Private soccer lessons in Charleston are built around one hour: one coach, one player, one park near your house. What you are really buying is attention, with nobody waiting in line behind a cone and nobody hiding at the back of a drill. Pricing moves with three things: session length, whether your kid trains alone or with a friend, and how far the coach drives. Here is the whole hour, start to finish, before you spend a dollar on it.
I am Olly, and Olly on the Ball is the training I run myself. I am a teenager who still plays club ball every week, and I train kids roughly 5 to 14 across Charleston and Mount Pleasant. This is the page I would have wanted to read if I were the parent calling a coach for the first time, so I am answering the questions in the order parents actually ask them.
- The format: one-on-one, or semi-private with a teammate, sibling or friend.
- The hour: ball work, one technical focus, the same skill under pressure, then something that looks like a game.
- The place: your park. I travel across the Lowcountry instead of running everything out of one facility.
- The price: set per session, and lower per family when two kids split the hour.
- The ages: roughly 5 to 14, beginner through competitive club player.
What actually happens in the hour
The hour is the product, so let me open it up. The curriculum I train from covers ball control, passing and receiving, shooting, defending, positioning and fitness. No single session touches all of that. A good hour picks one thing and chases it.
The first ten minutes: feet on the ball
No laps. Your kid has a foot on a ball inside the first thirty seconds. Toe taps, rolls, pull-backs, inside and outside touches, while we talk about how school went and what happened in their last game. It warms them up, and it tells me plenty: which foot they avoid, whether their head ever comes up, how they react the first time a touch gets away from them.
The middle twenty: one focus, not five
Then we pick the thing. Often it is first touch, which is the very first contact a player takes when the ball arrives and decides whether the next three seconds are calm or frantic. Sometimes it is the weak foot. Sometimes it is shielding the ball with their body. We rep it slowly and unopposed until it stops looking like work. I demonstrate it, then I do it badly on purpose and ask them what went wrong, because a player who can spot the mistake can fix it when I am not standing there. If it is a touch they can keep working on, I show them a version that fits in a yard, like the first touch drills you can set up in the backyard.
The next fifteen: add pressure
A skill that only works in an empty park is not a skill yet. So I step in as a defender, shrink the space, put a count on it, make them do it while somebody is talking at them. This is where soccer IQ starts to show, which is just game awareness: reading what is around you before the ball arrives, so the decision is already made when it gets there.
The last fifteen: it has to look like a game
We finish competitive. One-v-one to small goals, finishing on tired legs, a scoring game they can genuinely beat me at. Kids remember the end of a session, so the end should be the part they want to tell you about in the car. Then they leave with one thing to work on before I see them again.
How pricing works for private soccer lessons
Here is the honest version of how private soccer lessons get priced in this area, mine included. Three things move the number.
- Length. An hour is the standard block. Shorter sessions exist and suit the youngest players, whose focus runs out before their legs do.
- How many players. One-on-one is the highest cost per family. Put two kids in the hour and the cost of that hour gets shared.
- Travel. A coach who drives to your field is giving part of the day to the drive. Distance tends to show up either in the price or in which time slots are open.
Frequency matters too. A family booking every week is planning differently from a family booking one session before a big week, and it is fair to ask any coach whether a regular slot changes anything.
I keep my own number on its own page instead of making you email me for it. You can read what private soccer lessons cost with me before you ever get in touch. If your setup is unusual, like two kids at a park on the far side of the bridge for a set number of weeks, ask me and I will give you a straight figure.
What I will not do is publish other programs’ fees here. Club dues, academy pricing and camp costs shift year to year and change by age group, and quoting somebody else’s number in a blog post is how parents end up with the wrong expectation. Call the program and ask them directly.
One-on-one or semi-private: which one fits your kid
Two formats, and they suit two different kids.
One-on-one is for the player with a specific gap. Every rep is theirs, every correction lands on them, and there is nowhere to hide. That is the point, and it is also why some kids find the first session intense. By the second or third, almost all of them like it. This is the format most of my 9-to-14-year-olds end up in, and it is what I describe in more detail on my page about one-on-one soccer training in Mount Pleasant.
Semi-private means your kid plus a teammate, a sibling or a friend. Competition is built into the hour, every drill has a natural opponent, and the cost of the session is shared. For a lot of 5-to-8-year-olds it is simply more fun, and at that age fun is doing more work than any technical point I could make. There is more on how I structure those in my guide to running small group training sessions.
A rough guide, not a rule: younger beginners often do better with a friend in the session, and an older player chewing on one specific weakness usually wants the hour to themselves. If you are not sure, tell me about your kid and I will tell you what I would do.
Where we train across Charleston and Mount Pleasant
I come to you. There is no fixed facility to drive across the bridge for, which matters when the session is an hour and the drive could be forty minutes each way.
Families book me at Hampton Park, Ackerman Park, Patriots Point, and on fields around Daniel Island, James Island, Summerville, Sullivan’s Island, Isle of Palms, North Charleston and West Ashley. If you already have a field your kid likes, we use it. Familiar ground helps a nervous player more than people expect.
If you do not have one yet, start with my rundown of the best places to play soccer in Mount Pleasant, which covers which surfaces hold up after rain and which fields are usually free. For the bigger picture of how parks, rec leagues and extra training fit together on this side of the bridge, there is also my guide to youth soccer in Mount Pleasant.
What to bring, and what to tell me beforehand
Keep the gear simple. A ball that fits their age is the one thing worth getting right: size 3 for the youngest players, size 4 through most of the middle years, size 5 from around thirteen. Add water, shin guards, and cleats if they have them. Sneakers on turf or hard ground are fine.
