Soccer 1:1

Parents & Friends, 

Today I have a testimonial to share with you from a parent whose two sons attended our training program from December 2018 to September 2021. At that time they relocated to Marin but have stayed in touch. 

Dear fellow soccer families, 

My sons are two years apart and trained with Patrick for nearly three years. The semi-private two-on-one lessons were a terrific format. The boys would alternate performing drills with and against each other and as a team against Patrick. The emphasis of Patrick's training was on skills, fitness, and footwork, which often are not given enough attention in club training. The benefits have been huge. When we moved out of San Francisco, my younger son immediately placed into the local club's competitive team, mainly due to his foot skills. He continues to use these skills daily, as a midfield player with excellent passing ability that enables his team's strikers to score. I'd highly recommend Patrick's lessons for...

Parents and Friends,

We’ve all seen young players struggling with the mechanics of taking the ball from an opponent.

Trying to make foot contact with the ball to regain possession.

In soccerspeak we call this tackling.

New families who want help will frequently tell me their child is shying away from these 1v1 situations.

While the kids that do attack the ball often just run and attempt to kick it! 

Of course, 'get stuck in' can be great feedback for an adult soccer team but how do we actually get young players to tackle?

Like any other technique it needs to be taught by reversing bad habits, proper instruction and lots of REPETITIONS. 

There are three types of tackle: the block, poke and slide.

And our players work on these in sessions solely focused on defense.

These are my top 5 tips for the block tackle...

1) The non-tackling foot must be beside the ball.
2) Your tackling foot must be off the ground and directly behind the ball.
3) Execute the tackle using the...