Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Anthony Brenner Coaching, Coach, Raleigh, NC.
Mentor & technical development expert
Mental performance coach
Work with players & families
1 on 1 across USA & Can
Raleigh,NC based
Pro academy scout
Www.Anthonybrenner.com/consultation for a free consultation.
08/31/2026
When a player becomes consumed by a mistake, attention turns inward: How could I do that? What does my coach think? Did everyone see that? Am I playing badly? Notice what all of those thoughts have in common: I. Me. My. The mistake has awakened the self. While the player is occupied with protecting, judging, defending, or worrying about the self, they become less available to their teammates.
A player makes a poor pass, misses an opportunity, turns the ball over, makes the wrong decision, or fails to execute something they have done successfully hundreds of times before. The moment is over almost immediately, yet mentally and emotionally, the player may remain attached to it long after the game has moved on.
08/29/2026
Mastery is not the absence of mistakes, not the absence of emotion, and not perfection. It is recovery speed. What once required 10 seconds requires two. What once required two seconds requires half of one. What once required a physical ritual eventually becomes automatic.
08/29/2026
You gotta love the kid who scores during a casual practice session,no refs, no crowd, bibs on
and pulls out a full-on World Cup celebration.
That raw enthusiasm? That’s gold.
Somewhere along the line as players grow up, pressure creeps in, and they start overthinking every mistake. Our job as coaches isn't just to fix their technique or break down film it’s to ✅guard that fire.
If they aren't having the time of their life out on that pitch, none of the rest matters. Never let the grind steal the joy of the game. 💯
Parents, does your player have a signature celebration yet? Let me know in the comments!
“Weak foot” doesn’t have to be a thing. So why do we keep making it one?
Is it the player? The coach? Patience? Time? Or is it simply what we choose to prioritize during the years when development is most adaptable?
This player just turned 8 years old. Everything you see in this video is with his left foot and his dominant is his right—and this ability with it is not an accident.
I personally don’t believe the “weak foot” needs to become the problem we so often make it in youth soccer. If training and development are thoughtfully designed and intentionally implemented from an early age, both sides can simply be part of learning the game.
The ages of roughly 7–11 are an incredible window to expose the brain, nervous system and body to movement and technical patterns on both sides. A little more patience and intention then can save an enormous amount of corrective work later.
Because if a player reaches 13, 15 or 18 and coaches or scouts are still identifying a “weak foot” as a limitation, we’re now trying to solve something that could have been developed years earlier.
But there’s another piece of this that I think is incredibly important:
Don’t just teach a young player how to DO the technique. Teach them to UNDERSTAND it.
When a player truly understands the mechanics on their dominant side—approach, plant-foot location, contact point, body position, swing path and follow-through—they begin to understand how to self-diagnose and self-correct.
And from what I’ve observed over decades of coaching, that changes everything when we introduce the other side.
They aren’t learning an entirely new skill.
They already understand the blueprint. Now they’re teaching the other side of their body how to execute it.
That learning curve can become dramatically shorter.
Maybe instead of asking, “How good is their weak foot?”
We should be asking:
“Why did we allow one side to become weak in the first place?”
We’ve ALL seen this finish…
The cross flashes across the face of goal.
The player arrives at exactly the right time… makes contact…
…and sends it over the goal, over the net, and somewhere into the forest. 🌲
This morning I worked with a supremely talented 8-year-old in Michigan, and when I asked what he wanted help with, he was very specific:
“Crosses coming across the goal. I have trouble getting them on target.”
One of the first things we looked at was what happened after contact.
Instead of stopping his momentum as he struck the ball, we reinforced one simple idea:
Take your kicking foot AND your body weight through the ball in the direction of the target—and keep your foot low.
Don’t arrive at the ball and stop.
Finish through it.
Once he really grasped that relationship between his momentum, his follow-through and the direction of the finish, the difference was immediate.
Then we progressed it—both feet, different types of finishes, different balls across the box… and eventually he even started getting a little cheeky with a few. 😏
And that might be my favorite part.
First, understand the technique.
Then repeat it until you trust it.
Then start exploring what you can do with it.
Whether you’re 8 or 18, pay attention to this detail.
On balls across the face of goal, what happens after contact may be just as important as the contact itself.
Ask a player to describe their own game after training, before you give feedback. What they notice about themselves tells you more than what you noticed about them.