Here are some helpful tips for everyone:
• Parents must not coach from the pitch side during matches and training.
• Parents should not criticize their child on any part of the player’s game, leave this to the coaches since it may cause confusion and erode the player’s confidence.
• Be your child’s best fan and support him unconditionally. Don’t withdraw your love when he performs below his standard.
• On transporting your child home, please be supporting and always focus on the positive aspects of his game.
• Develop a responsibility in your son to pack his own kit, clean boots and bring along his water bottle full of water only.
• Respect the facilities at our opponents’ grounds.
• Do not criticize your child’s coach to your child or other parents, if you are not happy with the coach you should raise the issue with the coach.
• Encourage your child to speak with the coach. If your child is having difficulties in training or games, or can’t attend training etc. encourage him to speak directly to the coaches. This “responsibility taking” is a big part of becoming a mature person. By handling off the field tasks, your child is claiming ownership of all aspects of the game.
• Monitor your child’s stress level at home. Keep an eye on the player to make sure that they are handling stress effectively from the various activities of life.
• Monitor eating and sleeping habits. Be sure that your child is eating the correct foods. Players should be in bed at a reasonable hour on the night before a game and early enough on other nights to ensure that adequate rest is being taken.
• Help your child keep her priorities correct. She needs to maintain a focus on schoolwork, relationships, and other things in life besides football.
• Help the young player to focus on the performance and not the result.
•Winning is not as important as the performance.
• Support all the players in your child’s squad. Do not criticize any player.
• Do not criticize the opponents, their parents, coaches or the referee.
www.footy4kids.co.ukThanks,
Coach Victor
"Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it."
—Mia Hamm
The ATX United Futbol Club will be holding tryouts for all ‘96-‘97 and ‘97-‘98 girls. So if your date of birth falls any where between August 1, 1995 to July 31, 1998 we encourage you to come out and show us how you can contribute to this team. Determining the age group in which our team will participate will be decided by the response we receive at tryouts.
Tryout Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 & Thursday July 9, 2009
Tryout Time: 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. (Please arrive early for check in.)
Tryout Location: Lee Complex
Please come dressed in the proper soccer gear and be ready to work. You will also need to bring a ball and water. If you do not come with all of your equipment you will not be allowed to tryout. Please contact Victor Garcia so that we can get an estimate of how many will attend the above tryout dates or to see if any rescheduling is necessary.
Contact information: 325-514-0297 • 325-695-3412 ext. 414 • victo92079@yahoo.com.
Thank you,
Coaches Victor Garcia
& Robert Johnson
Nutrition For Soccer Players and The Importance of Proper Hydration
This is a subject that is important when playing any sport no matter if it is the coldest or hottest time of year . I felt that I should share this information for the safety of all our team members.
The importance of drinking enough water in order to ensure proper hydration during a practice/game cannot be emphasized enough. Proper nutrition and hydration for soccer players is what separates the winners from losers.
A soccer practice or game can be an extremely demanding situation. One of the key points in order to perform well is to ensure proper hydration of your body. This simply means that you are consuming enough of healthy fluids while minimizing the amount of fluids you lose. Proper hydration is one of the key points of nutrition for soccer players.
When a practice session occurs, the weather will usually be warm. With other words, your body will start to lose fluid. The loss of fluid occurs when your body starts to sweat. Your body is using sweat to keep you cool and the sweat comes from the hydrates you consume.
While sweat is a good thing it can also cause you problems if you are not hydrated properly. If you want to perform well on the soccer field, it will be crucial to drink enough fluids. It is also equally important to take in proper fluids during your practice/game and also after your training session/game as well.
The U.S. Soccer Federation provides these guidelines to help parents, players and coaches prevent dehydration and heat illness in young athletes who are active in the heat:
1) Weigh each player before and after activity to determine how much fluid he or she loses during activity.9 If a player is lighter after activity then encourage a little more fluid consumption during the next practice/game. If the player is heavier after activity then encourage a little less fluid during the next practice/game.
