers and put together a technical development program aimed at mastering all aspects of the game in a positive and encouraging environment.

The Technical Director keeps records of each player and team’s performance during the course of their time in the technical development program.

Player Attendance – Team coaches keep logs sheets of each player’s attendance at practice.  These sheets are given to the Technical Director at the end of every month.

Player Evaluation – Team coaches fill-out standard, age-appropriate, player evaluation forms/reports - once a season for U8-U10 players and twice a season for U11-U19 players.   These forms rate a player’s performance in practice sessions and games for the following areas: technical skill, tactical knowledge and understanding, physical conditioning, and mental attitude.

Team Evaluation – Team coaches also complete, on a monthly basis, the team’s results in league games and tournaments.

Coach Evaluation – All coaches are given season performance expectations by the Technical Director.  Coaches will be evaluated on how they conduct practice sessions.  Together with the Technical Director each coach must prepare a season-long development plan.  For the 1st-half of the season the plan is in accordance with the instruction and content provided in the Technical Development Program Manual.  For the 2nd-half of the season the plan is adjusted by the coach based on the most-needed areas of development identified from observing actual games.  Coaches provide the Technical Director with an outline of their practice session for each week.  Coaches prepare a detailed written/sketched-out practice plan for every practice session.  Coaches attend coaches’ meetings and coaches’ clinics regularly throughout the season.  

All too often in the competitive phase of development we see players who struggle with the challenge of dealing with the ball (ball control), or players who struggle with avoiding, eluding, or winning challenges to the ball made by the opponent (1-v-1 pressure), or individual defensive ability, etc.  These players have not acquired the necessary individual ability needed to support tactical team play in competitive games.  They are the weak link and the cause of frequent turnovers in possession of the ball – leading to ping-pong soccer, which in turn leads to an inability to play effective possession soccer, and a tendency to play a more expedient, direct, and opportunistic game.

Therefore, it is imperative that in the foundation phase of their development players are given a good start on the road to becoming strong technical players – players who will become confident and comfortable on the ball as a result of their control/mastery of it; to the point where eventually the player can make the ball respond precisely to the player’s will. 

The Foundation Phase, U8-U10, was introduced as part of the LMSC program in 2006 to develop the motor skills, technical skills, and individual play of young players in simple soccer settings.  Players practice in a fun and encouraging environment and are given plenty of freedom to learn through experimenting, or trail and error.  During this phase a player develops his/her own individual relationship with the ball (personal style of play) and learns how effective he/she can be in achieving the game’s various objectives (develops an insight for his/her own individual play)

Games and competitions are informal; having fun and the development of the player is the primary concern.  Games are the perfect vehicle for players to express their newly acquired abilities and knowledge and for coaches to see how well players in the age-group are progressing.

This is an important phase in a player’s career and it’s important that their coaches focus on development and don’t get caught-up in results, or winning.   At this age, the game result is a distant second to developing individual ability and confidence and comfort on the ball.  Equally distant, are:  emphasis on tactical play, player-position roles and tasks, and reliance on proper collective play.  Again, the goal of this phase is the development of the basic individual abilities needed to play the game and for the player to develop a feel for what the game is all about – its basic goals and objectives.

However, it is important to note that players have to be made aware that, important as it is, technical ability is not the ultimate objective in a player’s development and that in the competitive phase technical skill and motivation are simply used to support tactical play.
In the Foundation Phase a player naturally gains good individual tactical understanding/insight by simply playing in lots of small-sided games – in the same way it that it used to be acquired from playing street soccer, in the past.  Tactical insight developed in this phase of development is intended to be mostly individual in nature.
 
U-8, U-9, and U-10 teams fall into this phase of player development.
In this age-group it is important for young players to develop the motor-skills needed to play the game and to begin learning, practicing, and developing the following technical skills and soccer objectives:

• Gaining control of the ball and then progressing to specific soccer skills - running and dribbling with the ball, passing and shooting, shielding, ball control – receiving, 1st-touch, (elementary Coerver moves), turns, and feints, etc. 
  
