Breakers Passion
The passion to play. And keep playing. That’s a foundational element of the Breakers. Players should be psyched to go to practice, and happy about the game they just played whether they won or lost. Without passion you run the risk of your player “burning out”. Our goal at Breakers is to ignite your player’s initial passion for soccer, and keep it burning strong through the fall-off years of age 13-14 when huge numbers of kids start dropping out of sports.
Passion means kids playing with fearlessness, creativity, and enough breathing room that they can play their other sports. It means parents and coaches give players room to play. Hence our gentle, but continuous, reminders to parents to not try and “joystick” your player from the sideline during games. Let them play. The coach is watching and taking note of what they need to work on in practice. The players should just be going for it on the field…not looking at the coach or the parents when they make a mistake.
We are careful about to not wear players down with drills when they are very young. We want to give them the repetition they need to learn foundational skills, but not too much. This gradually changes year after year as the players are able to appreciate that what they’re learning through drills makes them better on the field. Which then further feeds the passion, in a virtuous cycle. But at age 7, 8 and 9 it’s the actual playing of the game that gets them juiced to play more.