At Byron Soccer, our youngest and most excited players will be well-supported this season with a comprehensive curriculum appropriate for their physical, emotional and mental stage. Think of it like our education system. We don’t expect our kindergartners to understand Grade 10 chemistry, right? This means playing on the right sized fields, and lots of fun drills and games that challenge the players in their proper stage of development.
It also means that we’re able to work in some flexibility. Everyone will be wearing Byron Green this year, but will have different numbers. If there is a player who needs to be challenged more, perhaps they might like to play up an age group for a couple of sessions. Or, if game time comes and a coach doesn’t have enough players (because, well, summer happens), we can mix and match. As well, even though we don’t accept requests, we will have some flexibility to possibly let players play with one or two friends.
While it will be business as usual for our U4 to U6 group, players in U8 will notice a big change in the size of field they’ll be playing on. As per the OSA’s rules, and in line with the local Development/Competitive League, U8 will be playing on 5v5 fields on Saturday mornings. This gives our U8 players some exciting opportunities to be called up (there are no scores and standings in Competitive until U13), or to possibly sign up to play some local festivals (i.e. against other clubs).
It is our objective to make the game of soccer exciting and fun for all our players. We hope that the few changes to the program this season will not only help our players develop their skills, but also further their love of the sport so that they’re hooked for life (because we do have some adult programs as well!).
Submitted by Byron Soccer
