2017 Coaching thread

Thanks-- I think 7 is easier than older to deal with a dis-engaged kid. I'd try to figure out what type of practice activity she likes best and use it in a practice. In addition, I'd probably focus on her a little at practice and try and draw her ou

 

Good advice to focus on the kids and their enjoyment. Whatever the situation is, favorable or not, you're going to find the biggest challenge comes from parents.

Help the players learn some skills and have fun while avoiding getting sucked into anything negative regarding the in-crowd.

That being said, a great way to win parents over is to speak to them personally about their player. Perhaps send an email to a players parent identifying some positives you see in their child and mentioning something you hope to help them improve on. Makes the parents feel included and gives them some talking points with their child.

 

The in crowd team, with all the board members on it got all 13 players for preseason tournament, and I had two yes , with one maybe. They now have head coach and assistant coach as board members too.

Board won't admit it's about stacking critical mass in their favor and said /texted that I am a defeatist coach with defeatist parents. Which if they believe that , they knowingly and have admitted to putting all the defeatists coaches and parents on one team? That would just prove my point about imbalance and favoritism. If they believe I am defeatist I think they should ask me to quit.

Yes, I am still committed to giving my kids and parents the best I can manage. I think they are aware of that and appreciate it. When I coached in U-6 my parents were happy with me in the end.

 

I am not following what you are complaining about.

Is the club sending an "all star" team to a tournament? That is not unusual. Clubs use tournaments to promote the club. They want to do well at the tournaments. Often clubs will pick the coach and let him pick the players for the team. Often the coach will form the core of the tournament team from his team because he knows the players and they know him. To that core the coach usually selects "star" players that have caught his eye from other teams of the right age. I don't see anything wrong with this practice.

Are they saying you cannot take your own team to tournaments? This is usually not something rec parents want because of the time and expense.

Finally because you and the team are new to each other I suspect neither you or your team is ready for a preseason tournament. Why not focus on an end of season tournament instead, if you want to go to a tournament? That way you have the whole season to prepare.

Finally youth sports is not about parity ("the quality or state of being equal or equivalent"). Youth sports are supposed to teach discipline, team work, and the value of practice. People are not "entitled" to anything for just showing up. (Besides a uniform and the opportunity to play soccer.) It is about competition and taking advantage of opportunities for improvement. Instead of competitive athletics being about being equal, it is about getting better. Focus is on the future, not on the present or past. Players are not equal. Teams are not equal. Coaches are not equal.

Have you started planning any training yet? That should come before talking to the board about tournaments.

 

The whole objective of development is for players to move up the pyramid when they improve. So moving to new teams is not inherently a problem.

In post no. 300, he mentioned that there was an existing team with experienced coaches and board member's kids on the team. He mentioned that the club started a second team (which SOSsocerpapa is coaching) because they wanted to give a chance for more kids to play. Seems like an obvious A/B team situation. I wouldn't want to sacrifice an established team in an attempt to generate interest in forming a new team.

This must be a small club if they only had one team for that age group. Big clubs have multiple levels of play--rec, competitive, and something in between. When I coached U10Gs in a large metropolitan area, the club had over 30 11-a-side teams, but only one level of play because travel did not start until U11. The club was grooming one of the 30 teams to be the U11 A team the next year. I could say that it was favoritism of league officials and insider coaches, but I won't. I will say that at that time, they selected the oldest kids for that team, which was a mistake. But there is nothing inherently wrong with planning ahead.

 

My thought is that it is an ignorant comment. Ignorant as in unaware and uninformed. Their parenting style probably reflects their ignorance.

Punishment induces people to avoid behaviors. Positive reinforcement promotes behaviors. Bobby Knight's style might exhort players to be more competitive, but it is not the best player development strategy. Someone who thinks Bobby Knight's anger is necessary to win competitions never met John Wooden who both developed players and won competitions.

 

Wooooo big tournament next weekend. I missed the fresh smell of angry parents on the sidelines.

 

I'd guess that is what it means but it seems odd

 

I screwed up my practice pick for the fall. For some reason, I chose the middle 3rd of the a field instead of one of the ends with goals. So no shooting practice for my 8th graders this season.

