Customer Comments and Emails
Just a few of Customers' emails and comments for both Blast the Ball and SoccerU
Send Yours HERE
(This picture means no photo sent.)

Back to SoccerU Home Page

Most recent email, VERY detailed...

Read it HERE

From April, 2011

"I will say this to anyone who is a soccer parent, or a learning soccer coach, that didn’t 'grow up playing the game'. You can sit down with this series and learn more in a few weeks than you might in years about technical skills.  Being able to watch the skills being taught and seeing players at all levels perform them is extremely valuable."
Read Michael's FULL comments HERE

To All Soccer Parents...

"I will say this with the deepest conviction I have, if you're a soccer parent and want to help your child, get this series. You will improve their skills more in one year working at home than years and years of just playing the game."

Read Jay's full comments>>> HERE

Laine
I just thought I would let you know that I am a parent and have been watching your SoccerU video, and I can't believe how informative it is to all levels of play.  My kids are 5,7, and 9.  They have all been able to do a good portion of your drills.  As a gymnastics instructor and knowing that each skill has to broken down into many parts, I am impressed at the fact that you have done this with soccer and given reason to, why you do, what you do.  I can't wait to get through all of the sections and be able to implement these to help my own kids.  I will highly recommend it to all of my children's "soccer" friends!

Are you NEW to coaching soccer?
If you are new to coaching and trying to learn how to teach skills, read Dustin's comments. Learn why "coaching classes" won't teach you skills.
Dustin wrote a LONG review so we put it on its own page.
Read Dustin's comments HERE

Coach Fawley with West Vancouver Soccer Club

Dear Coach V,

We are the "95 AYSO Thunder", and they are a terrific group of kids and parents.  My assistant coach is hard working and a tremendous asset to the team and me.  I am very fortunate to be associated with all of them.  

We just received Blast The Ball and have started to implement the techniques.  It is amazing how valuable the changes have proven to be!  We scrimmaged a boys team we who has beaten us every time we play them. This last weekend we finally beat them thanks in part to the techniques we picked up from your disk.  

As far as our team, we are a girls U12 team based in Charlotte, NC.  The kids play at a recreation level during the season.  In November 2007, however, my assistant coach and I invited these players to form a more competitive team.   We started playing in a U12 boys indoor soccer league that same month.  We had to play the boys teams because there wasn't a girls division; we also thought it would be good competition for us.  The first few games we got clobbered, but by the end we were only getting beaten by two goals.  We continue to scrimmage one of the boys teams once a month and they kept beating us until the match I mentioned above.

We compete in tournaments with club teams at the next competitive level or higher.  In North Carolina, they are called 'Challenge' and 'Classic' respectively.  We have played in one tournament so far and finished in the championship game losing 0:1 on a corner kick.  We have two more tournaments this season (NC and TN).  I am sure the girls will be very successful now that we have your video as an additional teaching tool.  It should be mandatory viewing for all coaches at the youngest levels on.  I have been coaching soccer for more than 10 years and wish I had it when I started.

Thank you for helping me, help the kids.

Coach Chris, NC

Coach V,
The Ottumwa Soccer club is a small club in a small town that is now growing rapidly an soccer has become a varsity sport in high school as well as now in the local community college. So much for the team picture, I want to comment briefly on our DVD, Blast the Ball, as my son is a serious player of the game, he already has gotten onto the straight kick an improved his V position of the leg an improved his technique in the kicks. We were impressed in that he can control the bending of the ball with force on goal, which he was just not able to master before even though he has gone to residential striker camps since he was 9. He could never understand why his toe hit the ground when doing a straight strike, now he understands an is continuing to get the muscle memory down pat. As he is a striker, this is a very important extra tool in his arsenal of shooting weapons, an finishing with a very high percentage of shots on goal. I STRONGLY suggest that all coaches have this DVD to help them teach the V an the straight kick with all the variations that can result, ie, the bending with velocity an a slower bender also...dipping the ball too...amazing that all the camps my son has gone to, this has only really been touched on, but not really taught....thanks a lot, Gene Irelan

From: Coach Patrick, CA
 
Dear Coach V,
I have been a youth coach for over 9 years. I played soccer in high school, but not college. I have a USSF “C” license and Regional Youth Coach License.  I consider myself an experienced coach that has had to learn on my own. I am emailing you my thoughts and review of your videos to share.  
 
