This is more a family and friends activity. There are soccer matches on TV almost every day of the week. Then there are recordings.
League cancelled all games and practices due to heat. Another reschedule. Funny thing is, it was the same temperature Sunday and they played a full slate of games in the midday sun (I refereed 2 in a row) but suddenly a weekday rolls around and 6:30 games are harmful to your health.
I grew up in VA and the heat and humidity were the norm. Live up north now and my charges are sawft when it gets into the 70s and sunny. The drop in play is discernible. Now they'd probably be way more resilient in the cold than the VA kids.
1. When you were growing up, FIFA and USSF didn't have heat guidelines. 2. It takes a little acclimation to the warm weather. In July, I'd have no problem playing in such heat. A week ago, I coached wearing underarmor winter gear and a heavy coat with rainy mid 50's weather. We've rarely had days in the 70's so far this spring. When temps go straight to the 90's, its like the USMNT playing a game in Denver in March and then having a match in San Pedro Sula 4 days later. The kids just can't prepare that quickly. 3. Yes the level of play was very slow in the games I was refereeing on sunday afternoon.
Find a Buffalo Wild Wings or something similar and see if they'll do a profit split. Our local will do fund raiser nights where 10% of the bill goes to a NFP organization. Unfortunately, they don't count booze on the 10%. They'll have lots of tvs to watch the games, and maybe you can make some money for your club too.
Who do your clubs use for uniforms? Our travel program is small, but we're trying to grow it. We'll have 25 kids this fall, hopefully more each season. We're looking for someone to handle our uniform orders and possibly provide additional apparel like club warm-ups, tshirts, etc. Soccer.com is who we're looking at now. I don't know whether they will set up a club shop for us or not because we're so small. Are there other stores we should be looking at? We would like to continue to use a local shop to do our rec league jerseys so we're just looking for someone to handle the small travel program for now.
We use a national company right now and the lead time is ridiculous. It's too long–8 weeks to get kits. I can tell you who we use in a PM. I'd suggest using a local shop for the travel program too. Our local shop used to do rec and travel and the guy gave us great pricing and delivery was pretty good. They carried Adidas uniforms. We became one of the bigger clubs in the area overnight and the local shops are miffed that we went national and I don't think the service is better, tbh.
Played a team yesterday that beat us 2-0 in March. They were the best team I've seen at playing out of the back. We also made them look pretty good by bypassing our midfield and playing balls right to their backline. We looked a LOT better against them yesterday. Better at controlling possession. Good build up. Good pressure if they won the ball. But - wow did we make some mental errors. Slow rolling ball inside the 6. Center back and gk make eye contact and both decide that the other should take the ball. While they both back away, their player swoops in for an easy finish. And then we gave up 3 goals on corner kicks. Nothing special happened. They just found the ball and we weren't able to clear it. We were also missing 2 of our key backline players. I'm pretty sure at least 2 of those goals don't happen with them playing. I don't think we'd have given up as many corners with them in and we run a better offside trap with them on the field. The progress is encouraging. The score line wasn't.
The corners are frustrating. I've played against teams that clearly spend time on their corners and set pieces.
My philosophy for restarts was to teach the applicable Laws, but use the normal organization/system for restarts. No rehearsed set piece plays. I encouraged my youth players to restart play as soon as possible when attacking and re-establish the rhythm. I did show them how to set up a wall when defending free kicks in the danger area. I let that week's captain short out any confusion on restarts, like who is on the ball.
When attacking we have 2 set piece plays- play it short or play it long. When defending- keep your line high and mark a player. We'll occasionally drop a corner kick back to a wing back who then crosses it far post. And we know how to do a little tap on the rare indirect kick. But we have a lot more to work on than running intricate patterns to perfection on free kicks. And our lapse on corners this weekend was more the result of the 2nd or 3rd bounce after the ball came in. Or "clearing" it to their player sitting outside the 18 waiting to clean up the garbage. Need to stay with and mark those players.
We use a national vendor for our travel program and a hybrid approach (initial order from national vendor and then distribution for rest of cycle through a local shop that we give inventory to).
