This seems to be paticularly true for the "spring" season. Just trying to get solid commitments from some parents for tournaments is a huge process. Of course these will be the same ones who will be complaining about how their child looks at the next tryout compared to the others!
That's a pretty good idea actually. Does anyone here coach at a Y or all the leagues something different?
Other coaches agreed, so our final game should be much more enjoyable. Nice to see common sense prevail once in a while.
Not sure how we wound up on the Y, but I remember seeing recently that the first place I played as a kid (the Athens YMCA) had been part of the general GYSA (Georgia) framework but dropped out to join a "more Christian" league or something like that. When I went back to check, the news item had disappeared.
Hopefully. This is making a mess of our spring practices: http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/02/22/denver-closes-outdoor-recreation-fields/
Since our last episode... Two games left as of last weekend. We played the team that won the first session in the U10 division. They were all close to ten years old if not already, and almost all of them were about a head taller than all but one of our U8s. Coach Joystick was jacked up, constantly telling the kids in pregame if we won we were in the final for another champio...uh, cheap T-shirt. Early in the game the kids weren't clicking; passes were attempted too late or in the line of the defender, muffed first touches, whiffed shots, etc. Most were shying away from 50/50 balls because of the other team's size. I was okay with it. They needed to find out what it was like to have another team challenge them (why we signed up for this division in the first place) and to see if they could figure out how to adjust to the game like they'll need to do in outdoor this spring. Coach Joystick was losing his mind just down the wall from me, yelling and screaming at the kids louder and louder as if it would somehow trigger a metamorphosis. His precious second championship of the winter was in jeopardy. At half, only down 2-1, I tell the kids to relax and have fun playing, not to get caught playing the other team's game and see if they could figure out a different way in the next half. A couple of minutes into the second half I knew it just wasn't our day, but Coach Joystick knew if he shouted louder and more often things would turn around. After the 5-1 loss, I asked the kids who the best soccer team in the world was with the usual responses (Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United). Then I asked them who won the Super Bowl. Then I asked if all those teams they mentioned went unbeaten during their seasons. Once they understood my point, they were okay. And despite the loss, we are still in contention for the final. But if not, we had a fantastic season and a good, mostly fun learning experience. And I'll never coach with or let my kid play for that dude again...
Is a spring thread coming? Snow is our problem. More on the ground this morning. We've had one practice, today will be snowed out and we've got a scrimmage coming this Sunday. Practice one was fun and small sided games. I've got 3 new kids with no clue on what pressure cover balance means, and I'd like to at least discuss this concept before the scrimmage. Hopefully we get a pactice on Weds and Thurs and we can at least talk about defense a couple of times. I don't care if we don't talk about offense at all before the weekend.
I think spring starts tonight for me...maybe. I left my club and was planning on taking the season off. Last night a friend told me he might have a position for me because a coach pissed everyone off and the manager quit. That takes talent to do after one week of practice! I haven't heard yet on if he is going to have me takeover so I guess I'm taking my gear to work today...
Final stretch of winter around here. Unfortunately, still looks like winter (the past two springs came early and got us outdoors very early). Last session of indoors is underway. Instead of playing in the usual 7v7 on a 50x30 field, we are doing a full field format (two of the smaller fields). Approx the size of a good U-12 field and plays 9 v 9. Was happy to see that all the practicing (and playing) on small fields and gym floors translated well for my players. They were now left with so much time on the ball. Finally it looked like real soccer. Now need to incorporate some full field tactics into the remaining indoor practices.
That's one thing I'll be interested in seeing with my son's academy team. They're going from 7v7 on an indoor field playing U10s to 6v6 on a slightly larger field playing against U9s. The space and time they should hopefully have will be like playing in slow-motion to them.
Well to follow up, last night's practice was an absolute abortion. Gotta love the consistency of 11-yo's.
I love it when talking with parents of my son's team and they lament on how their son didn't play well and they didn't do the good things they did last game and they're not progressing and they don't know what to do, etc. Then I reply, "They're eight. Relax."
Does anyone else get real down-beat when a training session doesn't go well? Hell, I can't get to sleep at night if even one of my drills turns into a waste of time. It seems that if a drill doesn't go well within the first 5 minutes, there's something wrong and I should abandon it, move to the next drill and try to figure out what went wrong after the session is over. Instead, I always end up running around like a crazy person trying to resurrect the dying drill and wasting even more time on a drill that's going no where.
I was insane last night. Drove me nuts. Only have limited time and space in a gym, there is only so much you can do. I really try to work on the mechanics stuff with a lot of repetition. When that doesn't go well, I know it will be a long night.
You can spice it up a bit with some competition. "Which pair can complete the most two-touch passes in 60 seconds?" "You have to do 30 (something)s, let's see who can be the first to finish." I like adding time pressure to simple technical drills.
If you can be more specific about what you were doing and what went wrong, maybe someone can think of a work-around.
Much easier to say about someone else's kid than about your own. Parents get irrational about their own kids and about the importance of single events. It's tough to see the long-term when you are wrapped up in the day-to-day. When my 9 year old has training sessions canceled or otherwise misses training time, I try to remind myself that, back in my day, I was practicing one or twice per week max for about 10 weeks in the fall and ten weeks in the spring with maybe 20 games per year. My kid puts in probably three times more hours than I did and already has nearly as much skill as I have today. (His ball-skills actually are higher than mine, but there are lots of things I can do that he can't, of course.)
As Nick says, it can be boring. It gets lazy for the better kids/ sloppy for others. Instructions aren't followed. The gym is a little small, space is tight. It is something that when you are an average team you make the mistake in a game, you don't get penalized for, but if you make the repeated technical mistakes against good teams you will get penalized for. So, if task is to received inside one foot pass with inside of other foot, I'll have players receiving with outside of foot and passing with same foot. One-touching, etc. Can't even begin to tell you how many times I have to emphasize being in an athletic position to be prepared to receive a ball. I'm of the opinion, until they learn it by having it done to them in a game, they won't put it together.
Two comments on technical training. 1) My routine plan was to only do pure technical work during the warmup. They are fresh then. And it gets them a lot of touches at the start of practice. I never spent more than 20 minutes on this before moving to SSGs. I had no problems with attitudes. Players were always excited and looking forward to the SSGs followed by a short scrimmage at the end of the session. 2) The first thing I added to any drill to increase difficulty was movement. Even with complete novices, I spent the minimum time doing stationary drills before moving to a slow walking speed. I see this as a necessary step to transition to use of the skill in a SSG. The warmup phase itself is a period where the players transistion from slow and easy to executing at 100% speed. So the activities in the last part of the warmup phase are ballistic and dynamic (I often used some variation of relay races), leading up to the SSGs.
That's one reason why I do it...to hopefully remind them of the long-term, which is to say we don't know the long-term in this regard. To just enjoy what they do well and realize form comes and goes, and it won't be consistent at this age. They could end up a pro or decide to not play ever again. Heck, pros aren't always consistent either. I'm as invested in my son's play as anyone, but it's been great coming at it from a coach's perspective all these years because I can see it as a parent and as a neutral coach. At times I'm even telling myself, "They're eight, relax." I've bagged many a planned session from U6 to U12 because I could tell the kids just aren't with it that particular day due to whatever in their life, and we've switched to a more fun game, handball or straight to SSGs/scrimmages and still get value out of it. It's the irrational, "wrapped up" parents who are yelling from their folding chairs at refs and at players shouting instructions making the game not fun for the kids, while I'm sitting far away watching and enjoying the game for what it is. And I'm not totally immune to shouting an instruction in the heat of a game sometimes, but I do catch myself, shut up and relax.