Pictured left to right: Ernie Adcock, Scott Willsie, Raymond Verheijen, Stefan McIntosh, Eric Jacobson, Raz Sidhu, Derek Henry, Tony Wentworth
The course on “football” tactics was taught by renowned author, coach, and soccer educator, Raymond Verheijen, on Tuesday, July 16th, 2019 at “The Ninety”—Seattle Sounders FC headquarters in downtown Seattle.
Force remains committed to investing in the best continued coaching education available. For several of our Force coaches, this was their 2nd, 3rd or even 4th World Football Academy course taught by Raymond Verheijen in recent years.
As a youth player, Raymond Verheijen was part of the famous Dutch Youth Academy. Unfortunately, his professional playing career ended at a young age due to injury. He then started his coaching career at the age of just 19 years old, and also studied Exercise Physiology and Sport Psychology at the Free University Amsterdam where he completed his Masters Degrees.
In 1995, Verheijen developed his Masters thesis into the book ‘Conditioning for Soccer’ which became the coach education book adopted by the Dutch FA (KNVB) in 1997. Verheijen then became a pro-licence instructor at the Dutch FA the following year. In 2014, Verheijen published the best-selling book ‘Football Periodisation’. Verheijen has been involved as an assistant or consultant in 4 World Cups and 4 EURO’s and with several top European clubs.
“Raymond has a unique perspective and approach to this subject. Today was the 3rd course I’ve had the privilege to take from Mr. Verheijen. There’s always so much information coming at you all at once that it can be hard to consume it all, but I know I’ve become a better coach as a result of his training.”
Force also recently hosted two US Soccer “Grassroots” coaching education courses taught by Paul Bayly, League Commissioner/Director of Coaching Education for Washington Youth Soccer. A majority of Force coaches took these courses on coaching 11v11 and 7v7 formats using the newly adopted curriculum by US Soccer, and as a result have now obtained additional licensing at the national level.
“We are constantly working to ensure that Force remains one of the best competitive soccer programs available anywhere.”
It is this continued commitment by Force to high-level coaching education that ensures our coaches are some of the best educated coaches of any club in the State of Washington. At Force, we believe the kids in our program deserve the best coaching possible, which is what drives our commitment to constantly be learning and improving as coaches and as a club.
