Top ten benefits of soccer holiday clinics

Soccer holiday clinics are perfect for children who love football, and for children who aren’t so sure yet. With access to professional coaches with years of experience, young athletes can learn new skills, test out their love for football, and meet new friends over a set period of time. IQ Football soccer holiday clinics are coming up in August. See the upcoming dates here.

Build confidence

Usually, a good soccer holiday clinic will focus on encouraging players so that they build healthy self-esteem and confidence in their abilities. Football is a mental game, as much as it’s a physical one.

For young athletes especially, a positive association to soccer should be engrained in their mindset from the start. A strong positive foundation for football will set a player up for a healthy relationship with the sport for the years ahead. Soccer holiday clinics are naturally confidence-boosters because they’re fun, stress-free, pressure-free environments for players to experiment with their passion and to reach achievable goals.

Improve football skills

A well-run soccer holiday clinic will have professional football staff who know the game and are knowledgeable about football skills and kids. A good one should provide a “skills-school” as part of their programme, to make sure that players are exposed to different soccer skills and given the opportunity to apply those skills as the week progresses.

Have fun

Where better to have fun than outside in a safe, healthy, environment, with coaches who are invested in a child’s development.

We can’t stress this point more when it comes to youth football. It is essential to a player that they have fun with football.

Those early years are crucial. It is so important to just enjoy it, try different positions and not put any pressure on the children.

You want them to just go out there and enjoy it because it can get quite serious, quite quickly so those early years, make sure people play different positions and make sure there isn’t the pressure on winning and everyone has the freedom to try stuff they see on the tele.

That would be my advice: Just enjoy football as much as possible, try not to take it too seriously and play with freedom.

_{Oliver William Skipp – English professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur}

A child may not realise the mental, physical, technical, and social benefits of a soccer holiday clinic, but these come as a natural result of attending one.

Develop social skills

It’s one thing to love a sport with the friends you usually play with. It’s a whole different game when you’re playing with kids you’ve only recently met. Soccer holiday clinics provide the opportunity to build confidence in playing with new people.

Communication is a fundamental skill for making new friends and learning how to deal with new and different people. Children attending a soccer holiday clinic have the opportunity to learn how to communicate with friendly authority figures, while also learning how to listen and take instructions from them.

Meet new friends

Many soccer holiday clinics have children of different ages, ethnicities, schools, and abilities. This allows children to make new friends and learn from each other. One of the great benefits of a soccer holiday clinic is kids being amongst other kids slightly older or slightly younger than themselves.

There is a whole new set of skills that is learnt in an age-old environment like this. Grades are a fairly recent invention in history, and prior to them, village schools were the norm. The benefits of learning how to deal with older kids and lead younger kids have somewhat diminished in our modern day. Soccer holiday clinics provide an environment that can bring back these “ancient” social skills.

Routine and exercise

During the holidays it can be easy to fall into unhealthy habits. One of the great benefits of a soccer holiday clinic is being able to establish a healthy morning routine of playing outside in the fresh air, with the benefits of exercise.

Sportsmanship

The welcoming and inclusive environment of a soccer holiday clinic engages kids in a way that builds sportsmanship and mutual respect.

Preparation

Soccer holiday clinics prepare players for their upcoming season and keep them fit and ‘in the game’. As a British player, it was a new experience for me to see that sports in South Africa are usually seasonal and don’t usually run throughout the year. Football in England is played throughout the year without much of a break in between, and this continual practice can be beneficial for a player’s development.

Build strong mindsets

Positive mindsets about winning and handling disappointments should be a key focus during the week, especially during matches and if there is an award ceremony at the end of the week.

Goal setting and rewards

A great soccer holiday clinic will reward players for outstanding footballing and personal qualities such as: commitment, respect, attitude, sportsmanship, and skills. At the beginning of the week a good soccer holiday clinic will set players up with a vision of a reward given at the end of the week. This helps players to focus and set goals.

A soccer clinic at IQ Football

At IQ Football’s soccer holiday clinics there is a schedule of skill-building activities, group activities that present opportunities to develop healthy social skills and matches are always played so that they can apply the soccer and social skills they’ve learnt. At the end of the week a reward is given so that exceptional players are acknowledged and honoured. Click here to find out more.