I'm trying to swing a deal with another manager to trade for some of his space on a a turf field but in the short term I'm out of luck.

 

My '08 son is playing "Academy" soccer for the first time this fall. I am an assistant coach after having coached him in rec soccer for a while. Full staff includes the head coach and one other assistant. Registration remains open but as of now we have 28 players. We'll play 7 v 7 and field multiple teams on match days. No tryouts and I'm unsure of how the teams will be divided for each match.

I've really enjoyed coaching thus far and hope to continue. "E" courses will be available in Montana in February. Would be great to have a head coach role in the spring. In the meantime I'd love your help...

Do you have any favorite methods and/or tips for helping build leadership qualities in your players?

Also, I'm kicking around some ideas for how I may introduce some challenges to help players on and off the field. For example, perhaps a "WOW" (word of the week) where each week we'd focus on a new word such as 'Communication" and really focus their efforts on that in practice and in their life that week.

I want players to develop life skills through soccer and teamwork so I'm looking for any examples of things you may have done to help foster that type of environment.

Thanks!

Matt

 

Moving up from U15 this season, my girls team is now at U16 and playing well...after this weekend we moved to 3-0 in our league play (no tourneys yet). Won't have standings updates until later this week, but we went into the weekend tied for first so the girls are excited...we have a goal diff so far of 7-1 thru 3 games.

Not to make is all about winning - we still focus on development, fun, and letting them build the friendships and so on...but it is the premier/competitive league...so winning some games is always nice and keeps the parents happy

Mostly what I've been excited about though is seeing them develop and put the ideas we teach into play. They are communicating more, making those extra passes to pull the defense/keeper out of position, and we are playing some great defensive soccer. I always tell them show up mentally and use the skills and tactics you learn at practice, don't worry about the wins and the wins will eventually come...so far so good. Nice for them after a tough spring where we went 2-5-1 in our league play and only averaged scoring 1 goal per game....a lot of things that didn't bounce our way last spring seem to be going our way now, which is nice.

I have continued running a 3232 formation and it really seems to be clicking...but I know we'll have a couple of tough games coming up (with high scoring teams) and may start working them out in a 4231 at practice...start some games off in the 4231 and see if we can hold those teams in check a bit.

 

That switch shouldn't be too confusing if you keep the midfield the same. The forward will miss having a partner, but in the back most players are already comfortable playing with 4 backs so their should be no disruption switching either way during a match.

You have me thinking, if there is a player who can both positions (fullback and forward), you could switch systems without a stoppage. Maybe taking a cue from a game event or opponent cue. Hmmm. Something for later in the season.

 

Was this a reply to me?

It would be pretty easy to switch up or even sub in a forward for a center back and just have them shift back from 4231 to 3232. Or vice versa...if we needed some defensive help, sub a back for a forward and shift from 3232 to 4231.

But we do have a handful of players who can play anywhere on the field and would be easy to just shift them around in the flow of a game as well.

 

@bobellis75 Yes it was meant for you.

 

So I took a break from this thread because there seems to be too much misunderstanding to wade through. It is not at all like you are assuming. It's an AYSO league where the board members used their position to make a club like experience for their kids, and kids of friends and just dumped the rest on any coach they could find. 4 of the 5 board members have their kid on the pet team, one has two kids on that team. The other board member doesn't have a kid in this age group. That is not to say there is no talent on the second team, but it gets way more dis-equal after comparing the top 3 players on each team. They beat us in a scrimmage the other day with their top 4 players missing, another talented kid was injured so just barely played some defense. We gave them two average players to have an 9 on 9 game, but all our best players were there. AYSO is supposed to have balanced teams and these board people have totally abused it in fact and spirit.

They are desperate to keep control of the season so that they can be the Allstar coaches and continue to support their kids over others.

The good news, I have had a great assistant coach since the second practice. He is giving the kids a lot of opportunity to improve, whatever their chances of competing are. We have kept the politics away from the kids as much as we can. A similar thing happened last year, so lots of parents and kids are aware of things. One of my families quit in protest. We try to up-play fun and friendship, and skill building. Yes, I definitely have an underdogs can compete attitude.