 

Blast The Ball:
I believe every coach, parent and player should watch this DVD. (Regardless of age, experience or skill level.)  It was as the other reviews stated. I learned more about kicking in 2 hours than I have in 9 years of coaching.  Without a doubt, the best training video on the market. (I own a ton of them.)
 
SoccerU:
I just finished the SoccerU series and you were right. I was like going to a week long training camp on technical skills. I watched one disk each night and made notes. While some of the training I already knew, there was a ton that I “really” didn’t understand until I watched this series.  Example: Yes, I know how to run drills, yes I know how to teach heading a ball, but I did NOT know the difference between an offensive header strike and defensive header strike.  This little piece of info is critical to teach proper heading, yet I never knew it.  That is just one thing I learned from one chapter and there are over 40 chapters. 
I think every coach and parent that did not “grow up” playing soccer should watch this series.  I think younger soccer players would not like it as much as BTB.
That is only due to the fact it is a serious training series showing the struggles of teaching and actual field work. I do believe that a “motivated” middle school player and even high school player would greatly benefit from watching, and working daily on the skills.
I do believe that EVERY parent that is serious about teaching there child how to be an advanced or progressing player, must watch it.  With out it you will simply spend years "trying to figure it out".
 
Congratulations on a great series.

Hello Coach V!

I'm a soccer coach in a small town in Germany/ Bavaria...
I'm coaching a girls team and they are really good. I have chosen the Video "Blast The Ball" cause I have seen some videos on you YouTube and they were great. Now my team and I are training with your video and also the girls see, how easy it is to learn, with this video.

Thx for that

Johannes

Coach V,
I have 2 soccer playing children. Mark is a freshman in high school. He just completed a year of playing for the high school JV team and he will be playing on his first premier team later this fall. Jill is in 7th grade and she also just joined a premier U13 team plus she will be going out for the junior high team for the first time in the spring. I felt that both of them needed better technical shooting skills but I didn't have the expertise to help them out. When I saw an ad for the "Blast the Ball" DVD, it sounded like it was exactly what they needed to take them to the next level. Also, now that they are older, kicking the ball against the garage door was not something we wanted them to do, so building the soccer hop rebounder (plans included with the DVD) is working perfectly. They have just begun working on the different techniques that the DVD covers because I didn't want them to get too involved with any new ideas in the middle of their playing season. In the short time that they have been working on the kicking basics, I have seen a big increase in the quality of ball striking. The DVD is so full of information that I'm sure we'll be referring back to it for years to come.

Craig Eiding, Mark's Dad

In Fall 2007, our boys played in the Northern California Youth Soccer Association Boys Under 9 Competitive Level 3 division. We had high hopes for the team because our boys are good athletes with solid soccer skills. The boys were hand picked from the previous year’s recreational league and were the standouts in the league. In addition, we hired a coach that is a former professional player and a recently retired head coach of the San Jose Frogs of the National Premier Soccer League.

After several severe beatings in our first games, we believed our main problem was defense. We gave our opponents too many break away opportunities, which put a huge burden on our under-sized Keeper. Moving one of our strongest players to Sweeper helped reduce our opponents scoring chances somewhat, but we still were not clearing the ball and most of the game was spent in our half of the field.

On Offense, when we were able to advance the ball, the boys were getting chances by either dribbling around our opponents or centering the ball to an open player. Unfortunately, we rarely put the ball into the back of the net. Most scoring opportunities were concluded with inaccurate and weak kicks that went wide or were easy to block. Many times, their Keeper would block or deflect the ball without securing it, giving us an opportunity for a follow up attempt at goal, but our Strikers had either fallen down or stopped after the initial kick.

