World Class Local Coaches Among Headliners for Summer Coaching Symposium

While NorCal Premier Soccer’s Summer Coaching Symposium is bringing some of the top coaching clinicians in the world to Livermore July 29 – June 2, the event will also feature world class minds coaching in our backyard.

And that’s exactly what we have in Impact Soccer Club Director of Coaching Gordon Young, Stanford Men’s Soccer Coach Jeremy Gunn, and San Francisco Deltas Head Coach Marc Dos Santos, who are all scheduled to present at the symposium.

Young, the former manager of Dundee United, returns to the event as one of NorCal’s most popular speakers, bringing more than 35 years of professional experience as a player, manager, coach, and academy director involved in a global capacity, as well as experience coaching in both the Champions League and Europa League.

“What I want to touch on is the prickly topic of what is the difference between here and Europe in terms of preparing young players,” Young said. “There will be an angle for that in the discussion and the presentation and I’ll hopefully explain how we can contribute here by adopting certain practices that have been successful while also adhering to cultures, expectations, and realism with the target of creating a pyramid system where we can offer the best player the best output while everyone else can get off at a juncture that’s relevant to where they want to go in their playing career.”

Joining Young in this star-studded lineup of coaching instructors is Stanford Men’s Soccer Coach Jeremy Gunn, whose side has won the past two NCAA Division-I national titles.

“[I’m] really trying to share the Stanford way,” Gunn said of his upcoming presentation. “I’m not somebody who thinks there’s a right or wrong way of coaching, I just think there are lots of different approaches. Hopefully we can share some insight to our approach and what makes us successful.”

“I love these situations,” Gunn added. “I’ve been going to symposiums and coaching conventions for a number of years. It’s always such a wonderful, exciting time because coaches get to share ideas. We all get to beg, steal, and borrow from each other and steal from each other. It’s always a wonderful, healthy learning environment for everybody involved. Each time you go to these things, you learn different things from different people.”

Last, but not least, comes Marc Dos Santos, the current coach of NASL expansion side San Francisco Deltas.

Though Dos Santos previously coached the Montreal Impact, Ottawa Fury, and Swope Park Rangers, much of his presentation will derive from his education on tactical periodization and methodology from legendary Portuguese club FC Porto.

“I want to make sure that the coaches understand when they come in that every training session you build as a coach has to have a purpose related to how you want to build your team,” Dos Santos said. “I believe that every training session has to have a direct implication with your model of play and your ideas of play.

“I believe that a coach that is building a team or preparing for a game always has to have the model of play in his head, so you have to make sure that every exercise that he’s choosing and every exercise that he’s putting in place has a direct relationship with the model of play in every element, the technical part, the physical, mental, and tactical elements,” he added.

With almost 100 coaches registered already, the event is shaping up to be one of the highest-attended coaching education courses in the country.

To register, click the link at the top of the page.