Virginia United FC

How do you raise the national standard of players graduating to play for the Socceroo’s or the Brisbane Roar?

The key is to start young and ensure the base of the skill pyramid is learned well. It’s very hard to adjust or fix techniques learned poorly in junior football, therefore it is imperative that skills are learned and developed in the right environment.

U8 - U12 is part of the so called ‘golden age of motor learning’. In this period before entering the growing spurt that goes hand in hand with puberty, children are well balanced and coordinated. This makes them very adaptive to developing motor skills (techniques) especially since this also is the brain’s key development period. 

In no other development phase in life will motor learning happen faster than here. As a logical consequence of the above it makes sense that we make optimal use of this period to lay a sustainable technical foundation. Therefore it’s extremely important that we have qualified professional coaches working with players showing promise at those age categories.

The Academy Program has been put in place at Virginia United FC to help guide player development. The U8 Future Squad aims to ensure that the overriding focus is still on fun. We use some hidden learning along with specially adapted sessions from the U9-U12 Junior Academy to develop the players core skills.