Tom Byer’s Soccer Starts at Home [US]

by Tom Byer, Fred Varcoe

I've known Tom Byer for 25 years and over those years we've talked a lot of soccer. In that time, he's focused his coaching skills on children and reached the point where he is, without any doubt, one of the world's leading thinkers on teaching children the technical skills of soccer. This book should be bought by every parent in Britain, Canada and the United States – countries where I've had involvement with soccer – and beyond to understand what a child who likes soccer can learn and how they can learn. It's not a textbook; it's a guide. It's a philosophy that is so basic and so true it's just amazing that it's taking so long to be recognized. Many people in soccer still don't get it. I've been involved in soccer as a player and coach for over 40 years, so trust me when I tell you that this book is gold dust for your kids. Paul Mariner Ex-England international (35 caps) UEFA Cup winner (1981) F.A. Cup winner (1978)

Genres: Parenting, Sports, Nonfiction

96 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 18, 2016

Reviews

[Geoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

For such a short book, it's astounding that so much of it is padding. Too much time is spent on talking about the problems in skill development and not enough going into detail on the actual recommendations. A few good nuggets, but very disappointing.

[Stewart R Ayrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for parents and coaches of children interested in football (soccer)

I'm a football coach of 18x U7s. Sadly almost all are lacking in basic technical skills. If only I and other parents had read this book! If you're British, this may be a difficult read as the game and foundations are rightly dissected and criticised. But take the message: start ball mastery young and at home, encourage control and not booting the ball, develop confidence and ability to run or protect the ball. With this foundation, passsing and receiving and other technicl aspects can easily be developed later.

I now have a challenge, how can my U7s 'catch up' and be masters of the ball?!

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a lot of good info in here.

But as a parent who picked up this book looking for practical info to help my six year old, there was a lot of slogging through the same point made over and over again: countries are unsuccessful on the world competitive stage because they don’t create a soccer culture that inculcates technical development at a young age. There’s much more of that than practical application which only makes up about 15% of the book. The author’s videos for Soccer Today give you most of what you really want from this book.

[Kelly Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many great ideas in this book that have me pumped to get started helping my two youngest daughters develop technical skills by daily practice and playing. Although this book is about soccer, it was really easy to relate it to other sports and areas in life. I'm happy that the soccer organization my daughter is apart of is incorporating these practices into their program!

[MDCA · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good big ideas but never gets to practical action points. Very repetitive and does not offer concrete techniques to practice in order to work through the system the author is promoting and the author does not even try to sell a product or service rotated to the content so it's hard to act on the philosophy.

[James Gainford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good refresher for any youth coach as well as parents. The tips in this book can and will have a huge impact on your child's enjoyment, ability, and motivation when playing soccer. Worth a read!

[Erwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple, yet profound, this book is a must read for parents of young soccer players (U7). Get out those size 1 balls and turn your house into a soccer laboratory...

[Andrii · Rating 2 out of 5]

It could be a simple one-page article, but not a book

[Lara]

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