Simon Clifford

Simon Darcy Clifford is an English football coach, pioneer, and a businessman most commonly known for introducing Brazilian training techniques into the UK with his Brazilian Soccer Schools, being the very first of their kind. Clifford has worked in football for the last 30 years, from youth to senior and non-league to Premier League, with a number of clubs and individual professional players. Early life and career Brought up in Loftus in the North Riding of Yorkshire, he moved to Leeds to study at the age of eighteen. It was there that he started his teaching career in a primary school. He began training the children of the school using techniques derived from Brazilian football. He soon began an after school club that would become the first of a now worldwide chain of soccer schools. In 1997, he borrowed £5000 from a teachers' union to fund a trip to Brazil, where he spoke with Socrates, World Cup winning captain Carlos Alberto, Careca, Jairzinho and Rivellino, and watched them coach, whilst spending time residing at the training ground of São Paulo FC. Having developed a close friendship in the UK with Brazil midfielder Juninho, Clifford used the knowledge he had learned and his own initiative to create a syllabus. Brazilian soccer school and SOCATOTS Once back in England, Clifford blended his academic knowledge of coaching and his experience as a teacher to develop his own coaching programme. In 1997, he started a Brazilian-style soccer school for youngsters in Leeds, teaching Brazilian skills as well as introducing his students to futebol de salão, unheard of in England at the time and largely in the English speaking world. He brought these South American values back home to Leeds.