This week has been the first full week of our stay at home coaching programme and the response has been fantastic. We spoke with our international program director Mark Smith today to talk in more depth about how this week has been:
Q. When did you put this programme in place?
Myself & Christian sat down a few weeks ago and started to plan ahead. We devised a programme that would help keep players engaged and focused. The main aim was to enable players to train at home but interact with other players and coaches and have fun.
Q. Why did you chose to do this?
We needed to help give some structure to our players during this testing time. Everyone at the moment is living in uncertainty and we felt we had to play our part in helping parents home school and get through this and also giving them a break so they can have that much needed few hours.
Q. What does the programme include?
It’s a range of different things. This week our players have taken part in live fitness camps and ball mastery sessions. They are able to access drills to do at home and we send them 2 weekly updates of new drills to try in their garden or a space they have. We had added in an educational element so players receive weekly worksheets to fill in and send back to us, these then get graded and players get given feedback on all kinds of technical and tactical topics. We even had a live interactive quiz night last night with players from USA & the U.K taking part.
Q. Can anyone join?
Yeah absolutely, we have over 50 players signed up for the programme this month taking part from the USA & U.K. We have players doing the sessions in bedrooms, kitchens, gardens, on their driveways. All you need is a football and some objects or markers for the live sessions and home drills.
Q. What else do you have planned for the programme this month?
We will continue to give them structure so they know that Monday’s and Friday’s are live sessions, Tuesday’s and Thursday’s are home drills and Wednesday’s they must complete their worksheets. We also have live FIFA tournaments happening for a bit of fun and a scheduled Q&A with our founder Christian Fuchs. More live quizzes and challenges will also take place.
Q. And finally is it too late to join up or how do you get involved?
It’s not too late, everyone reading this come and join in. You can send me an email at mark@foxsoccer.academy and I will help any new players sign up and get straight involved.
The response from parents and players to this programme so far has been so positive. Our coaches are obviously working very hard to bring this to you but thank you for joining in and making it work.
