Junior Soccer League (JSL)
Three Stage Development Model
Player Development
Each stage of the development model promotes a different development focus, which is the interplay between technical, physical, psychological and social variables. For example, when working with age 4-5 yrs old children, key considerations are that players of this age tire easily, need repetition and reinforcement, have short attention spans and mostly approach tasks individually.
Activities change constantly and skills are demonstrated and continually reinforced. In addition, information is concealed and camouflaged, such as using cartoon characters to bring an activity to life in a child’s mind or creating a story for a particular activity to give it an interesting context for the young player. Importantly, every child has a ball at their feet for the vast majority of time. Team play at this stage of development is restricted to small sided games and 1v1 situations. As players move into the 6-8 yr old age range we start introducing passing and working cooperatively with team mates.
Each stage of the development model promotes a different development focus, which is the interplay between technical, physical, psychological and social variables. For example, when working with age 4-5 yrs old children, key considerations are that players of this age tire easily, need repetition and reinforcement, have short attention spans and mostly approach tasks individually.
Activities change constantly and skills are demonstrated and continually reinforced. In addition, information is concealed and camouflaged, such as using cartoon characters to bring an activity to life in a child’s mind or creating a story for a particular activity to give it an interesting context for the young player. Importantly, every child has a ball at their feet for the vast majority of time. Team play at this stage of development is restricted to small sided games and 1v1 situations. As players move into the 6-8 yr old age range we start introducing passing and working cooperatively with team mates.
