Some coaching thoughts from this past week: 1. Our u8B, my co-coach was saying we had a discipline and focus problem. He's a good coach But probably lacks experience with this age group. Went as far as to sent emails out to parents of certain boys. I would've approached differently. First, practice was set up poorly. He used very long-winded explanations several times. Second, he had very unnatural rules (like couldn't dribble or pass backwards) and that really prevented the kids from playing naturally. Third, we didn't do what we could to mitigate behavior problems. One, they love bouncing balls (like a basketball)-get rid of the balls when we are talking. Two make expectations clear and enforce them. Like no talking, when I am. Don't call out answers. Wait to raise your hand until I'm done explaining and I ask for questions. Simple stuff like that takes care of 90% of our problems. He complains that the boys have a short attention span. Well, no shit-they're six and 7 year old boys! I was away for two months because of an injury, so I didn't get to establish the rapport and ground rules I normally do with this team. I keep things quick and little to no lines. Third, despite a negative experience above, I like this pool coaching concept thing we have going. For example, 3 of us are in charge of 3 teams in the age group. They are different skill levels. I get to pick up new things from the other coaches all the time. Plus we complement each other. I can be technical focused and another will be more about big picture play. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This is an example of why I had an easier time coaching novices than kids who had been coached by others before. Kids have very good instincts which some coaches want to eliminate instead of adjust. Coaches should always be sensitive to how their current training fits in the bigger picture of the senior game and the progression of training to get there. As for the bouncing of balls, yes you could easily avoid it by grounding balls and moving the group to another spot for "lectures." Instead I used familiar exercises in a familiar progression and required very little explanation after the first session. I occasionally had U10s and U12s juggling instead of holding or grounding their balls. I considered it good training, technical, physical (elevates heart rate), and mental (multitasking while on the ball) and allowed it. Bouncing a ball off the ground is a first step to juggling. I think the real reason coaches stomp on this type of good training is a matter of ego because they see the behavior as disrespectful to them. I leave my ego behind when I coach. I want kids to have fun playing with a ball. Period. I remember working with this woman who was working toward her C license. She meant well, but was making some really basic mistakes. Example, she used this elaborate warm up exercise which 1) involved at most only 2 active balls for 16 players, involved resting 75% of the time, never repeated the same movements during a session, and she changed some movements every session requiring explanation and demonstration. Very few of the movements were soccer-like (for example give your partner a piggyback ride around a circle) so there was no technical or tactical value to the training. She had licenses, playing and coaching experience was also an assistant coach on a travel team at the time. This is part of the reason I don't think licenses or experience automatically means a coach is effective. She never asked me for mentoring so I didn't butt in. I was just a "volunteer parent coach." As for your situation, I would make sure at the earliest practical point to include an exercise for this group of players giving the opportunity to positively reinforce good tactical movements regardless of direction. If I recall correctly the other (pre-merger) club's coaches were supposed to pickup coaching methods from your club's coaches, so you should be able to correct the coach by setting an example for him.
Even really good, experienced coaches make mistakes. Talent identification is a very different aspect of coaching from training. I was just reading this week about two different examples. Barca's youth team was going to let Pep go before Cruyff saw him play and recognized his talent as a midfielder rather than goal scorer. Same story again when Barca's youth team wasn't giving another future midfield star any playing time. Pep's assistants saw the kid and recognized his midfield potential and told Pep about him. Pep promoted the player to the first team and personally mentored him for the pivote position. The point of this story is that in many professions peer reviews and second opinions often help provide new perspective. I just was rereading an old story about Ajax's youth academy where an Ajax official admitted that they make mistakes and cut players who go on to success at a rival club. That is two of the most respected youth academies. Everybody makes mistakes. Just like soccer.
