Twelve things a parent can watch for from the side of the field. No adjectives, no rubric. This is what six years of training at FTBL is for, and it’s how we’d have you judge us.
The ball doesn’t stop at their feet. It moves them out of pressure and toward what they saw.
Receives, passes, dribbles and strikes with both. Not equally, but without avoiding either.
Head up, over the shoulder, while the pass is still travelling. The picture is taken before it’s needed.
Chosen by them, and used against a real defender when it matters, not just in a drill.
And when it doesn’t come off, they try it again the next time.
Take on, pass, or keep it. And afterwards they can tell you why.
Direction, weight and timing, both feet, laces and inside. No toe.
They chase. No hands on hips, no appeal to the coach.
And they don’t ask which one they are.
Not a shrug. Where the defender was, where the space was, what they chose.
Without first looking for who else caused it.
And can tell you what they worked on.
Knowing what not to teach yet is the harder half of a curriculum.
A twelve-year-old’s body is a report on when they were born in the year. We don’t grade biology.
Nobody is locked into the place they’re most useful to a team right now.
A youth result mostly says which group of children grew earlier.
No statement about a ceiling, and none at all during a growth spurt.
Watch any twelve-year-old play, anywhere, against this list. Not to compare children. To see what training is for.
At FTBL, a player is read against this standard and against their own last page, never against a teammate. The plan with their name on it is the distance between the two.