Buy from your local soccer store. Give them the business they can do a lot for you. Like give you free stuff. Advertise in their store for new players or help sponsor a tournament. You can have a universal short and socks from them or let's your players go there to buy them.Shin guards push your Soccer store for everything. Club team you need home and away shirts. Make the best shirt the home shirt. Make it look different then most of the teams in your league so you can use it for most of the away games as well. Make all the uniforms the same color just got to have them make up a patch with your club name on it. Do not give the players the shirt the club keeps them for a lot of reasons. Some one quits you still got the shirt for repacenent players. Just use it for games you can get three seasons out of each shirt. Buy a cheaper shirt if you need a shirt that different against an away team. Now your older teams get bigger shirt. They move up you got those uniforms for a younger team moving up. You got their shirt for younger team moving up in age.You just have to collect the shirts after the game and get someone to wash them for the club so they don't stink. you can give the starting shirt to number 11 to the players that worked the hardest in practices before the game. I got that from playing on sporting club Gjoa when I started to start my own club teams.
Maybe everyone said they will miss because they were going to the beach or if it was yesterday Father's Day barbeque. I saw so many fathers with their sons while in the store. I told them have a great day, but I like spending the day with my grand children better now that my kids are grown up. Remember the song cat in the cradle by Harry Chapin boy did he die young.
our local shop i referred to is a local screen printing and trophy shop, not a soccer shop. if we had a soccer shop, that would give us another option for our "real soccer uniforms" we'd like to get for the travel teams instead of just screen printed tshirts like we do for the rec teams.
many of these type of stores do. Soccer.com is good. Our club used to use wegotsoccer out of Foxboro Mass. They were OK. Heck the store we use now, which is local has teams in the southeast using them for uniforms with a team store.
Did I post this article from last week in here? It's about Pulisic and how his parents saw his development. Some interesting ideas about development -futsal, again, seems to be a huge factor. Although that's my bias. I want futsal to be a huge part of his story. -his parents are both accomplished soccer players -exposure to high levels regularly (as did Michael Bradley) as a child http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...blueprint?_branch_match_id=403271276012690981
And the season is done! By some grace of god we went 4-6, so overall, not bad. Most disappointing aspect, in 5 of the 6 losses, we were shut out and yet finished with only a -8 goal differential. On to tryouts and then summer pickup.
Final post about the spring. First some background, for every game as part of the score reporting process, coaches rate the sportsmanship of the opposing coach, parents and players. The program director reviews all of these each week. At the end of the season the league recognizes all teams that got nearly perfect scores over the entire season. 2 of my 3 teams made the list for the spring.
Hope everyone is having a good summer. I got some good news for the fall. A kid I coached 3 years ago is back in the area. She hasn't played organized soccer so the her skills will be rusty. But she is a great kid and blazing fast so I'm excited to see her again.
Hi I am a new coach in a rec situation, first practice yesterday. I am here for much needed mentoring that I won't get much of locally, though I will try, I am probably not allowed to pay to get help locally, or I might consider that. Not sure. Please follow me, if you want to think about pitching in. I see there are some quality posters here. By name it is u-14, but two of the players are exceptional( I expect that one of them is extremely nice, and that one has a chip on his shoulder) , Possible they just can't afford to be in club soccer, in nearby metropolitan area, but they are good. Many are completely new at soccer ,even if they are 12-13, one is 10 years old and plays about average for the group. Two of them are my sons, who I have never coached before this except for on year of u-6. I am not the kind of volunteer trying in any part to maneuver favors for my kid. I wasn't THAT PARENT when others coached them either. I want to help them all according to their needs, both psychosocial and soccer , as best that I can. Small town trying to arrange for as many kids to get a spot on team as possible. All the board members and people in town soccer clique are on the other team , coaching expertise/support is not balanced, but talent probably is. Hard to get coaches, so they have me. I don't think I have ruined my life , but this is going to be a challenge. Initial concerns: Kids with the recluse type personality. I know some are from unhappy homes. Best kid might have a chip on his shoulder , so far wants to boss me around a little and smirk /laugh at my ineptitude. I was afraid this was going to happen on a broader scale, and it seems like there will only be him , maybe only one parent like this. I have done well with this, so far but it could be a grind if I don't handle it with skill. We don't have an obvious goal keeper? Thinking about bringing someone in to give the whole team a lesson or two. Maybe that will add some motivation at least. No one wants to be goalkeeper. Of course the nice kids will do it. I'd rather have someone in there who loved it. Thank you, SOSsoccerPoppa