GREENVILLE – Marcel Matis, who has played and coached professional soccer, led a camp with the Greenville High School boys soccer team last week in Greenville.
Throughout the five-day camp, Greenville boys soccer coach Mark Coppess said, he saw a lot of improvement in the Green Wave’s play and understanding of the game.
“It went great,” Coppess said. “It was fabulous from Monday ’til today. Big improvement. We’ve got a lot of young players that got a lot of touches this week on the ball.”
Matis, a trainer for Matis Pro Soccer Training, is a former member of the U18 Romanian National Soccer Team. He played professionally for the Cincinnati EXCITE soccer team and was a professional player and assistant coach for the Cincinnati Riverhawks among other stops in his soccer career.
“The boys love him,” Coppess said of Matis, who visited Greenville for the camp for a second consecutive year.
The Green Wave looked for team bonding during the camp, but the biggest focus simply was on fundamentals.
“Just getting touches on the ball and understanding their first touch, which is very important, especially being on the new turf field this year it’s going to be a lot faster play so learning to improve our first touch,” Coppess said.
With storms on Friday, the final day of camp was moved into the Greenville High School gymnasium. Even while playing on the gym floor, which is smaller and plays quicker than grass, the Wave were able to get valuable experience.
“It’s a lot tighter space, quicker thought process, which outside we do anyway,” Coppess said. “We play a lot of small-sided games to increase that thought process and trying to work on making the right decisions in a short amount of time, which is the game.”