2) According to the American Academy of Pediatrics:
Before prolonged physical activity, the child should be well hydrated. During the activity, periodic drinking should be enforced even if the child does not feel thirsty and each 20 minutes the child or adolescent should consume:
-5 ounces of fluid for a player
weighing 90 lbs or less
-9 ounces of fluid for a player
weighing more than 90 lbs.
To ensure that the child is not dehydrated before the start of the practice session or game, the child should drink 12-16 ounces of fluid approximately 30 minutes before getting to the field.
Once the activity is over, players should drink water or a sports drink every 20 minutes for an hour
3) Teach the youth soccer player to monitor his/her own hydration status with the following tip: If their urine (as it flows, not when diluted in the bowl) is a pale yellow like lemonade then they are likely pretty well hydrated. If their urine is dark yellow like apple juice then they are likely dehydrated. This is an easy and accurate way to assess hydration status and it gets the kids involved on a personal level.
4) Kids need to drink enough of the right fluids to replenish fluid losses during activity. Flavored beverages that contain sodium (sports drinks) are preferable because the child may drink more of them.
5) In addition to replacing fluid, children also need to replace the electrolytes, such as sodium, lost through sweat. Electrolyte replacement is important to stimulate an adequate thirst mechanism,15 help the body hold on to fluid,16 help prevent muscle cramps17 and to maintain sodium levels in the blood.
6) Fluids children should avoid immediately before and during activity include fruit juices, carbonated beverages, caffeinated beverages and energy drinks. These will impact negatively on your performance as they will actually dehydrate your body.
Fruit juices have a high sugar content, which can slow fluid absorption and cause upset stomach,19 may also lack sodium.
Carbonated beverages, such as soft drinks, can reduce voluntary drinking due to stomach fullness and throat burn when gulping (20) and lack sodium.
Energy drinks should be avoided because many contain caffeine and have high carbohydrate concentrations, which slows the emptying of fluids from the stomach.
7) Be sure that each child has his/her own beverage container and that they have the opportunity to keep it cool during the practice. An individual container will allow them to monitor fluid consumption more accurately, can be filled with beverage of personal preference, will help avoid the spread of germs and viruses and the cool fluid will be replenished at a better rate than a container that sits
out in the sun.
There are many types of fluids that will help you keep proper hydration and increase your performance as well. However, the best, cheapest and the most tasteful fluid is water. There are also sport drinks that have been scientifically proved to provide good hydrate. One of these sport drinks is the well known Gatorade. You should also keep in mind that there are food kinds that will help your body to replenish lost fluids. These foods should be a part of your regular diet(watermelon, oranges and bananas).
I hope everyone will do there part in helping ensure the safety of these players.
Thank you,
Coach Victor Garcia
The 2009 spring Season is a couple of weeks away and I bet you are wondering the same thing I am "when are we getting schedules". I know that we’ve all been anxiously waiting to see what the schedule looks like so we can begin planning but they are making a few revisions and hopefully we will see something soon.
We do have some things we are looking in to for the months of May and June. As we told you at the beginning of the season we would plan on doing three to four tournaments most of them after the season has ended. Tournaments are an important part of team building and player development because the more they play the better they get.
We are currently looking at the following:
West Texas Invitational in Lubbock, which is to be held May 22-24th Memorial Day weekend).
North America Memorial Day cup in Dallas/Frisco, which is to be held
May 23-25th (Memorial Day weekend).
Big Country Western Cup in Abilene, Which is to be held June 5-7th, this is a tournament held by FC Dallas.
Ross Stewart Memorial in Dallas Area, which is to be held June 13-14th.
Once we have decided which of these tournaments we will attend in May and in June we will get you all the information necessary and we will post them on our calendar of events.
Thanks,
Coach Victor
When: Monday, March 9 –
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Where: Hardin-Simmons University
Practice Fields, Simmons Avenue
Time: 1:00 – 4:00 (You may drop off
your camper as early as 12:30)
Cost: $60 & $10 discount per person
for a team of 8 or more.
Ages: 5 – 13
If you are interested please let me know by Tuesday, March 3, 2009 and I will get a form to you. Also we do qulaify for the $10 discount so please make $50 checks payable to HSU Soccer.
Thanks,
Coach Victor