ABSTRACT
Junior soccer players are being educated into real soccer players. They have to learn the ingredients of the game during their junior years. According to 56 Dutch soccer trainers of junior youth teams a series of characteristics is important to achieve success as a soccer player (the trainers were asked to do so in a questionnaire which purported to describe various aspects of their training during the soccer season, cf. Van Rossum & Kunst, this Volume). On a scale of 0 to 10 they rated the importance of each of the following characteristics (mean rating between brackets): physical fitness (7.96), social guidance (7.23), mental fitness (8.14), natural endowment (7.48), technique (8.30), tactical ability (8.30), intensity of practice (7.96), social interaction with trainer, coach etc. (8.14), social interaction with team mates (8.66). If the trainer should try to incorporate each of these characteristics in his training according to their rated importance, the number and length of training sessions would drastically increase!
