House League: Spring 2021
DC Way Academy’s House League focused on building critical soccer skills, enhancing mental abilities, and having a blast. The goal of our league was to teach players technical, tactical, psychological, and mental skills in an entertaining and competitive environment. Over a 5-week period, we played Horst Wein Intelligence Games (3v3 and 4v4). In each game, we highlighted skills we'd like players to concentrate on such as space awareness, change of direction, being unpredictable, creativity, being a supportive teammate (in the tactical and social-emotional way), and many others. After each game, we awarded a player who excelled at one of these particular skills. But what makes these games unique? How did players improve their performance?
Horst Wein games were developed to improve players’ soccer intelligence and also visual skills. According to research “85 percent of the information the players receive is through their eyes, but in general, individuals only tend to use 40 percent of their senses.” So athletes can only perform as well as their vision allows, and perceiving the right things is a skill that anyone can learn. At our league, by playing these intelligence games, our athletes learned how to better understand and read soccer while stimulating all their senses at a maximum level!
As a team, we believe that soccer should begin in the players' heads before moving on to their feet. In a game, soccer players are frequently required to respond rapidly to shifting situations. Therefore, they must be ready to make a snap decision. Visual training, which increases a player's ability to see and digest all vital information around him, is one of the most valuable weapons a serious player can possess. DC Way Academy’s House League helped participants develop essential visual skills, which can be seen as a competitive advantage against those who only mastered physical skills.
After seeing the improvement in each player, we adjusted our future plans for the DC Way League. From now on, we will have more age groups for both boys and girls teams. We will also add more weeks (up to 10 weeks) and new games, such as team chemistry games. The DC Way Academy team is looking forward to our next House League!