  
• Basic 1-v-1 attacking and defending in simplified soccer situations
  
  
• Teaching basic insight and decision-making by introducing the relationship between skills and/or teammates and the basic objectives of the game – both being used to achieve the games objectives.  The learning of these skills will occur naturally without a lot of instruction from the coach.  They are acquired largely and most efficiently and effectively through playing the game itself.

Players must be allowed to have fun and be encouraged to try new ways of dealing with soccer situations.   Small-sided games, like 2-v-2 or 3-v-3 for example, are useful formats to teach the game to young players because they ensure:- each player gets lots of touches on the ball, movement and motor skill development occur, there are opponents and teammates to consider, direction is factor, pressure is introduced, rules and game objectives apply, and the concepts of space & time are present and play their normal roles – even though at this age players will be entirely unaware of them.

In order to be competitive at the elite level great teams play collectively – because benefits emerge from playing collectively that exceed the ability of individual play.   Individual players realize and accept that the best way of achieving the team’s objectives is to use their talents to express themselves through coordinated collective team play – looking for solutions in terms of supporting teammate’s positions and movements/runs.

Player development now shifts from developing individual ability in an informal setting to developing the insight and willingness to playing collectively in formal competitive game settings.

U10 - U19 teams come under this phase of player development.   In U11-U19 age-group teams are subdivided in Division-1 A/B and Division-3 - depending on a player’s ability and interest level/commitment to becoming a competitive soccer player.  Also, there are between 1-3 premier teams formed each year depending on the depth and quality of the player pool and team situations.

U-10 Competitive
In this age-group it is important for young players to continue to develop their motor-skills for the speed, agility, strength & coordination needed to play the game and to also continue learning, practicing, and developing their technical skills  - heading towards eventual mastery of the ball.  Players are now introduced to using their individual skills in a collective organization – teamwork.
Some LMSC policy and organization criteria start to be put in place at this age:

• In general, each player will play at least one half of any game.  Playing time is based on attendance at practices and the motivation to improve shown by players at practice.
  
  
• Each player will play as many different positions as possible, including goalkeeper.  For example, a striker (forward) gains experience by understanding how a central back plays.  The purpose is not to turn the striker into a central back, but rather to make the striker a more complete player and a better striker.
  
  
• Since the outcome of the game is less important in the younger age groups, coaches are asked to rotate players – give all players the opportunity to play different positions.  This is not to suggest that winning, or losing, is irrelevant, but that investment in player development has a higher long-term priority.  Game scores are forgotten in a day by players at this age.
  
  
• There are no pre-established team captains.  Captains rotate based on practice effort, game performance, and player attitude.
  
  
• Winning at all-cost is not to be stressed, either by coaches, or by parents.  The expediency and opportunism of direct styles-of-play like ‘kick and chase’ are generally successful (get the winning result) at younger age groups.  However, this style of play does little to develop and prepare players for future competition at the older age-groups.  Therefore, we encourage/insist that a style-of-play be used that demands, promotes and develops a player’s expression of technical skill, creativity, imagination, teamwork, and heart & passion to achieve the objectives of the game.  This is our goal.  Possession soccer is our style-of-play.

U11-U19 Competitive

Players are introduced to the specialization of roles and lines and their associated tasks within the team organization.

Players are taught the accepted principles of the game and the game’s objectives in all phase of play.

Players are trained to develop insight for how the principles of the game, tactical options, and player actions can be used to drive every game situation closer to their team’s desired objectives.  The gap between a desired objective and the present situation is what motivates the competitive player to perform.

Although technical skill and a player’s will are key ingredients for success in soccer, in order for a team to be competitive skill and player will have to be integrated with tactical knowledge - to ensure long-term success as a player, as a team, and ultimately as a club.  Tactical insight is called upon:- whenever a solution to a game situation needs to be found, whenever a player has to make a decision, or as soon as he/she involves a teammate in the play.

In the competitive phase of development winning is ranked together with continued player development; with winning becoming increasingly more important in the later years.  The individual ability developed in the Foundation Phase now has to be brought into a collective and team-efficient context.  Players now combine and use their technical skill, strategy and tactical knowledge, and heart and passion to express themselves in a team-efficient manner – where the team’s interest, and not the individual’s, is the highest priority for all players.