TFC Juniors
The Toronto FC Juniors, also known as the TFC Juniors, is part of the youth academy and development system of Canadian Major League Soccer club Toronto FC.
TFC Juniors is a supplemental training program and environment to support the training that players are doing at their clubs and academies. We are a pay for play, curriculum-based program that is coached by professional, grassroots specialists. Our primary goal is to develop a large pool of players aged seven to thirteen, track their progress and identify the best prospects for entry into the TFC Academy. Participation in the program automatically includes every player in the TFC Academy player pathway. The program holds camps regionally and has held camps in Toronto, Pickering, Vaughan, Stoney Creek, Oakville, and Markham.
BMO Training Ground
In April 2011, Toronto FC unveiled plans to develop a state-of-art facility and soccer program that looked to develop the next generation of Canadian players through coaching, training, technology, equipment and support. In June 2012, TFC academy moved to their new BMO Training Ground on 14 acres of land in Downsview Park,[1] located in North York. Built at a cost of $21 million to MLSE, the facility has seven pitches: three full-sized grass pitches (two heated) and four artificial turfs with two capable of being bubbled for year-round use. The 40,000 square foot facility also contains first team facilities, locker rooms, gym, medical room, kitchen, cafeteria, video room, amphitheatre, classroom and team offices.[2]
Curriculum
Toronto FC Juniors is a professionally coached, curriculum-based program for boys and girls that is built on the development principles used in the Toronto FC Academy. Their goal is to provide every TFC Juniors player with the most professional grassroots training environment in the country and provide each player with the technical and decision-making tools needed to succeed in their next step along the player pathway.
The program is a supplemental training program that is open to boys and girls aged seven to thirteen. The training sessions are scheduled weekly at four TFC Regional Training Centers across the GTA and are open to all Ontario players who love the game.
ME • WE • US Grassroots Curriculum
Toronto FC Juniors is a technical development program that is founded and rooted in soccer. This means that, although unopposed technical exercises can help with overall physical literacy, it is the application of technique to create time and space that makes successful soccer players. For that reason, TFCJ use game based exercises and small-sided conditioned games to create scenarios that support the teaching phases and foundational technical objectives of the program. To simplify the explanation of the development process we have created three phases along the development continuum:
ME Phase:
1v1 Development to penetrate or to protect the ball – Requires the technical ability to manipulate the ball with all parts of the foot and use your body to create time and space.
WE Phase:
Exploiting Overloads, like 2v1, 3v1 or 3v2, to create time and space to penetrate or protect the ball. We explore binary decision making – do we pass or dribble? Technically a player must learn to receive a ball so they can dribble or play forward and pass with the inside and outside of both feet.
US Phase:
Groups of players collectively work together to advance the soccer ball behind two or more defending lines. We attempt to create scenarios where players decide whether they should go around, through or over lines. This requires complex decision making, varied range of passing types and distances, the ability to get unmarked and to receive the ball with proper timing, body position and awareness to create time and space.
Methodology
Toronto FC Juniors covers an age where players have a huge capacity for learning, believe anything is possible and are highly creative. As a result, the methodology used to coach players is positive, free-flowing and built around guided discovery. TFCJ utilizes the following coaching models to enhance the learning environment to help players find success at each phase of development and, most importantly, have fun.
Developing Football Actions
Soccer is a complex sport where players must deal with an infinite number of possibilities. Based upon a given situation a player must learn to produce the right action at the right moment in the proper direction with the perfect amount of speed to create more time and space.
Game Based Exercises
To develop technique and football actions, we use game based exercises and small sided conditioned games to create scenarios that support the phases of development and core learning objectives of the program.
Flow Theory
Being in the flow is the ultimate in focused intrinsic motivation. In simplistic terms, being in the flow is when players find themselves in that narrow channel between boredom and anxiety. There is a fine balance between the challenge of the task, and the skills the learner has at their disposal. The flow space is found when there are a minimal number of stoppages and the learner is challenged but feels they can achieve success.
Current Technical Staff
| Executives | |
|---|---|
| Victor Satei | Manager - Player & Coach Development |
| Jordan Cardinale | Asst. Manager - Player & Coach Development |
| Dino Lopez | Manager - Business & Partnerships |
This article "TFC Juniors" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:TFC Juniors. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
- ↑ "TFC high on new facility | Soccer | Sports". Toronto Sun. May 29, 2012. Retrieved May 3, 2013.
- ↑ January 31, 2014 1:21 AM EST Facebook Twitter RSS (May 30, 2012). "New TFC facility by the numbers | Toronto Star". Thestar.com. Retrieved January 31, 2014.
