coaching tactics... http://deadspin.com/why-soccer-tact...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
This GMA stuff is a monumental waste of time. I am amazed it is something people consider the soccer coach should teach. I do think mom or dad should work on that stuff. I asked my kids to do step fakes in U8 and you would not believe how bad most of them are. But that takes dad in the yard - not my time and here is why - 1. Most U8 and below has 1 practice a week for one hour and a game. 2. Most kids will not touch a soccer ball outside practice and a game. 3. Most kids at young age groups do not get meaningful touches on the ball during the game, usually just the top three - four players 4. Most kids do have PE, recess, a yard to play in. Let's just say they have 15 hours of free play time a week. Why on earth would I want to take away the one hour they have to dribble the ball at practice. Even if you look at a practice that has a scrimmage most the kids still don't get a full hour with the ball. Maybe a half hour, that is only true if they don't take water breaks which we know six year old kids love to take.
I agree with the GMA / team building / fun stuff here. But the coach has these kids 2-4 days a week to train and they likely get some touches on the ball outside of practice.
Soccer is an athletic activity. Whether you're coaching kicking motion or toe-taps it's "movement training". A soccer player spends 90% of the game without the ball, why not train him to move more efficiently. When he does have the ball movement training will help him make more out of it. Not everything that happens on a soccer field is predictable, being more coordinated/agile/flexible helps the player adjust to unpredictable situations. I can see the two sides to that argument. If it's once a week practice then maybe you don't have time—there are other ways to accomplish movement training. On the contrary, once a week kids are probably less-good than others so they may benefit more from movement training as a complement to their soccer training. Then, if you have good players (who may train on their own) then the coach has more leeway to do this stuff in training.
I agree. To put this in perspective, I have three sons, and here is how their physical activity is divided up each week during the spring and fall: 5 year old (~16 hours/week, 12.5% soccer): 2 hours soccer, 5 hours PE/recess, 9 hours inside/outside active free play 7 year old (~17.5 hours/week, 14% soccer): 2.5 hours soccer, 6 hours PE/recess, 9 hours inside/outside active free play 10 year old (~20.5 hours/week, 19.5% soccer): 4 hours soccer, 4 hours lacrosse, 6 hours PE/recess, 6.5 hours inside/outside active free play I will concede that my kids get more physical activity than the average child, but I assume that almost all kids are in school and getting about the same number of hours of PE and recess that my kids are getting. So even the "average" child is getting a lot more time on non-soccer physical activity than on soccer.
GMAs are not defined as "non-soccer activities." Most soccer activity is general athletic movements. Virtually all defensive movement in soccer is not soccer specific, but that doesn't mean that they are not fundamental athletic movements necessary to play soccer. The same can be said about attacking movements without the ball. Unless you use only very restricted drills (like the Coerver ball mastery exercises), you cannot separate GMA from soccer specific movements in exercises. Take SSGs for instance. The players off-the-ball are performing general athletic movements. Just because the coach is not focusing on the GMAs doesn't mean that GMAs are not being performed. You guys are not saying your point this way, but your point is really that you don't want to include exercises in your training sessions that have NO soccer specific skills involved and only GMAs. I don't necessarily disagree with that view because I try to make training sessions very efficient by including in my planned exercises, besides the immediate coaching objectives, movements that were the subject of prior training sessions. That way I provide reinforcement of as many of the fundamentals as possible. And it makes the training sessions progressive. So in every session my plan for U-Littles would include all fundamentals. What would change from session to session was my focus (the specific coaching objectives).
Correct. And the reason we are not stating it explicitly in each post is that I defined GMAs for purposes of this thread in the opening post.
Something is lost in the translation. "Bilateral movement uses both limb in unison to move a load" as used in strength training. A similar term is bilateral coordination. Most of those sports aren't any different than soccer in terms of the amount of bilateral vs. unilateral movements. In strength training bilateral movements are associated with maximum strength. And I don't understand why martial arts, gymnastics and dance are not on the list. They are great for agility and balance, having wide ranges of movements. Hockey and basketball use two arms to propell the puck and ball, but I don't see much benefit to soccer from that. Except of course basketball is great for keepers.
From this: http://www.slideshare.net/MaxRogers2/the-belgium-vision-on-youth-development Number range along bottom are ages.
