The Asian Football Confederation has released handbooks on grassroots and youth football to provide coaching guidelines to coaches across the continent. The books carry colorful graphics and also include some sample training sessions. Director of AFC’s Grassroots and Youth Department, Thomas Flath, said the design of the books reflected the need for young players to be trained differently according to their age group for appropriate development. "Coaches should consider different phases of the players’ development", he said.
The grassroots handbook focuses on various coaching techniques for children between six and 12 while the youth manual caters to players aged 13 to 20. Depending on the players’ age groups, coaches are able to use different methodologies for training; the fun phase (U-6 to U-10 years), foundation phase (U-11 to U-13), formative phase (U-14 to U-16), and final youth phase (U-17 to U-20).
The books are available in English but will be shortly launched in Chinese Traditional and Simplified, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, and Hindi.
The grassroots handbook focuses on various coaching techniques for children between six and 12 while the youth manual caters to players aged 13 to 20. Depending on the players’ age groups, coaches are able to use different methodologies for training; the fun phase (U-6 to U-10 years), foundation phase (U-11 to U-13), formative phase (U-14 to U-16), and final youth phase (U-17 to U-20).
The books are available in English but will be shortly launched in Chinese Traditional and Simplified, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, and Hindi.