Fitness vs. skills in practices

[JohnW]

Originally posted by Elroy
One of the problems facing all coaches since the comercialization of soccer is the lack of an off-season. " Professional " soccer coaches need consistent monthly incomes. As a result, they pressure parents and players into intense, year round schedules. They play on fears that if kids don't work hard year round, they will fall behind...


...If you are a player trapped in an interminably long competitive play schedule, you need to demand time away. You need time to develop physically, time to strength train, time to let muscles and joints recover. You also need time to reflect on your game away from the competitive pressure of the next, next match. If you are a really great player and athlete, you can call your own shots.

As they say in England: spot on.

[helmzgk]

At 11-14 yrs of age it's wise to just have these kids touch the ball all practice. You can sub these kids in and out numerous times in a game so they have breaks and so forth.
Once you get into high school the fittest teams win. It's never the best teams or the biggest teams, it's always the fittest teams. This way you can run circles around defenders all game long. Even at the Varsity level after the first half, the midfielders stop moping around and walking, and the forwards will just stand there. They're all out of shape. In high school, for a three hour practice, you run for two hours and touch the ball for an hour.
Club soccer for high school kids solely depends on high school to keep their players fit. Not many club teams have their players run 2 or 3 miles then do wind sprints during practice. My club team was very successful and we'd touch the ball the entire three hours of practice because our coach knew we were coming from a high school practice an hour previous that had us running.