 

Using pronouns without reference to a preceding noun is very confusing. Is your team in a soccer club? Is it playing in an internal ("house") league? How many teams do you play against? What organization is the board managing? You talked about an unbalanced scrimmage between the two teams. You have not said that the teams are opponents in a competition.

I think this is the AYSO rule you are referencing. "Each primary season, every effort shall be made to balance team strengths within each age division, within a reasonable geographical area." On its face it favors neighborhood teams and requires balancing only once a year.

I do not interpret that rule as requiring AYSO teams to be balanced with AYSO teams in different competitions. In other words a club doesn't have to balance the strength of its rec teams with its travel teams. That would seem to defeat the purpose of competing in a multi-division system.

I haven't been associated with an AYSO club since the early 80's. About 10 years ago I looked up AYSO rules and was surprised that they had moved away from their recreational roots to a competition model that looked like USYSA. Has the competition pendulum swung back?

 

Began our season with a tournament here in Bozeman. We had 27 players split between 3 teams. Each of the three teams had about 20 minutes of scrimmage time together in the lead up to their opening matches. My team faced CGA Academy from Idaho Falls and we were overwhelmed. Our opponents were superior in every measure (except perhaps in goal). The final score of 11 - 0 could have easily been 20+ - 0.

I had three players come off the field in tears during the game. Much to their credit, the players never turned on one another and finished the game stronger than they began. The final 10 minutes included some authentic chances and a much stronger reserve on defense.

As the weekend progressed the team's play improved. A win in the second match was followed by another in their final game. I was so proud of the response these guys had to what was surely the worst athletic beating they've ever endured. It may prove a great lesson in their life, not just "sports career". They were knocked to the ground and they got themselves up and pushed on.

Our club practices the policy of mixing the players up week in and week out so we likely won't have the same roster the next time we face CGA. Would be interesting to see how much better they could do given a couple months of training and playing together. Apparently CGA pulls from a wide area in SE Idaho and western Wyoming and has played together for two years. They are very very good.

 

1st training sessions with my team are this week. I got the practice stuff sorted out and will be on the field Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays.

Yesterday, I ran a session for a 2nd grade girls. It was a blast.

 

The league I used to coach in, and my boys played in. had a team like this.

What I learned is that the team had a trainer that came to some of their practices and it was considered a "rec-plus" team and most of the players left the rec league by the time they were 10. They also did rather well at tournaments. They even went to tournaments before we even had our first game. He offered to help my team sign up for the tournament if I wanted, but I told him I had kids who never played soccer before who were just learning the basics and it wouldn't be good. Those were the days, lol.

 

i made it through my first week of "academy-style" coaching. i had 8Us wednesday and 10Us friday, and boy are they a change from my middle school teams i'd worked with last. i'll have 14Us on mondays starting this week. it's nice to have weekends off, but it will be an interesting fall dealing with 3 different groups on three nights of the week.

 

Up until last night my 8 yo son's first Academy season (U10) was going great. I'm an assistant coach and that too has been working out well. After practice last night the head coach was playing goalie for a few of the players waiting for their parents to pick them up. I was still there and my son was taking shots. The coach was suggesting to my son not to telegraph his shots. Coach was able to make a few saves in a row and would come back with the same suggestion.

My son is a bright and sensitive kid. He interpreted the suggestions as criticism and stormed off. Not the first time something like this has happened, whether it's a classmate, teacher, parent, etc. Once he is really upset it's hard to help him return to a state of calm. Last night he said he never wants to play soccer again and he knows that the coach doesn't like him, etc.

I spoke to the coach on the phone last night and he understands and is ready to speak with my son before practice tonight to clarify that he meant no ill will. I told my son this morning that his coach would love to talk to him tonight and that he really likes my son and meant no disrespect.. My son is putting his foot down that he doesn't want to go to practice.

I'm not going to let him quit soccer (or anything else) over something he is simply misinterpreting. That being said, I want him to enjoy the game and not feel like he's being forced to play. Any suggestions for tonight? My thought is to take it one step at a time. First step, go to practice and hear your coach out. Then see whether he wants to practice tonight or take a night off (we are practicing 3x/wk and it may be a bit much for him).

Thanks for listening and your thoughts. Especially great to hear from both parents that have dealt with this with their children and coaches that have handled something similar with players..