While the club and its teams strive to win games, winning at all costs is not compatible with the SSC philosophy. We prepare our players to play the right way in order to develop the habits and discipline that, in time, significantly benefit our players’ growth, development, and success. The fact is, player development is a deliberate and gradual process of individual and team advancements that leads to a player and a team reaching his, her, or its highest potential.
What is the right way to play soccer? We believe in an attacking and high pressing passing and possession game as opposed to a more defensive counter attacking game. In short, we want our players to develop the mentality and character of making decisions that create opportunities as opposed to sitting back and waiting for the other team or players to make mistakes that may be taken advantage of. We prefer our players to be proactive rather than reactive, which is one of the developmental traits we hope our boys and girls will be able to transfer to their life outside of soccer and into adulthood.
We believe SSC’s philosophy provides better opportunities to develop our players’ soccer skills because they would be more involved since they would get significantly more touches on the ball during training sessions and in competitive games thereby potentially becoming better able and equipped to deal with pressure. In addition, players generally have more fun if they or their team have possession of the ball rather than them chasing the opposing players to try to retrieve it – just ask your child. Our intention is to make our players comfortable on the ball, a quality that defines great players of the game. The fact is, if a player is not comfortable on the ball, it is virtually certain that that player will become or remain a lower division or recreational player.
The style of play that we are impressing upon our players forces them to think and be aware of their and their team mates’ positioning. Again, these are qualities that a player needs to possess to become a good soccer player. Eventually, we expect our players’ decision-making abilities to improve more quickly as a result of this style of play.