© 2010 Soccer America, 1140 Broadway New York, NY 10001 USA

A player can always improve his fitness by working out hard. He can comprehend certain tactics by studying the game. But how far he goes will be determined mainly by how well he has mastered ball skills. Those are acquired by playing, day after day, year after year.

A player who really wants to excel will spend as much time as possible playing small-sided games when he has playmates, and juggling and kicking against the wall when he's on his own.

I spent a lot of time hitting the ball against the side of the house when I was a growing up. If my mother complained about the noise, I'd hop down the retaining wall at the end of our property to the office-building parking lot.

I'd use that wall -- hitting the ball with both feet, seeing how long I could return the wall's passes without losing control. I found out later that so many pros spent lots of their childhood doing that.

Dennis Bergkamp, the great Dutch striker who scored and set up hundreds of goals for Ajax Amsterdam, Arsenal, and the Dutch national team, said that when he was a youth player at Ajax, they had little three-foot-high walls. He would knock the ball against the walls for hours. Every time he hit the ball, he'd know whether it was a good touch or a bad touch. He'd do it over and over, trying to establish a rhythm.

Whenever I saw Bergkamp slotting a perfectly placed ball past a goalkeeper or making a precise pass, I thought of him practicing against the wall.

Kicking against the wall is an excellent way to work on improving your weaker foot. You can back up and practice shots on goal, or move close to the wall and work on passing, because where there's a wall, there's a teammate.

You can practice trapping and work on your first touch by controlling the ball before you kick it, or hit it back first time.

Passing the ball against a wall from close distance takes timing and coordination. Hit the ball faster, and you've got to react faster and get a rhythm going. It almost feels like you're dancing.

Practicing the correct striking of the ball over and over helps it become second nature. It has to be, because in a game a player doesn't have time to think about his form or approach. Under pressure, everything is more difficult. Mastering technique while playing on your own is the first step to being able to do it right in a game.

(Excerpted from "More Than Goals: The Journey from Backyard Games to World Cup Competition" by Claudio Reyna, courtesy of Human Kinetics.)

(Claudio Reyna was named the U.S. Soccer Federation's Youth Technical Director in April 2010. Reyna played nearly 13 years in the top-tier leagues of Germany (Bayer Leverkusen, VfL Wolfsburg), Scotland (Glasgow Rangers) and England (Sunderland, Manchester City). He represented the USA in four World Cups, and captained the Americans to a quarterfinal run at the 2002 World Cup, where he became the first American selected to the FIFA World Cup all-star team.) 

For the 2010-2011 season, the club welcomes Zachary Samol, Georgetown University Men's Soccer Assistant Coach, as the Academy Director.  Coach Samol brings two years of experience as a Head Coach of U-15/16 and U-17/18 teams within the US Soccer Development Academy program. 

Anthony Hudson, current Head Coach of Real Maryland (a USL Second Division Professional Club), will be the program's U-17/18 Head Coach.  Coach Hudson is a former professional player, and one of the youngest coaches ever to obtain the prestigious UEFA A license from the English Football Association. 

John O'Hara, Assistant Coach at George Mason University, has been added as a member of the coaching staff.  A native of Ireland, Coach O'Hara attended Mason where he earned numerous honors as a Goalkeeper culminating in his 2009 induction into the Men's Soccer Hall of Fame at his alma mater. 

Assisting the coaching staff on the administrative side is Melissa
Riemer, who has over ten years of travel team and club administration, including two years of experience as a Development Academy administrator.

The U.S. Soccer Development Academy is a partnership between U.S. Soccer and the top youth clubs around the country to provide the best youth players in the U.S. with an every day environment designed to produce the next generation of National Team players. The Academy's programming philosophy of increased training, less total games and more competitive games is based on U.S. Soccer's Best Practices.  McLean Youth Soccer was selected as an Academy club by U.S. Soccer in 2009. 

 
More information about the McLean Development Academy program can be found at http://www.mcleansoccer.org/page/show/97043-academy . 

Further questions can be directed to Academy@McLeansoccer.org