Our Philosophy

Our philosophy centers on player development. Player development is a paradigm that focuses on developing each individual player to their full potential instead of focusing on team accolades. This paradigm promotes the development of creative, skillful, and intrinsically motivated players. Our philosophy is based off the US Soccer Federation document entitled "Player Development Guidelines: Best Practices for Coaching Soccer in the US". The following are key points to understanding our environment:

FUN, COMPETITIVE AND DEMANDING: We want our players to strive for excellence by focusing on task mastery and intrinisic motivation. If the environment is not fun, why play?

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: In order to learn, players must have the freedom to make mistakes and take risks. If there is a fear of failure, the player will never reach their full potential. A winning at all costs mentality at the youth level promotes an environment where players are discouraged from making mistakes. This goes counter to a learning environment because players NEED to take risks and learn from mistakes in order to improve.

INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT: Development is a marathon and not a sprint. It is a long run concept focused on player improvement. Winning is important. However, individual development is significantly more important. The appropriate metrics for measuring individual development are the skills improvement, decision making improvement, and the continued enthusiasm of the player. The number of team championships or the prestige of playing in a certain league or division does not measure individual development.

OPPORTUNITY: Players in our program with a strong desire have the best opportunity to reach their goals in soccer. Our focus on improvement and learning promotes the development of quality players. Quality players have opportunties to realize their goals whether its advancing from our recreation program to our travel program or the dream of playing college soccer. Team accolades do not prepare players for opportunties.

COACHING EDUCATION: All Phoenix coaches were former players, have coaching licenses, and value coaching education. Coaching education is like any profession. One never stops learning how to improve their craft and no one knows it all. Although it's helpful to be a former player, that in itself doesn't qualify one to teach or understand the child development issues that coaching education addresses. Coaching courses teach coaches how to teach. You must earn a passing grade to earn the coaching license. Professional players take coaching courses because teaching is different than playing.