Coerver Coaching and the Minnesota Connection
The mid 1980s brought the wonder of VHS tape technology into middle class homes throughout the world. We could now watch VHS movies in our homes and we created our own home movies that could be viewed immediately. Schools and colleges used VHS tapes for teaching and business and the sciences used the new video technology. With the advent of VHS came changes in the way we examined things. This held true for a man who eventually had an influence on young soccer players around the world. His name was Weil Coerver and he was known as the “Einstein of Football”.
Coerver had spent over 25 years in the Netherlands as a player and coach. He was well respected as a player in the Netherlands and as a coach in Europe, but it was the embracing of video technology that allowed the Dutch manager to develop a program that is still making inroads throughout the world some 25 years later. Coerver realized that through repeated viewing of slow motion video tapes he could analyze the moves of the world’s best soccer players. In doing so Coerver was able to break down the smallest intricacies to each step of the move: The shifting of weight, the change of speed and direction to the balance foot — even which part of the foot would make contact with the ball. In the dissection he could repeat the move himself and then teach it to young developing players.
Coerver also realized students needed to identify the moves so he named each feint after the player who was most famous at the time for that move: The Littbarski step-on move, the Rivelino step over move, the Sir Stanley Matthew’s shuffle step, or the van Basten double scissors move. These are just a few of the many fakes taught by Coerver.
Fast forward to 1993. I was only 5 years into my coaching journey. The World Cup was coming to the US the following year and a special World Cup exhibit was touring the country. One of the stops was the indoor field house at the National Sports Center in Blaine, Minnesota, home of the new Minnesota Stars Soccer team. Beside lots of skills clinics, World Cup memorabilia and past World Cup stars like the legendary English goalkeeper Gordon Banks (who I got to meet), there were also future hopefuls like the still relatively unknown Cobi Jones.
Along with the touring exhibit was a display for Coerver Coaching. It was my first encounter with the organization and I liked a pamphlet they handed out that helped me make lesson plans for skills training sessions. I also sent for a free Coerver Tape called “Play Like a Legend.” The tape eventually arrived in the mail and I’ll always remember the first time I viewed it. I suppose it was sort of a soccer epiphany. I was amazed as these very young players showed remarkable foot-skills and moves that the only the pros had seemed to display. Not only did they demonstrate the skills but they conducted them in drills that were easy, sensible and kept the players moving and with a ball at their feet.
I set out to learn as much as I could about Coerver coaching and over the years used many of the drills and footwork skills on the players I trained, particularly working it into winter and spring training.
Simon Whitehead had been in the US since the mid 80′s when he left his home to pursue a masters degree in physical education, something that was not yet offered in his home country of England. Whitehead, who had played soccer as a youth and found his niche as a goalkeeper, ended up settling into the Twin Cities and even wrote a book on coaching soccer that sold about 20,000 copies. Even though the book sold well, Whitehead soon learned there was a bigger demand for teaching the information within the book, not only to players but to coaches. Whitehead recalls a coaches clinic in Burnsville in 1987 where there were 100 coaches in attendance. He says he ran out of cones and was using shoes, bags, and whatever they could find to mark off training grids. Whitehead then realized the demand for soccer trainers.
Whitehead continued to teach school, coach and conduct training sessions until his life was dramatically changed in 1993 by a book he read called “Soccer Excellence.” It was written by none other than Weil Coerver. Whitehead tried to learn the moves and techniques from the book’s photographs, but he says when the tapes came out, the light came on.
Coerver Coaching uses a pyramid system of development, starting with Ball Mastery and finishing with Group Attack.
“Here was something so different, so unique and so fun that I decided I had to be part of this,” said Whitehead. He says he had become jaded with the teaching of the Football Association (FA) in England and felt that they were stuck in time and become stagnant as a football nation. “A lot of guys come over to the US to get away from the FA,” continued Whitehead. “Over here they can coach the Brazilian way, the German way or take the best of the American way and they can produce their own coaching philosophy.”
The English coach who had settled in the Twin Cities soon made a call to the legendary Charlie Cook who was located in Cincinnati and ran Coerver Coaching in the US. The International Director of Coerver Coaching Alfred Galustian and Charlie Cook have been instrumental in spreading the Coerver gospel according to Whitehead and he quickly found himself the Director of Coerver Coaching Minnesota.
