About 10 months ago we pulled out 18 of our grassroots youth teams and created our very own Internal League! This has proven to be a huge success not only in developing our Pro Elite superstars, but also enhancing our coaching abilities by following our tactical cycle.

Initially we had 18 teams within the age groups of U7’s to U10’s, many of which were playing within the same league. Some of which had multiple teams within the same local youth league! This opened our eyes as we felt the children were not progressing how we believed they could. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of two different options.

One being to stay within these external leagues and have little control over many variables. On the other hand to have full control but lose the experiences of facing local teams where adversity can occur. After much deliberation we decided to come up with a hybrid.

We created our own internal league for the teams within the ages of U7’s to U10’s. Whilst keeping the ages of U11’s and above into external local leagues. Also, to ensure we still face other external teams for our younger superstars we ensured that we would enter them into as many summer football festivals as we can.

We decided to take the risk!

To ensure we kept competitiveness, we created extremely even teams, each team having slightly different attributes. An example of this is a team that can be physically dominant compared to a team who have an abundance of ball carriers. These teams would be split into two separate conferences to ensure the competitiveness is kept very high.

Once we had the overall outline of our internal league we couldn’t wait to launch it! After the first week we quickly realised we had created something magical! With one match per week being recorded for the development of the teams and also as a fun and exciting video to watch for everyone at Pro Elite. Check out our latest videos here!

After a few weeks we quickly saw the benefits of our internal league. From seeing individual confidence and team work enhancement within each of our superstars. We decided to add in extra incentives, such as our playoff structure and Super Bowl! Which was one of the best days we’ve had at Pro Elite!

Since opening our internal league we have expanded to now have 26 teams, two of which play externally in a local league. We are always looking to grow and expand our internal league. This year we welcomed over 150 superstars who came to our football trials in July! We are extremely proud of what we have created and can’t wait for many more fantastic moments!

In addition to their matches some of our superstars have been very busy playing PROFESSIONAL academies ! Click the link here to read about them!