Here you go. My friend addressed this a few years ago. http://www.socceramerica.com/article/55958/say-it-carefully-quickly-clearly-qa-with-dou.html
Bingo. A lot of the stuff I mentioned in part 2 of my post was from his book Practice Perfect. One part is knowing the material, one part is conveying the material, and another part is making sure your audience is primed to learn the material. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
First week of power rankings come out for Louisiana Boys High School Soccer. Low and behold my kids land in the two spot(#2) for our entire classification, which is Division II. I think this might be the highest my kids have entered the season, which bodes some scary expectations from here on out. Great thing is we finish up our first leg of district games early next week. We're 5-1 overall, 3-1 in district, and my boys just came off a pretty agonizing 1-0 win over district powerhouse, East Jefferson after losing a wacky game 5-1 the week before. My first season as coach there and I've already endured more than I thought I would have.. a ton of ups and downs. gahhh but work is never done and I think i've emphasized that enough to my kids.
So my midfielder got his first offer yesterday. Some D-II school, I told him to stash it because A. he's only a junior and B. he's good enough to play above that team's level.. he's probably front-runner to be MVP for our division this season. He plays Louisiana Fire(Chicago Fire) Elite which is traveling club ball, so I expect for offers to flood in after play-offs.
I subscribed to an on-line seminar primarily intended for parents of elite players, but is relevant to youth coaches as well. The speakers are listed on the website. http://soccerparentingsummit.com/ So far I have watched two excellent presentations by Dr. John Cone and Nick Levett related to dealing with differences in maturity. It is not free, but it contains up to date information about athlete development from some of the same people who speak to coaches in the C to A license process. Next month I will be going to my first NSCAA conference. Being retired has its advantages. Looking forward to the experience. One idea that I picked up recently related to tryouts was the simple suggestion that a 1 to 12 be added to the tryout numbers to reflect the players birth month. Apparently that small detail promotes the consideration of the relative ages of the candidates.
Depends on the child. Some kids who always are/will be the youngest will never let it effect them. Some will have confidence problems.
Interesting game on Saturday. 5:00 PM start last shopping Saturday of Xmas season. My goalkeeper cannot make it. 3 others can't make it because parents are going out etc. I have 4 players (and need 7). We get one kid who has been coming to practice but has yet to play a travel soccer match to come to the game. He might as well be a defender for the other team as he just runs at the ball when we have it. He wasn't terrible but needs lots of work. So that's 5. Luckily one of our U-10 teams is finishing up. I am able to get two U-9 players to stick around. One of the kids I know from goalkeeper training. He is TINY but fearless. The other kid is also pretty fearless ( I belong to a crossfit gym with his dad). They did not mind mixing it up with kids 3 years older than them. I used 5 goalkeepers, each playing approximately 10 minutes (subbed on the fly - called a player off dressed him in a shirt and gloves - I always carry extras - and send them back on). 20 minutes in I have a sub show up late. We end the first half down 4-1, but all things considering, we played OK. We created chances but couldn't put them away. Second half we score 4 goals and go up 5-4. We give up the last two goals and lose 6-5. Oh well. No expectations for most of the players. A couple of the better players really stepped forward with a lot of responsibility out there (more than a usual match). Its fun to occasionally play one of these scramble matches where you have no expectations for the kids. There were moments of nice structured play (at least as nice and structured as you can with some low functioning players out there) and a lot of hard effort. Just smiling at the end not caring about losing. Was a fun game.
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It is only relevant while players are maturing and in a development situation. My comment above concerned player identification and selection, but current level of maturity should also factor into training plans. (For elite players training plans should be individualized for other reasons.) Males on average reach full maturity at age 26. A few years earlier for females. That again is an average. In extreme cases kids can be 4 years behind the average. Nick Levett mentioned a player in his national team pool that didn't start puberty until age 18. He also mentioned an example of a club playing a late bloomer down a year. That wouldn't happen in the US because of the obsession with competitions over player development. Sadly, England has apparently advanced its program while the US seems to have regressed to putting emphasis on competition at the expense of development at ever earlier ages. Teaching team tactics and specializing in one sport at earlier ages doesn't make better players. In fact it retards development in all four aspects and increases the risks of burnout and injury.