Glen Buckley, Neil Cassidy, Carl Craig, Wayne Harrison, Gavin Pugh and John Tudor are just a few of the many English coaches Whitehead has brought over to Minnesota through the years. “Coaching soccer is never work for an Englishman, it’s always play,” said Whitehead with a dry smile on his face. “That’s one thing the English coaches always had for the game, was the passion.”
These days Whitehead is working with US coaches. He says they now have that same passion for the game that the English coaches used to bring with them from his country of origin. “They’ve really gotten into it and are passionate about the game,” said Whitehead. “They follow the international game more than I do! I think we give them (coaches) something different in terms of training than the USSF gives them. We are a little more focused on the technical side, where the USSF may focus more on the tactical side.”
Whitehead says the technical aspect of Coerver Coaching makes it a great fit for American kids. “Unfortunately our kids in this country today are not the kind of kids we were when we were young,” said Whitehead. “We would just go out and play soccer for two or three hours after school. So in the absence of that, the Coerver method is a great session because it’s intense and it focuses on foot skills. Everyone is flying around passing, moving, and shooting. We don’t do a whole lot with tactics. We often don’t go anything more than 4 on 4 because we believe that the whole field is made of up little micro fields: 1 v 1′s, 2 v 2′s and 3 v 3′s. We do work on a lot of creative skills and giving the kids the confidence to go out and excel. I just think that Coerver is a good fit for the American kid because of the high intensity and the touches they wouldn’t otherwise get in larger sided training.”
Coerver has swept Japan where 15,000 kids aged 5-15 attend Coerver sessions each week. The method has seen over 500 youth enter into J-League club systems. Franz Beckenbauer, Jürgen Klinsmann, Carlos Pereira, Arsene Wenger, Alex Ferguson and Gérard Houllier are just some of the many top level coaches who endorse the Coerver method especially for the 8- to 14-year-olds, according to Whitehead. He stated that the Coerver coaching method is now a world standard.
Coerver Minnesota has recently entered into an agreement with the new NSC Minnesota Stars soccer team to conduct their camps and clinics. Phil Walczak will be the point man for the Coerver Camps associated with the Stars. Whitehead said that Coerver has always been about excellence and so they have looked for the best to team with for their camps and clinics. Two new additions to his coaching team are Keeper Konnection, a new goalkeeper training program and Fit Studios, a fitness center that the NSC Stars use for their conditioning.
Keeper Konnection is headed up by Tom Kleczewski and Jon Lowery, the later being a former assistant coach for the Thunder and head coach of mens’ soccer program at Hamline University.
Fit Studio is owned and operated by Aaron Leventhal who was a former Minnesota Thunder player and whose studio is the only soccer specific fitness studio in the Twin Cities.
“We are really excited to be associated with the new NSC Soccer team,” stated Whitehead. “We really want to work with the clubs and we want to work with the soccer community. We want to make sure the Stars players are accessible through the camps and clinics and through coaching sessions. We need the clubs to support the team and we need the clubs to support the camps. I’m not shy in saying that. It’s a financial reality. But we believe that if they have a camp in their area, it will be the best camp they’ve ever had – Period. Because all the kids are going to get trained and all the people running the camp are going to get trained. They will have the players there as role models and hopefully they can then go and watch a Stars game and see those same players demonstrate some of the things they taught in the camp.”
For more information on the NSC Minnesota Stars Coerver Coaching programs click here.
Simon Whitehead is currently a Physical Education teacher at Southwest High School in Minneapolis and coaches the Edina Girls Varsity team where in the last 2 years they have made back-to-back appearances in the Minnesota State High School Tournament.
Comments are closed.
“We don’t do a whole lot with tactics”.
Great individual skill training for the younger kids.
I think Jeff pointed out a great weakness about Coevrer. That said, I think most programs do not develop and refine the individual balls skills, which is essential. As a youth player, I was never encouraged to work hard on my individual ball skills and look at what happened to me…
Fantastic article! Thanks BQ.
Im a big fan of Coerver Training. As a coach, amateur player, and college referee I recognize that many of our ‘top level’ players struggle with simple moves and turns. Coerver training can help make youth players masters of the ball and increase the overall ability of all players as soccer players…not just athletes playing soccer.
I’d be interested in the economics behind this.
Why is this a better system than setting up a camp system under the NSC MInnesota Stars name?
Who actually owns the camp?
Is it a franchise model?
