Philosophy
To teach the game I love and give back to what has given me so much!
It all started with Coach Eddie watching his 5 year old son being barked at by a soccer coach at his first practice. He started noticing a trend in other coaches and Clubs. Pick the biggest and fasted and you have success. It was all about winning. Parent coaches with limited experience where the ones teaching the foundation of the game. He decided that there was a better way.He felt the way to teaching soccer is at earliest age players should have the best trainers and programs to create a strong foundation. He knew young players develop at different times and with proper encouragement and training he would eventually produce a solid athlete. He knew winning wasn't everything and that the more the coaches focused on the development of the player the more success a player and a team would have.
He first started by giving all he could and teaching the game he loved with what best he could. He hired the best trainers, researched and recommended camps and activities, committed his time to studying the game,aquiring advanced coaching licenses and learning all he could on what was the best approach to player development.
As this happened a soccer family was created –the boys became friend, the parents became friend and in time we became a strong group of families with a new found community. The boys began to love the game and became soccer heads. They have identified themselves as soccer players and Skulls. There is nothing more awesome to see a game with all the Skull parents coming to support the boys and cheering them all on. Unlike other teams, we see them as our boys. It is awesome when a new player and his family arrive and they are welcomed not as strangers but as friends we have not seen in awhile. Our player retention is about 98%. Once a Skull always a Skull.
Eddie developed his philosophy as a coach and club when he began teaching players to love the game and he create a program based with a slow approach to developing solid technical soccer players that would not blossom to early and would excel when it is time. He applied the best of European and Latin soccer theories – The Dutch System, Coerver, Total Soccer, and Everton Way, and Spanish coaching soccer theory, FA, USSF and NSCCA standards. A constant student, Eddie continues to develop a soccer system based on always studying the game and finding as many resources to teach the game he loves.
A former top club, State and National Select, college player and soccer trainer in his early life and having a love of teaching the game. He decided to test his theories and see if he got results. He signed up to do what he never thought he would do. Coach his own son, Paolo. He signed up as a Park District coach and the passion to teach what he love continued on a new level. Fast forward 7 years later, the core of the five years olds he stated with are still with him the team has gone from park district, to joining another club and then deciding to take his teams to another level.
The success of the original group boys is evident. They are solid technical players with many individual achievements. Our alumni that have left for other clubs seem to make the first team and are the key players of their new teams.
The Team Velocity – Skulls SC has sought to find the best tools to develop and teach a long term approach to player development. The partnership with Velocity Sports Performance was a long term relationship that blossomed when Coach Eddie sat with owners of Velocity and proposed taking the best of the program and developing a soccer program to create technical players with complete training systems Velocity SP offered.Then in early June 2010 Velocity Sports Performance - Naperville closed its doors victims of our ailing economy. Eddie not wanting to deviate from his original plans hired the best trainers from Velocity and proposed they create Skullocity. A program designed to be soccer specifc which would apply the best of speed and sports performance programs. The mission to continue to develop a program that would benefit the Skulls players and become an integral part of the Skulls Soccer Training Program.
The Results have been amazing. Our Players love the game. Our players are one step ahead of players their age in technical ability.
We have found that the best method to player development is to get to know a player and help him develop at his own pace by providing the best training and soccer community we can.
We provide patience, encouragement and balanced inspiration. Eddie tries to ignite the lifelong passion of Soccer in all of his players.