Parents of young soccer players want to see them do well in their chosen sport, and possibly even build careers as star professional athletes. The sports authority, Blayze, provides a detailed review of the 5 main options for hiring a private coach and recommends one.
To assist parents in their evaluation of the main private soccer coaching options available for their kids, Blayze has compiled a detailed report, listing the pros, cons, and costs associated with each option.
The private soccer coaching options report can be accessed here.
Blayze’s report sets the stage by explaining that currently, over 50% of youths in the age group between 6 and 17 participate in an organized sport and that this is expected to increase to over 60% by 2030.
Families face a bewildering array of options to choose from, each bringing some distinct advantages and disadvantages to the table, not the least of which is the wide range of costs associated with each option.
Most families are not able to afford the lavish elite-level coaching options and need to find other options that deliver a tangible benefit to their kids at an affordable cost.
Most team sports are organized around team practices, games, and in some cases, tournaments. Parents often make a decision that team practices are enough to build their kid’s skills. The Blayze report, however, references a scientific study that proves that private lessons will increase the student’s performance by bumping them into the top 5% of their class.
Most of this improvement from private coaching comes from a significant increase in the player's level of confidence, which when added to superior skills development will deliver that significant bump in performance.
Whilst the Blayze report focuses mostly on soccer, the principles described apply equally to most other sports.
The five different types of private soccer coaching evaluated in the report are summarized below:
1. Academies:
These are essentially private schools, offering academics alongside a concentration on selected sports. Some offer boarding in addition to education and sports coaching.
Whilst a reputable academy will mostly produce individual performance results through live coach feedback, the main disadvantage is that this is by far the highest cost option, ranging up to $60K or more annually.
2. Off-Season Camps:
Many programs, such as an academy or professional team, offer camps as a way of marketing their core programs.
Costs vary from $200 to over $1000 per week but are significantly higher if the student is boarding at that location during that specific camp. The main disadvantage of these is these camps is that the player-to-coach ratio can be as high as 8:1 or even higher, making personalized coaching especially challenging.
3. Private Coaching Sessions:
One of the most popular ways of improving player skills and confidence is through the hiring of a personal, private coach. Athletes receive 1:1 training and mentorship and typically respond better to this than in an environment where coaching is provided to groups of students. This comes with distractions and the coach’s focus is diluted.
Finding a good, qualified coach is the biggest challenge, and in most cases, parents end up spending a lot of time tediously searching and then unfortunately are often still disappointed. Also, most elite coaches do not offer in-person private coaching.
Private coaching sessions typically cost around $100 per hour, so costs can quickly accumulate to significant amounts for the typical soccer family.
4. Training on Their Own:
There are several options for unguided, self-managed athlete training. These include the thousands of online videos on YouTube and other sources. The majority of these would not be suitable for a specific youth athlete, would not deliver any benefit, and actually could result in injury or performance degradation due to frustration and a loss of confidence.
There are several training apps listed in the report. These require a monthly subscription of as much as $25 per month or higher and require the purchase of specialized equipment. They do not, however, offer 1:1 personalized coaching, therefore do not offer the ability to interface with a coach, ask questions, have them watch game film, or get any feedback.
5. Blayze+ Personalized Pro-Coaching:
This product promises to revolutionize private coaching, making it a far more powerful option than all of the others described above, and is also by far the most affordable.
The Blayze platform analyzes the athlete’s profile, team position, and overall development goals, and then recommends a number of professional coaches to choose from.
The Blayze+ program offers a package of technique (skills) analysis plus game film coaching, weekly custom training plans, calls with their selected coach, mentorship, chat messaging prior to and after games or training sessions, and will offer additional features in the future.
Pricing for this program and other Blayze services is surprisingly affordable, ranging from $39 for a one-time video analysis to $79 for a game film analysis. The Blayze+ subscription program costs only $365 per year, which includes two technique video analyses, and a game film coaching analysis.
For more information about the Blayze+ program see Blayze+.
Blayze is offering a scholarship program for young women soccer players in partnership with three NWSL players. More information about this program can be found here: Blayze Women’s Soccer Scholarship.
