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Repetition, repetition, repetition. You always hear professional athletes talking about getting their "reps" in, as they put in countless hours behind the scenes to truly become masters at their craft. But not everyone has a personal trainer or coach giving them a training regimen to follow, and a common message from coaches to young, aspiring athletes is to spend time outside of practice honing your skills.
“The whole concept revolved around that fact that a lot of players have been told to spend time with the ball, and a lot of people don’t really know what that means or what that entails.” That’s Yale Averbuch, the founder of the soccer training web app called Techne Futbol. She’s a midfielder for F.C. Kansas City as well as an NWSL and NCAA champion. She also has 26 caps with the USWNT.
“I had a lot of coaches and mentors as a young player that showed me tons of ideas and I was super engaged with that,” Averbuch said.
Techne Futbol is a web app for players of all ages and skills focused on the systematic approach to developing and sharpening the technical tools necessary for soccer. Complete with plenty of drills and training exercises, Techne allows players to hone their craft on their own and have great direction doing it. Averbuch came up with the name when she saw the word in a book, and it clicked that it was the perfect fit for what she was trying to do.
“It comes from Greek and it means craftsmanship, craft or art,” Averbuch said. “And I thought that was really cool because that really gets to the core of what I’m passionate about.
“Soccer is competitive and about the team doing well and winning championships, but, for me, it’s the craft that I’ve worked on over the years – it’s how I express myself, it’s my art.”
Complete with a new training session released every Sunday, Techne has plenty of drills that you can do to improve your game. The more time you spend training, the higher you move up the leaderboard.
“The primary thing we want to track isn’t who is the most proficient player, but who is going to put in the time and work hard,” Averbuch said.
Still in the early stages, Averbuch has more features that are going to be introduced in the near feature.
“One feature we will implement eventually is the app being able to capture video of you doing the move, and then you can upload it for feedback or prove that your score should be on the leaderboard.”
Averbuch put together the app with a team of freelance developers she met through her now business partner, Samantha Webber, who created an app that deals with the college recruiting process called Profile Passer.
The app took about six months to create, but Averbuch was working on it tirelessly.
“My teammates would try to hang out with me after practice and I was just like, 'I’m way too busy',” Averbuch said.
But once she showed them the app, they all loved it, and not only wanted to promote it, but wanted to use it.
“It’s great that they are spreading the word about something that they feel is useful as players,” she said.
These players include her teammates Becky Saurbrun and Heather O’Reilly, as well as her friends Becca Moros, Sydney Leroux and Dom Dwyer.
Averbuch has been really pleased with the engagement and feedback she’s gotten since the launch 3 weeks ago. There are roughly 100 users which includes 20+ professional players. There is a waitlist for users to get the app, but Averbuch plans to bring in more people every week or so.
Along with the soccer portion of the app, there is also a weekly lesson on the process of mastery.
“It’s not just about soccer,” Averbuch said. “When you want to accomplish something or become better at something, you start and you chip away every single day and it’s about that focused intentional training.”
“It’s not just kicking the ball around – anyone can do that- – it’s about empowerment that you can make yourself better with little or no equipment or minimal space.”
To get on the waitlist, sign up by clicking here and you will receive your unique link to create your login credentials. The app is on a membership basis, and you'll get some cool perks, including some gear and some wireless headphones. There is also a scholarship offer for users who can’t afford the membership.
For more information, visit their website at http://www.technefutbol.com/. To be featured on Technefutbol, send you videos to info@technefutbol.com or tag them with @technefutbol and #TechneSOD.
Follow Bryce Badwan on twitter @bbadss
