On a grass field on a steamy July Hinesville morning, Timur Yaskin passed along what his coaches instilled in him. Yaskin, a Russian native, put the nearly two dozen kids in front of him through a series of drills and exercises, all with the purpose of trying to make them better soccer players.

“The way I grew up, and I grew up in the Soviet Union, coaches made a huge difference in my life,” he said.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Yaskin was in the United States and saw it was a land of opportunity.

“I wanted to go into coaching, because you can make a huge difference for a lot of kids,” he said.

With the help of Hinesville Gators founder Tom Sukaratana, Yaskin had his pupils, ranging from high school age down through elementary school, learning not just how to manipulate the ball with their feet or improving how they play it off their chest but also sharpening their mental skills.

The game in the U.S. is more physical, but using your brain can be a big advantage, he said. On the whole, people only use about 10% of their brain power, Yaskin noted.

“Throughout the game, it makes all the difference,” he said.

That’s why the running and agility drills he set out were important, to show the young players how to push through their limits. He also wanted to bring out their leadership abilities.

“Every player can show leadership,” he said.

Yaskin came to the U.S. in 1998 and for the first seven years, he didn’t teach soccer. Following a pickup game, a couple of other players told him their sons also played and asked if he could give them some tips.

“And never looked back,” Yaskin said.

His teaching has even hit social media, with a YouTube channel for Soccer IQ Academy, and partnering with others he coached with in England and Spain.

“Now I’m getting millions of views on TikTok,” he said.

Since his time in the States, Yaskin has seen soccer grow in popularity and proficiency.

“I’ve seen it grow, from 2008 to 2015,” he said. “It was explosive growth.”

Many of his pupils at his Hinesville camp, held on the Liberty County Recreation Department fields at James Brown Park, were girls.

“The women’s game in the U.S. is the best in the world,” he said, “but now other countries are catching up. In the U.S. you can go to any field and see girls playing at a top level.”