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About Eagles Soccer Training
Eagles Sports is proud to partner with trainer Steve Ryan to offer intensive training sessions at an elite level for those entering grades 6-12.
2024 Soccer Offerings
Summer Training
Meet the Trainer
Steve Ryan
Steve has extensive experience training and coaching local public, nonpublic, and club soccer teams over the past 10+ years.
Read Bio
Coach Steve Ryan is the former boys varsity coach at Northern Valley Demarest High School where his teams consistently challenged for league, county and state sectional titles. Following his coaching tenure at Demarest, Steve was inducted into the Bergen County Boys Soccer Coaches Hall of Fame in 2014.
Coach Ryan is also the former assistant varsity coach at Immaculate Heart Academy where his teams won NJSIAA Parochial A State Championship in 2014, 2015 and 2017.
From 2019 to 2021, Coach Ryan was the girls assistant varsity coach at Northern Valley Demarest High School during which time the team won league titles and advanced to both Bergen County and state sectional semi-finals. Coach Ryan was awarded the United Soccer Coaches High School National Assistant Coach of the Year for his work with the Demarest team in 2019.
Coach Ryan has extensive coaching experience in club soccer as well. He was a founding member of Vikings FC in 2000 which created a feeder program for Northern Valley Demarest High School. Since 2016, Coach Ryan has coached several teams in the Wyckoff Torpedoes soccer club, including the 2008 girls team which won the NJ State Cup in 2018 and 2019 and qualified for the USYS Eastern Regionals in 2019, 2021 and 2022. Currently, Coach Ryan is coaching teams within the Wyckoff Torpedoes and Allendale Americans clubs.
Since 2009, Coach Ryan has been a National Staff Member of the United Soccer Coaches (formerly the NSCAA) where he has been a coach educator for the USC’s advanced courses helping to develop the coaching skills of both youth and college coaches. In 2020, Coach Ryan authored the association’s rewrite of their Advanced National course.
Since 1994, Coach Ryan has been a full-time biology teacher at Northern Valley Demarest High School. During his career at Northern Valley, Coach Ryan has served as a teacher mentor and instructional coach for faculty as well as teaching all levels of biology, including the past 15 years as the school’s AP Biology teacher.
Program Overview & Objectives
High School
Students entering grades 9-12 will be equipped with fitness training and skill work during 90-minute sessions. These trainings are intended for players who plan on playing high school and club level soccer.
High School Program Specifics
Objectives:
Develop soccer fitness over a progressive 15-session program to
- Lower injury risk so the player is available to play
- Enhance performance for 11 v 11 game
Develop soccer skills and decision-making to prepare for tryout evaluation
Training for high school soccer must include:
- Soccer Skills – the 5 basic techniques performed under the pressure of an opponent.
- Soccer Tactics (decision-making) – perception of soccer environment → decision-making → performance of soccer action
- Soccer Fitness – the ability to perform high-quality soccer actions over the full length of a soccer match
There will be 2 main focuses of the program – one soccer and one athletic:
- Quality of soccer actions – to perceive, decide, and perform better soccer actions (those that contribute to the team’s success)
- Athletic power development (ability to create a maximum force in the shortest time period) to allow the players to maintain the quality and quantity of their soccer actions over the full duration of a soccer match
Sample Session: 90 minutes
Activation – 15 minutes
- Activation of nervous/muscular system interactions
- Increase blood flow and core temperature
- Inclusion of unopposed movements with a soccer ball
- Concludes with unopposed passing/dribbling/tag games to further activate the nervous system with scanning challenges
Muscular Power Building – 15 minutes
- Build upper and lower body muscular power through plyometrics (jumping) and other resistance exercises
Soccer Fitness Development Part 1 – 15 minutes
- The inclusion of soccer balls in 1 v 1 to 3 v 3 competitive games – will include acceleration and agility challenges along with soccer decision-making over distances of 10 – 30 yards.
Soccer Fitness Development Part 2 – 15 minutes
- Expansion of field size to allow players to reach top speed (sprints) with larger numbers of players – half-field to full-field games with increased numbers
Energy System Development – 15 minutes – running activities (no ball) to target 3 energy systems of soccer – (1) ATP-CP – up to 10 seconds, (2) Anaerobic – 10 sec – 1 minute, and (3) Aerobic – 1 minute, and longer
Cool Down/Beginning of Recovery – 15 minutes
Middle School
75-minute training sessions will enable students entering grades 6-8 to prepare for upcoming tryouts and the fall seasons. Athletes will work on their fitness and in-game skills through drills, workouts, and games.
Middle School Program Specifics
Objectives:
Prepare player for middle school soccer tryout/season and/or fall club soccer season through
- Developing basic soccer skills (dribble, pass, shoot, receive) in a game-based environment
Enhance decision-making through a game-based environment emphasizing essential attacking and defending principles of play
Sample Session – 75 minutes
- Activation – prepare muscles and nervous system for the session through unopposed soccer technique activities and tag games emphasizing perceptual skills
- Theme-based small-sided games – competitive games focusing on small group tactics in 1 versus 1 to 4 versus 4 directional games
- Theme-based larger-sided games – competitive games with larger spaces and numbers to represent the full game more realistically
- “Free” Play – larger-sided games where constraints are removed and the coach can observe for evidence of learning and prepare for adaptations for the next session.
- Closure – check for understanding and reinforce the main coaching points of the training session.
