Lioul Minas

Technical Director @Joyofthepeople / @JoyAthletic

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

2026 Richmond VA
US Youth Futsal National Champions. 2 teams in the semis, one national championship (to go with 2019, 2021). The best futsal club in the country? Maybe. The most fun? Almost certainly. 🐐🏆⚽️ #underloading

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

Talent is not what you think it is.... https://t.co/nMGd5YmAaP

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

Let's go!!🐐🥅⚽️🇧🇷🇺🇸

[Lioul Minas @Lioul_10]

I wonder how much impact this had on his development. My guess, It’s way more than we think.

[60 Minutes @60Minutes]

Soccer star Lamine Yamal grew up in Rocafonda, a struggling North African immigrant enclave in Spain. He honed his skills on a concrete slab that doubled as a make-do soccer pitch. https://t.co/XkIcScGDNH

[Ghada @GhadahPG]

Paul Scholes talking about Pedri 🪄

[Neal 🇦🇺 @NealGardner_]

The best double pivot in the game.

[Players' Tribune Football @TPTFootball]

‘You are smiling because football is fun. Why would you be serious? Your goal is to spread joy. I’ll say it again — creativity over calculation.

Stay free, and you’ll win a World Cup for Brazil.

Stay free, and you’ll win the Champions League, La Liga and Serie A.

Stay free, and you’ll win a Ballon d’Or.

What you’ll be most proud of, though, is helping to change football in Barcelona through your style of play. When you arrive there, Real Madrid will be the power of Spanish football. By the time you leave the club, kids will be dreaming of playing “the Barcelona way.”

Listen to me, though. Your role in this will be about much more than what you do on the pitch.

At Barcelona, you’ll hear about this kid on the youth team. He wears number 10 like you. He’s small like you. He plays with the ball like you. You and your teammates will go watch him play for Barcelona’s youth squad, and at that moment you’ll know he’s going to be more than a great footballer. The kid is different. His name is Leo Messi.

You’ll tell the coaches to bring him up to play with you on the senior side. When he arrives, the Barcelona players will be talking about him like the Brazilian players were talking about you.

I want you to give him one piece of advice.

Tell him, “Play with happiness. Play free. Just play with the ball.”

Even when you are gone, the free style will live on in Barcelona through Messi.

A lot will happen in your life, good and bad. But everything that happens, you will owe to football. When people question your style, or why you smile after you lose a match, I want you to think of one memory.

When your father leaves this earth, you won’t have any movies of him. Your family doesn’t have much money, so your parents don’t own a video camera. You won’t be able to hear your father’s voice, or hear him laughing again.

But among his possessions, there is one thing you’ll always have to remember him by. It’s a photo of you and him playing football together. You are smiling, happy — with the ball at your feet. He is happy watching you.

Play as he told you to play.

Play with the ball.'

🤙🏾@10Ronaldinho

[Duluth FC @DuluthFC]

Final result. Final game at NPSL 2025. We play agin on Sunday 07/13 for the Minnesota Super Cup at home.

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

The best league in MN, energy, excitement, skill and local talent is not USL, NPSL, WPSL or even MLS it is the Northeast Soccer League

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

I have not seen a better futsal player in the country.

Cannot get a trial with the US Mens Futsal National team.

[UEFA Champions League @ChampionsLeague]

Pedri was everywhere 👏

#UCL

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

Know a high school junior or senior preparing for college? Check out this amazing organization that helps students with college costs! 🏫💰

We proudly wear their name on our jerseys to show our support. 💙
Learn more and apply here: https://t.co/BQRrEcSqck"

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

Thx St. Louis! Best trip ever. Thanks for all the support: kids, coaches, and parents--showing that beauty comes first.

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

What a great weekend in Wisconsin. Dells! Thanks to all the support and the amazing play.

Jotp Kiko taking the Championship Ts home!

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

We started this game at 7 am. Every hour older kids joined the game and the game never stopped.All Day, 150 Players, All Joy

193 to 178

Amazing!

[St. Cloud State Men's Soccer @SCSUMSOCCER]

The hits keep on coming for Phil: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐃𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑‼️‼️

Caputo led the Midwest Region in points (32), goals (13), and game-winning goals (5) while finishing third in assists (6)

Congrats Phil!!!!!

