Cycles of Training Sessions and Competitions of Youth Football Players

At the present level of football development, the requirements for athletic skills are increasing. Given a fierce competition in the international and national sports arena as never before, it is important to mobilize functional reserves and maximize individual inclinations of players to demonstrate the highest capability for sport in the period optimal for it. It is precisely a long-term training programme focused on the demonstration of natural inclinations that is a strategic area in the training of qualified athletes under the current conditions. Adhering to qualitative characteristics of the training process should become the basis for evaluating the rational structure of a long-term training process. The paper aims to theoretically and methodically justify the periods of training sessions and competitions of youth football players. Research methods are the following: general theoretical methods (analysis, synthesis, abstraction, comparison, generalization and descriptive mathematical statistics), systemic theoretical methods (structural analysis, functional analysis, structural-and-functional analysis, historical method, system modelling), a study of the printed and electronic sources of information, description, interviewing, expert survey. An analysis of scientific and methodological literature, legal documents and training programmes adopted in the countries with a high level of football development has made it possible to construct models of annual programs based on the years of study with further regulation of cycles of training sessions and competitions. Rational construction of the system of footballers’ long-term training is based on the introduction of changes in the organization and holding of children’s and youth competitions, pedagogical principles of managing sports activities and technologies for training youth football players, as well as methods of evaluating children’s coaches’ professional performance.