Ope O.

I have coached individuals and teams at numerous levels and various ages ranging from 4-18 years old. I first started coaching in the Netherlands before taking up my first actual coaching position in Jamestown, North dakota at Jamestown soccer club during the summer of 2016. Here I coached boys from the ages of 6 up to 10 years old, for just over a year. After Moving to Maryland I started individual coaching for boys from the soccer club BRAUSA, while I also took up a voluntary position at FC USA for a U9 team. This past season I was an assistant coach of an FC USA 09 team before taking up a position as assistant on a different FC USA 09 team for the remainder of the season. During this season I have worked 1 on 1 with various players from my own team as well as a couple of teenagers from River soccer club. Added to that I coached a couple of sessions with 2 boys from the prestigious Pipeline 06 team. I will be coaching next season as the assistant coach of a Pipeline 09 team.

I grew up playing academy level in England, before moving to the Netherlands where I played for another 5 years at a high level. This was where I got my first taste of national tournaments, playing in a wide range of tournaments in Western Europe. Afterwards, I was recruited to play college soccer in America. I played 4 years of division 2 college soccer, as well as 2 semi-pro summer seasons in Fargo, North Dakota and Springfield, Missouri, before moving to Maryland where I have now been playing semi-pro soccer for the Baltimore kings during the last 18 months. This past January (2019) I played in a tour of Ireland where I played against 4 professional teams and in front of many national scouts across the UK.

I like to break down my sessions to typically focus on 4 aspects of the game: Speed, agility, dribbling and movement or Passing, Shooting, control and footwork. For players who I do not personally know or have never seen play, I ask parents or coaches for things they believe they should work on and draw up my sessions based on that. If I have seen the players play live or have seen footage of them, I usually let the parents know what I think they can work on to make them a better player, and then plan my session based on that. I typically prefer to run a 2 hour session for most players, just so I can get a lot accomplished but some parents prefer 1 hour, which I am fine with too. I enjoy it so much that often I end up running over time!