The more useful preparation is information. Before a first session, tell me what position they play, what their team coach has been on them about, and whether anything has knocked their confidence lately, like a rough season or a tryout that did not go the way they hoped. I will build the hour differently if I know. Confidence is its own skill, and I have written separately about building soccer confidence in young players if that is the part you are worried about.
Parents: watch from the sideline or sit in the car with a book. Some kids play looser when nobody they know is watching, and some want you there for every rep. You know which one you have.
How often kids actually need to train
Most families who stick with it land on a regular weekly or every-other-week slot. That rhythm gives a player something to carry into their team practices and something to bring back to me.
But the hour with me is not where most of the improvement happens. It is where the correction happens. The improvement happens in the twenty minutes a kid spends in the driveway on a Tuesday, repeating the thing nobody is watching them do. That is why every session ends with one small assignment rather than a list.
Helping with that at home is harder than it sounds, mostly because the line between supporting and coaching is thin and kids hear the difference immediately. My piece on helping your kid practice at home without coaching them is the one I point parents to most. If you want a single drill that pays off fast, the tennis ball drill sharpens a first touch quicker than almost anything I know, because a ball that small punishes a lazy foot.
When private training helps most, and when it does not
It helps most in four situations. A kid brand new to the game who needs comfort on the ball before the team environment makes sense. A player with one clear technical gap, like a weak left foot or a touch that bounces away under pressure. A kid whose confidence took a hit and needs a low-stakes hour where nothing counts. And a player who simply wants more touches than a team practice can give, because a team coach is splitting attention across fifteen or more kids and the math does not change no matter how good that coach is.
It helps least when the kid does not want it. If training is your idea and not theirs, an hour alone with a coach is the wrong place to find that out. It also helps least when the schedule is already full. A player training or playing five or six days a week does not need a seventh commitment, they need a rest day, and I will tell you that rather than take the booking.
If you are still weighing it up, I wrote a longer answer to whether private soccer training is worth it, including the cases where I think the honest answer is no.
What I do not promise
An hour a week is not a roster spot, and it is definitely not a college offer. Any coach who sells you that is selling something they cannot control, because selection involves a dozen things neither of us decides. What I will promise is narrower and more useful: your kid leaves better at one specific thing than they arrived, and they enjoy the hour enough to want the next one.
That is on purpose. The whole reason I do this is that soccer is not just about winning. It is hard work, teammates, and falling for the beautiful game hard enough that you keep playing it when nobody is making you.
I am also not going to hand you a wall of certifications, because that is not what I have. What I have is that I am in it right now. I play for South Carolina Surf, an ECNL club, I volunteer with the Charleston Battery, and I came up through the Battery’s youth team and Charleston Soccer Club. There is more about me and the clubs I have played for if you want the full background. Being close in age to the kids I train cuts both ways: they can picture themselves doing what I am doing, which an adult coach cannot offer, and an experienced adult coach brings years I do not have yet. Pick what your kid needs.
How to compare private coaches in the Lowcountry
There are good coaches all over Charleston, and the right one for your kid may not be me. These are the questions worth asking any of us before you book.
- Who is actually on the field? Some services assign whoever is available that week. Ask whether you get the same coach every session.
- What is the plan for the hour? A coach who cannot describe the shape of a session has not thought about it.
- Where does it happen, and who pays for the field? This changes the real cost more than the headline rate does.
- What happens when it rains? Lowcountry weather will test this within a month.
- What does a session look like for a kid my kid’s age? A seven-year-old and a thirteen-year-old should not get the same hour.
For the longer version of that checklist, including the answers that should make you keep looking, see my guide to choosing a private soccer coach in Charleston, SC, or read what I offer as a private soccer coach in Charleston and hold it up against anyone else you are considering.
Booking a first session with Olly on the Ball
Tell me three things and we can get a session on the calendar: your kid’s age, the park you want to use, and the one thing you would most like to see change. That is enough for me to plan an hour that is worth your money.
Timing is usually the sticking point for families juggling school and a club schedule, so it is worth looking at how after-school and weekend training in Mount Pleasant tends to fit around everything else. When you are ready, send me a message and tell me about your player.
Then we get to work. Train hard, play with passion, and always stay on the ball.
Frequently asked questions
How much are private soccer lessons?
Pricing is set per session and moves with three things: how long the session runs, whether your kid trains alone or shares the hour with a teammate or friend, and how far the coach travels to your field. Semi-private sessions cost less per family because the hour is shared. My current rate is published on my pricing page rather than kept behind an email, and I will quote an unusual setup directly if you ask.
Are private soccer lessons worth it?
They are worth it when there is a specific reason for them: a beginner who needs comfort on the ball, a player with one clear technical gap, or a kid who wants more touches than a team practice can give. They are not worth it when the idea is the parent’s and not the kid’s, or when the week is already packed with team training. The honest test is whether you can name the thing you want to change.
Is 9 years old too late to start soccer?
No. Nine is a good age to start, because a player that age can hold a correction in their head and repeat it on purpose, which a five-year-old cannot always do. They will be behind kids who started at five on pure ball familiarity, and that gap closes faster than most parents expect with regular touches. The thing to protect at that age is enjoyment, not catch-up.
Can my kid train with a friend or teammate?
Yes. Semi-private sessions are one of the most common ways families book, and for younger kids they are often the better choice. Two players give every drill a natural opponent, competition sharpens the pace, and the cost of the hour is shared between the families. The one thing to watch is that both kids are at a similar level, so neither spends the hour waiting.
Do you come to our field, or do we come to you?
I travel to the family’s own park or field rather than running sessions out of one fixed facility. Families book me at parks around Charleston and Mount Pleasant, including Hampton Park, Ackerman Park, Patriots Point, Daniel Island, James Island and West Ashley. If you already have a field your kid is comfortable on, we use that one.