We finished the season with a record of 0 Wins, 9 Losses, and 1 Tie. (GF-8 GA-38)

Later in the season we finally realized that we had an underlying problem that our boys were just not kicking the ball with any power. That’s why they had trouble clearing the ball out of their end or scoring when they had good opportunities.

We started doing some extra drills at practice that we thought would increase the power of their kicks, such as repetitively kicking the ball as hard as they could or doing exercises such as hopping on one foot to build up leg strength. But that didn’t help. We later learned that it was only reinforcing bad habits.

It wasn’t until late in the season that we realized that most of our boys had various problems with their basic kicking techniques. Several boys were putting their plant foot well behind the ball causing them to over extend and fall after the kick. Others had their plant foot too close or too far away (not hip width distance) or they were toe kicking the ball. And, almost all the boys were just pushing through the ball, not winding up, and therefore, not kicking with power.

We didn’t really know the best way to solve all of these problems and so I started doing Internet searches for any tips, tricks, or techniques that might help us. I soon discovered the Blast the Ball web site and after reading some of the success stories and watching the preview I thought it was exactly what we needed.

The coaches and I watched the video and decided to incorporate one or two of Coach V’s Blast the Ball lessons or drills into every one of our practices. We started at the very beginning and worked our way through most of the video. For example, for each boy we measured the distance between their hip bones and explained the theory behind using the natural swing path to get maximum power. We worked a lot on plant foot positioning and used a round ring to force the boys to step closer to the ball. And, of course, we practiced the soccer hop at the beginning of every practice.

Although parents and coaches of young boys will publicly state that the most important goal is for the kids to have fun and develop their skills, I strongly believe most parents (and kids) join a competitive soccer team to compete and win and failing to do so can cause low morale and anger in both the parents and kids.

After suffering through a season with no wins and several humiliating losses, we had about half of the parents bitterly complain about the coaching, the refereeing, and eventually pull their kids from the team. Even though the kids had developed quite a bit and had lots of fun at practices and most games.

On the other hand, in this recent spring season, I witnessed both parents and kids get energized and excited after winning their first few games. Parents were friendlier to each other, volunteered to help more, and wanted the get the team together outside of soccer. The boys were also nicer to each other and more forgiving of each others mistakes.

I am proud to say the Pacific Soccer Academy Boys U9 team took first place in the recent spring league scoring on average over 4 goals per game.

So winning may not be the only thing, but despite what many will say, winning is important.

I think the Blast the Ball video is a must-have tool for all coaches and parents interested in developing their kid’s soccer skills.

Even coaches with many years experience, like our own, may not realize that their players are not kicking with maximum efficiency or even if they do, they probably don’t know the right way to teach it. Most coaches would be wise to take advantage of the expertise and knowledge contained within the Blast the Ball video and use that information to improve the capabilities of their players.

And parents should not wait for coaches to teach proper kicking techniques to their children because it may or may not happen. I recently purchased my own copy of the video to have at home. I’m going to use it with my youngest son, who just turned 4 years old, to make sure he starts off kicking the ball properly.

I can’t give “Blast the Ball” 100% credit for our dramatic turn around because the boys worked really hard and received excellent coaching, but “Blast the Ball” certainly was a major factoring in helping the boys put the ball into the back of the net with greater accuracy and power.

Thank you very much Coach V for developing the “Blast the Ball” system!

Regards,

Victor Nemechek

Coach V,
This is a picture of my Muskegon Lakers U9 travel team. A friend of mine let me watch your DVD Blast the Ball. We used the techniques during practice. We made it out of the semifinals by winning in the second round of PK's. We won in the finals out shooting the other team 20 to 7 giving us a 3 to 1 win. With out your techniques we would have never made it past the semi final PK round. I have purchased my own copy to use for my sons U10 team and now my daughters U8 team.. Thanks  Coach Jim

Send us yours.

HERE