The Junior Jaguars is our most recent programme, aimed at introducing BFA children under 8 & 10 years of age to football and training in a competitive environment. Unlike the Lions, the U8 development sessions focus on technical and tactical aspects of football, as well as taking steps towards understanding the rules and nature of the game in greater depth.
The sessions themselves consist of a warm up (heart raisers), a technical introduction to the session (a separate warm up with a ball, introducing skills that will be specific to the session topic), a skill-specific section (e.g. shooting, passing, defending, attacking); always ending with a series of matches to utilise the new skills in a more competitive and higher paced environment to replicate and prepare the children for tournaments and competitive games.
The Development Programme is still predominantly designed, like every other BFA session, with the children’s enjoyment as its primary objective, but aims to balance this with;
- a) training to compete
- b) matches with outside oppositions
- c) preparing the keen and more proficient footballers for tryouts with the U10 & U12 Jaguars.