No, its due to the rules of competition that strictly prohibits playing down. We have plenty of circumstances where players will play down in friendlies or in training.
So when we have numbers we split into A, B, and C. Starting to notice an interesting dynamic. A: Mostly talented, coordinated players. Some are real soccer players (smart and skillful). Others are just clinging on to the last year of their early developer advantage. Some are resting on their laurels. Most are focused during training. In games, rely on being superior 1v1 players but there's also nice passing and moving. I think A demonstrates the negative when you put a bunch of "Alphas" together—very few want to be a water carrier. My favorite one of this group is a little player, great skills, super smart and he's tenacious. I think of him as my Philip Lahm. There's at least 5 players who are flashier and more effective but this is the kid that makes the team go. B: Bunch of goof offs. We let the 2 better ones train with the As. If it were up to me, I'd move at least one kid up and one kid down now. But they are so not focused during training. With A and C groups, we can train. With B I spend as much time teaching them how to behave. B-group probably is furthest from playing to their potential. They seem content being "B" but having none of the perceived pressure of being an A player. C: As a group, least talented but equally focused as the A-group during training. Probably play the best brand of soccer as a team relative to their actual ability and potential. The A-group really shows flashy skills and passing but they're not a cohesive group.
The three groups are an interesting dynamic. The English FA Talent Identification speaker said he that he would be looking at the three groups for standouts in the mentality aspect. To see who was learning the fastest, who was communicating and organizing his team mates, who was seeing the play develop, who was engaged. He didn't put it this way, but the impression I got was he was looking for who was being the most effective and made his team mates better. He wasn't looking for physical advantages in 12 year-olds as a sign of talent. He was looking instead for non-physical advantages. At twelve-years-old physical abilities change, but personality and mental skills are established by then. An interesting question is whether individuals progress from the C group to the A group over the next 2-3 years?
I could probably put 2-3 Cs with the A group right now. Where they are now is a function of tryouts—which is pretty flawed way of placing players in tiers. They wouldn't be the best but won't be out of place either. Some of those players on A, like I said, have been riding reputation for at least two years now. One of them really ticks me off. His work ethic is lousy and he's not even that good of a player. IMO, he's a middle of the pack B-teamer.
Yes, they can. These are likely the kids late to travel/higher level soccer. Usually enter around U-11 and progress quickly. I've had a number of kids like this who enter very rough and perhaps struggle for a couple of months. By the end of the year, the light goes on and they are humming along, could step into that 'A' group and catch on very quickly. By the time they move through U-14, they are some of the top players.
I don't ocmpletely understand your response, but we let players train with the level above them if they are showing promise. So players with C train with B, B with A regularly. So we can test our theories about who can play where. It's not perfect. Jan through March we'll do more friendlies and we can mix and match the tiers as needed. But only upwards. Maybe it shouldn't.
I guess you attribute misplacement to flaws in talent identification. I was thinking the misplacement now was due to different rates of learning since identification. This is indicated to me by your comments indicating a variance in motivation among the players. I am also assuming that the players are well into the training year since they were selected.
Ah. Now I'm understanding what you are saying. I think tryouts in general are imperfect. But I guess we can't say it's faulty if 80-90percent of players are placed correctly. In a perfect world we'd train more as part of the selection process to gauge motivation better. But you are right, some of it could be from a half year of training. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Your set up reminds me of an ideal tryout using small sided games to evaluate talent. Ideally I would love to try this one day but would need three coaches. Have players set up in three small sided games. Field A, B, C. If you have known abilities put your top players on field A. even numbers on all fields if possible. After 5-7 minutes of play send the perceived weakest player on field A down to field B. Coach at B sends top player to A perceived weakest to C. Coach at C sends top player to B. Rinse and repeat as often as time allows. In the end all the best players should be on field A.