A very interesting set of slides. I wonder what they mean by power and coordination. Not to mention the subsets of general and specific. Also notice that they are talking about "physical objectives within the learning plan." We normally talk about SAQ, strength, power and endurance as different types of physical training, but not objectives. And then we talk about sub-categories of strength and endurance training. We wouldn't talk about power training for 5 year olds. I think slides 10 and 19 and 41 to 44 could have been in a USSF presentation. Slide 20 doesn't make any sense to me. Coaches are supposed to teach mental skills to players at an early age, but players are not supposed to use mental skills until they are older? I think something is lost in translation. Slide 24 on double diamond 8v8 reminds me of Anson Dorrance's pitch to use 343 for youth development. Slide 26 indicates that their doctrine calls for keepers even in 2v2 at U6! Slides 60 and 61 spell out their basic youth development philosophy. I find startling what they consider as "new trends" in international football which is the basis for their training plan. Slides 29-34. The Belgium FA apparently just noticed blind-side runs and pressing? Something is missing here. Likewise the way they use "ZONE" makes me suspect that it is an acronym. I think developing youth players to play a specific system (433 with 1 DM) as adults is the ultimate mistake. A system should not be the end objective. It is a tactical, mental and physical straight jacket. Great players should be the end objective of player development.
BFA decided that 433 was the best formation for development. They don't really get into 11v11 much later than they do in the US, spit may be a moot point? All Barca teams and Ajax teams learn on a 433 basis for their senior team.this is a much expanded copy of that approach. There is a companion article to these slides on The Giardian.
As coaches we train our kids in skills and tactics and then we encourage them to take that knowledge home with them and work individually on the same things. We tell them that the extra hours spent in the back yard will make them better and make them more proficient. We do this because it's true. Why wouldn't we train GMA's, at least a little, using the same philosophy? Someone above stated that these kids get time at home in the backyard to run and jump and skip all week and that we shouldn't waste out time training these things. I ask you this. How many times have you coached a kid who spent lots of time kicking the ball in the backyard but has never received any real coaching? And how horrible was that players technique? So, now, what makes you think that just because the kids are doing this stuff somewhere else that they are doing it correctly? I can not tell you how many players I have had, and some of them in their teens, that can not jump and land properly, can't pivot, do not know how to cut or skip or shuffle. These are GMA's and they are used by every player in every game along with many others. Why wouldn't you show them these things and have them practice these things and then send them home to get better just like when you show them the correct way to receive a flighted ball or to perform a Cruyff turn? Do they not make the player better? Isn't it your job as coach to ensure that the player has the proper knowledge and training to succeed? GMA's included? I am not saying it should be a heavy topic in training but it should be addressed as needed especially in the younger age groups.
Time is a big constraint. If I have two hours per week with my team, I'm spending all of that on actual soccer and not devoting any of it to GMAs. If I had 10 hours per week with a group of kids, I'm quite sure I'd divvy that time up differently. Now, that's not to say I won't correct a specific player's movement technique if I see a specific issue. Case in point, I have coached around 200 kids under the age of 10 since 2008 and probably 25 or so of those kids had serious deficiencies in their running technique that slowed them down significantly. In each case, I pointed out the flaws in their running style and worked with them on the side to improve it. I chose times to do it that didn't take away from group training time. I absolutely think this is worth doing. In fact, I had one team of 16 kids that had 6 kids with terrible running form and I hired a track coach to come out and give a "speed clinic" outside of practice time. It was optional, but everyone attended. That was pretty valuable for those 6 kids and somewhat valuable to the other 10 kids.
The problem is that when they reach a level and coach who can devote the time to those activities they are severely behind because they haven't been addressed previously. The physical development side is kicked down the road until they reach college and are underprepared. I'm all for the "as much work with the ball as possible", but there are pieces of the game without the ball that also need to be addressed as well.
I'm wondering what you have in mind here. Are you talking about the idea that coaches should spot player's with specific issues, like poor jumping/running form and step in and help them to fix it? Or are you suggesting that youth soccer coaches should be allocating portions of their training time to non-soccer related activities regardless of whether their players are showing specific deficiencies? This conversation started because I know that a lot of U4-U6 technical directors believe that kids that age aren't really ready to do much with a soccer ball, so they instruct their coaches to spend time on thigs like having the kids throw their ball up in the air and catch it, stand on one foot, hop on one foot, etc. Basically just working to improve their overall athleticism under the assumption that it's too early for them to play "real soccer." Not sure whether you are endorsing this philosophy or not.