What are the rough percentages of the income split between athe parties involved? Or is there just a flat fee paid to Coerver Central?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Another alternative is David Lawson from Kellix. Although he is getting on in years. I had many players train with him over many years and would say the results he produced were better than Coerver. I think the Coerver method is good, but many of their trainers lack the ability to run an effective training session. It also tends to be quite a bit more expensive than alternatives. It is interesting that many of the Coerver coaches listed are English (not bad, just interesting.) The strength of the English game is certainly not technical skills/foot skills. But more tactics, set pieces and game speed. Certainly foot skills are very important and are easier to teach than tactics and game philosophy as you can work with a single player and single skill at a time. Coerver offers a very good method, depending on the instructor. I am in full agreement that “command of the ball” is the basis for all other training (but I also put passing and receiving on the same level.)
The Coerver method has been an excellent way for my son to increase his technical and tactical skills. Coerver programs for U13 players involve utilizing the technical skills in tactical situations. You can’t teach tactics if the technical skills are lacking. There are plenty of Coerver coaches that are not English as well (Latcho Kastadinov for example). Outside of individual club coaching, I haven’t found anything to compare.
Full disclosure, Hando… are you a Coerver coach?
Good point though about being way behind in technical training. Minnesota clubs seem to lack quality technical skills training at it’s youngest ages.
Trappatoni,
Not currently, may become involved in the future. I suspect you saw an earlier post when I inquired about coerver being named the offical trainer. Just interested in the development of youth players. I have seen many out of state teams and recognize that we are behind.
I like Coerver primarly because of my experiences as a youth player. However, that is not to say that Greg Thompson, Alan Merrick, or other local community camps didn’t also offer quality training experiences. They most certainly did.
For me any proper technical training is good for the development of a player. Recently, the club I coach for hosted a number of non-coerver based technical camps and I have seen vast improvement of individual ability in live game and short sided game situations.
Many clubs have coaches who have worked with Coerver and know the Coerver training techniques.
If you’re fortunate enough to have this type of training on your team or in your club don’t go to the additional expense of Coerver. These aren’t 1 on 1 training sessions.
Ask your coach and club DOC about what you can get within your own club vs Coerver.
It all comes down to the player who’s willing to put in time on his own to perfect the ball skills taught during the training sessions…whether it’s the team training or through a Coerver session.
SCOTT- good questions. From what I know/understand Coerver is a world wide training program. Coerver MN is directed by Simon Whitehead as part of the Coerver USA franchise. I’d imagine there is a percentage deal worked out with NSC Minnesota as the contract is 3 years and the number of camp attendees/camps offered will certainly vary over the length of contract. NSC Minnesota could set up a camp, however, by contracting Coerver they draw campers from an established market (this may end up limiting their market as Coerver is not everyone’s prefered method of training and can be expensive).
Coerver has an accrediation process for coaches, so theoretically coaches should be effective and well trained in the Coerver Method. Surely, there is a range of coaches, which was astutely pointed out ZLATAN
MIAC FAN I believe you are right to a certain degree. Many club do have a good technical training whether it be of the Coerver Method or alternative method and development does come down to the willingness of the player. However, all players develop best in different conditions. Whether technical training is done in a structure v. unstructured setting, the skill level and focus of other players, the use of the socratic method, command style, or the open-play coaching/communication methods. In light of this I would argue that Coerver training could provide a better training atmosphere for the development of certain players. This is not to say that Coerver Coaches are necessarily consistent in their individual training methods nor are their ways superior (or even different for that matter) than those of different club coaches, just saying Coerver can be superior while recognizing club training certainly has the potential to be equal to or superior in individual cases.
COME ON INTER!
Inter won.
Chelsea go home
OT: jw7 … why you such a spoiler … I was just sitting down to watch the game … haven’t you learned? after last seasons lessons regarding posting results on line? I’m very disappointed in you, you’re buying me a beer at the pub, OK?
I’m a select / travel soccer coach and I use the Coerver method in my sessions. However, I don’t rely on Coerver predominantly. We train twice a week and one session is Coerver based and one session is either a small-sided game or a typical session (transition from offense to defense, crossing from wide areas etc.).
Since my primary aim is to improve the fundamental technical skills of all my players, I can customize and tweak the Coerver sessions based on the talent level of the kids. I normally split the players into two groups based on talent level so they’re playing against kids who have a similar level of ability.
I’ve found dedicating one of my weekly sessions to Coerver and the other to a small-sided games / regular training session gives me a nice balance.