#gohuskies

[St. Cloud State Men's Soccer @SCSUMSOCCER]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐂 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 👉😴👈

Philip Caputo led the GLIAC in points, goals, game-winning goals, and shots on goal while breaking multiple team records including single season points, goals, assists, and gw goals🔥

Congrats Phil!!!

[Joy of the People @JOYofthePEOPLE]

The kids in play would often do what I called an unstructured game. As soon as I left the gym, they would change things. They would switch a ball, change the rules, or use a different goal. "Why?" I would always ask, 'Keep to the plan.' I felt like I knew better.

An interesting thing happened one day. It was hot, mid-nineties, and humid. Outside, we placed a large sheet of canvas, put goals on it, kept the hose running, and the kids cooled down on a splash court. As the kids filtered back inside the gym, they stayed barefoot. The game going on was a pick-up game of 7 v 7 in the gym to futsal goals (3 x 2 meters) with a soft play practice volleyball.

Why? Playing barefoot? Where was the futsal? I asked myself, a little annoyed. But then I did something interesting, I sat down and watched

This ball is very soft and safe, and the kids had discovered perhaps the most surprising teaching moment of my career.

We have all seen it: the kid who breaks away through three defenders faces the goalie and drills a perfect strike right into the keeper's belly button. So this 10-year-old lefty, faster than a jungle cat, broke free and nailed that play volleyball at a good 50 mph right...into the smiling face of a six-year-old.

For a second, I was worried. But the 6-year-old was smiling even larger now. He had just made a save against the best shooter in the gym.

"Finishing can't be taught," this is coaches speak for "I have no idea how to teach it."  Current methods put kids in situations to replicate the situation and pare down the decision-making process: "Low to the far post, high to the near post." We train functionally, with pressure, with loading, conditionally, and still the highest level of skill in players, putting the ball in the net, remains a general mystery.

So the lefty turned the corner again. This time, he took something off, but he still pinged it. The little 6-year-old stayed active and went for it, deflecting it away from the corner at the last second.

The gym went crazy, this goalie was hot!

Now, the lefty comes again, but this time, he sees the keeper cutting off the angle, a very soft chip. The six-year-old, slow to recognize the vector, backpedals late. The ball drops just over both arms outstretched, with no chance to jump. The six-year-old picks the ball up, still smiling. He knows it took a great finish to beat him.

In a "Finishing environment," there are two antagonists, the keeper and the attacker. Perfect learning situations involve simple to complex game theory.  It starts out with the very rudimentary "I am just hitting this as hard as I can." 99 percent of our players are in this category.  But to progress you need a problem to solve. In typical systems, the keeper is the variable.  Most teams have one keeper who does only a so so job of staying active as players are in close, they are too smart and don't feel like getting hurt with a size five ball from five meters into their stomach.  Certainly, they can not keep this up for the hours and hours required for a player to repeat lots of chances.  On top of that the skills of keepers at  9-12 years old are not sufficient enough to require anything but a mediocre finish to guarantee that the ball goes into the net. 

So, in the wheelhouse of learning U7-U13, we don't have situations real enough to reward high-level finishing.

This is where the ball came in. It made every keeper great. Even a six-year-old stays active at the final finishing moment. This requires the shooter to present a better solution in order to solve the finishing problem. Not just any shot will suffice; it has to be finished, and with this ball, that is what the kids do. They chip, tuck, slide, power, roof, drag, back heel, and rainbow to get the ball into the net. They are becoming finishers.

Kids are smart...here is a good example of them teaching us.  I could easily have commanded that a regular or futsal ball was used that day in the gym. They wanted to use that ball to learn something more!  They knew before I did, and though they could not articulate it, they understood that this ball would teach them finishing.

So my great learning moment was not how the ball helped to create finishers but how the environment helped come up with the right questions.  Without those questions there are no great answers, no genius, no invention.

[St. Cloud State Men's Soccer @SCSUMSOCCER]

He doesn’t just live for the big moment, HE IS the big moment👉😴👈

Phil Caputo’s game-winning goal against Purdue Northwest was his fifth of his career, the most in program history

Congrats Phil!!!

[SV Sandhausen 1916 e.V. @SV_Sandhausen]

IWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

⌚️ 90' | ⚫️ 2:1 🟢 | #SVSFCA 🏆