Women’s Football Coaching Course Ends

FIFA Women’s Coaching Certificate Course organized by the Saint Lucia Football Association will climax today at the SLFA Headquarters in La Clery.

The course commenced on Wednesday and presentation of certificates to participants by FIFA Instructor/Consultant Andrea Rodebaugh, a former Mexican national football player and head coach of the Mexican National Under -20 women’s team, will take place today.

A combined 30 male and female participants from the SLFA’s 19 districts and clubs will be in attendance.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the course, Rodebaugh highlighted the importance of the course to the development of women’s football in the country:

“We will focus on Grassroots which is basically 6-12 year olds, and as we go along we will look at youth football,” Rodebaugh said. “We will also focus specifically on the different characteristics in the different stages of development, because as a coach it is very important that we adapt ourselves to the characteristics of the players that we are coaching; it is not the other way around.”

Rodebaugh continued: “We cannot make little girls or boys play like adults. Even if we like the way Barcelona plays, if our players do not have the abilities/capabilities, certainly it is not them that have to adapt to what we want; we have to adapt to their characteristics. We need to understand what stage of development they are at so that we know what we can ask them to do on the field and based on that they would move up to another stage and then we can change our focus.”

SLFA President Lyndon Cooper challenged the participants: “You have a responsibility to add on this new information. We play a brand of football and that is organized football and association football. It is within the parameters of the mandate given to us by FIFA; our mandate apart from socializing must be extended to preparing for the next World Cup. If the effort we are placing in female football in the last 6 or 8 years is to socialize, well, we need to turn that page and get ready for the next World Cup (which can) be either Under-17, Under-20 or Seniors. We have to use one of the groups to ensure that we achieve this objective.”