At South Van FC an IDP is the difference between coaching a group and coaching your kid. It is worth understanding, because whether an academy actually builds them tells you a lot about how they think.
The Short Version
An Individual Development Plan is a written picture of where a player is right now, what they need to work on next, and how the coaching staff is going to help them get there.
It is not a report card. A report card grades what already happened. An IDP looks forward. It names two or three specific things a player is working on over the next block of training, and it gets revisited as they improve.
Most importantly, it is individual. Twenty players in the same session can have twenty different plans, because a strong left-footed defender who hides from contact needs something completely different from a quick winger who panics under pressure.
Why Group Coaching Alone Falls Short
Walk into a lot of youth programs in Vancouver and you will see one session delivered to the whole group. Same drills, same feedback, same targets for everyone.
That works for the middle of the group. It fails the players at either end. The kid who is ahead coasts because nothing is stretching them. The kid who is behind falls further back because the session was never aimed at what they actually need.
An IDP fixes that. The group session still happens, but each player has their own set of things to hunt for inside it. The coach knows that this player is being pushed to use their weak foot today, and that one is being asked to scan before they receive. Same drill, different job.
What Actually Goes Into One
A useful IDP is short and honest. Ours generally cover four areas.
Technical. The things a player does with the ball. First touch, both feet, striking, receiving under pressure. Usually the easiest area to name and measure.
Tactical. The decisions a player makes. Positioning, scanning, when to release the ball, reading the game a moment earlier than they do now.
Physical. Movement, balance, coordination, and later on things like speed and endurance. Age appropriate, always. We are not conditioning nine-year-olds.
Mental. How a player handles a mistake, whether they compete when tired, whether they take a correction and use it. This is the part most programs ignore and the part that often decides who keeps developing.
Under each area sit one or two concrete targets. Not “get better at passing.” Something a player and parent can actually see, like “receive across the body and play forward with the first touch.”
How We Use It at South Van FC
The plan starts with the evaluation. Before a player joins, our coaches watch them and write down what they see. That becomes the first version of the IDP.
From there it lives in training. Small groups make this possible. When a coach is working with eight players instead of twenty-two, they can actually track whether a player is hitting their targets week to week. We revisit each plan regularly and update it as things change, because a target a player has clearly mastered should not still be on the page three months later.
We also use video for this. A player watching themselves misread a situation understands their target in a way that no amount of telling achieves. The clip and the plan point at the same thing.
For parents, the IDP is also the honest conversation. It is where we tell you what your child is genuinely good at and where the work is. No vague reassurance, no inflated praise. Just where they are and where we are taking them.
Questions Worth Asking Any Academy
If you are comparing programs, the IDP is a fast way to separate the serious ones from the rest. Ask directly:
- Do you build an individual plan for each player, or one program for the group?
- How often is it reviewed and updated?
- Who writes it, and have they actually watched my child play?
- How will I hear about my child’s progress against it?
A program that develops players one at a time can answer all four without hesitating. A program that runs everyone through the same session usually cannot.
The Point of All of It
Kids develop at different speeds, in different areas, for different reasons. Treating them as one group guarantees that most of them are being coached toward something that is not quite what they need.
An IDP is just the tool that keeps the focus on the actual player in front of you. That is the whole philosophy at South Van FC, and it is why we build the academy around small groups and real individual attention rather than big numbers.
If you want to see what your child’s starting point looks like, book a free player evaluation. Our coaches will assess them and walk you through the first version of their plan. You can also read more about how the academy works and where the pathway leads.
Harjit Kainth is the founder, head coach, and academy director at South Van FC. He built the club from the ground up in South Vancouver with a focus on long-term player development, and oversees both the youth academy and the VMSL men’s team. If you have questions about the programme or want to talk development, reach out at southvanfc@gmail.com.
South Van FC is a community football club based in South Vancouver, BC. We run a youth academy, an adult 18+ program, and a VMSL Men’s team, built around one philosophy: develop real players, technically sharp, tactically aware, and mentally tough. Learn more at southvanfc.com.