The Box
training facility
Fields
Our indoor soccer facility was designed with young players in mind. Our 2 identical fields are designed to maximize skill development for players up to 14 years of age. The fields are small for a simple reason. The lack of room prevents the players from kicking the ball past their opponent and chasing after it. They must use skill and creativity to beat the opponent and get off a quality shot.
Kicking the ball and chasing it is a hallmark of American youth soccer which we can see this all over Houston every weekend. This tendency does not exist in other parts of the world. Very few young soccer players around the world have nice, big, grassy fields to play on. Most play in the streets or in tiny walled areas. The players who train in The Box will lose the kick and run tactic and will instead develop into players who use guile and deception to trick opponents and dribble past them. Deceptive dribbling is a better way to play and more useful at the older and higher skill levels.
Players on our indoor soccer fields can score from nearly anywhere so defenders must get touch tight with there opponents. Pressurizing the attacker is great for developing both highly composed and skillful attackers as well as dogged and relentless defenders.
Technical Area
Our technical area is where our players work on their skills. We do our 7 core soccer moves over and over to improve and refine the skills. Taking a cue from ballet, this area has mirrors to give our players additional feedback so they can see themselves executing the moves and can make adjustments more easily.
This area is designed to be almost too small for the amount of players in the area. They players must keep close control of the ball to prevent them from hitting their ball into others. We want our players to be like bats in a cave, navigating around a chaotic environment with ease.
Box Soccer Courts
Our 6 box soccer courts are designed to improve shooting. In a normal outdoor practice focused on shooting (typically 1/6th of practices), a player may get 30-40 quality shooting opportunities. Our players spend 15-20 minutes in the boxes each practice going 1v1 in a shooting game we created. We estimate that our players get 100-200 quality 1st time shots(the hardest skill) during the Box Soccer sessions. In a very short time, players that train in our environment improve their shooting dramatically.
More touches = More development.
