2017 Coaching thread

Regarding preparing the team for the field. 1. The field was switched from the usual one. 2. Water prevented play on the field before the match. 3. Long grass hid the uneven surface.

Typically in CONCACAF home fans make noise outside the visitor's hotel all night preventing sleep. No one talks about it, but I suspect it occurred and the players were tired. That is CONCACAF, not an excuse.

As for elessar78's comment about passing along the ground instead of on the ground, I expect good amateur players to be able to do this routinely.

 

Including info about my local club (pay to play) and some local academy level (pay more to play) soccer spots:

Fees by birth year: Rec (U5-U9) $55-$75, Travel (U9+) $165, Academy $1800-$4000

Uniforms: Travel $80 (good for two years), Academy $200-$400

Travel does 2-4 Tournaments per year at 45-70 per pop. Academy does 7-8 tournaments per year.

Winter and summer extra for local club. Can be included, but often is not, for academy.

Local club offers the occasional scholarship based on need.

Local club is all volunteer, but we do offer paid trainers (one session per week) and we piggyback of off local parks and rec and schools. Academy all paid with volunteer team managers (how they get away with this, I don't know). Academies tend to have relationships with colleges or "professional" training locations.

Ref fees range from $40 (split by teams) for 7v7 to $160 (split by teams) for higher level 11v11.

 

Home kit, away kit, third kit, training kit. Just like the pros ya know?

UPDATE: I just looked at Seacoast again and they've changed things a little. They now have a training kit ($110), a game kit ($90 for outfield, $80 for goalkeepers), and a warmup kit ($125). The game jerseys for both outfield players and keepers are now team property rather than purchased as part of the kit packs. Still, that's a $325 outlay to start, and every couple of years either the training or game kits will change; if a player is (probably unusually) playing both outfield and goalkeeper it's $405 - when I looked before keepers were expected to purchase both the outfield kit and the keeper kit, but I don't see that stipulated now unless I'm missing it.

 

Thanks for sharing the costs associated with playing in your local rec/travel/academy programs. I'm disheartened to think that we may actually be getting a "good deal" here in Bozeman.

This is hyperbolic but soccer requires a ball and field. We shouldn't be asking parents to commit thousands of dollars and countless hours for their kids to play this sport.

@rca2 had an interesting idea earlier for youth development - forget the travel, the gear and all the props that make youth soccer look like something it's not. Spend time and money developing coaches who can hold training sessions for youth players that emphasize touches on the ball. Have players come together for organized pick-up soccer. Let the kids have fun and give the parents a break from pay-to-play headaches.

 

Not sure what is popular. Over the years I have used "square", "right", "support", and "trailing." Support indicates direction by sound of the voice. Support and trailing are not calls for the ball but rather letting the 1st attacker know on which side his rear support is located. If I am behind the first attacker and think he has vision problems, I will say the position of an open opportunity: "right wing".

At the NSCAA convention I saw a demonstration I liked alot where the communications were "1-2", "2", and "3". The first meaning a give-and-go combination. The second meaning a player supporting near the ball. The third meaning a player making a 3rd man supporting run suggesting a 3-man combination. If that seems complicated, remember you start teaching it in 3v3 or 4v4. Then they take it to the full side. It would work in rondos too.

 

I imagine that players ages 8 - 12/13 could really benefit from a program that emphasizes skill development and allows for creativity and fun over travel, tournaments and large outlays of cash. Hoping that I can find a handful of qualified coaches in the area that would be willing to chart a path for what this new opportunity could look like. At age 13 the club holds tryouts and I suspect employs the best coaches they have available.

 

I have been praising alternatives to the league/team structure for the fundamental stage for a long time, but the ideas are not mine. There are actually quite a lot of experts on youth sports and athlete development who suggest alternatives using different names, like academy style and street soccer.

Elessar78 has broad experience, including being a board member and trying to grow a local program.

The development model I know is a 2 year model so U14 where 11v11 team tactics are introduced is ages 12 and 13. I don't know what USSF is saying about the development model now. They are really focused on elite player development. The development model work I am familiar with was done by USYSA who are focused on all levels of youth soccer, not just potential national team players.

That was a buildup to my saying that 13 is late to be introducing team tactics and 11v11 sides.

Another suggestion is don't think of the early phase as ending with tryouts. Think of it as sorting your players by potential and desire for not just age-appropriate training, but training appropriate for their level of development and talent.

At the rec level, youth soccer curriculum might not ever advance beyond fundamentals.

Players that are committed and want advanced training are not all going to have mastered ball skills and the other fundamentals to the same degree. If you sort those groups out by level of development, you can better tailor the curriculum to what they need. People with great skills on the ball and a solid knowledge of the principles of play are going to lean team tactics at a faster rate.

A lot of what actually happens to you will depend on the circumstances in your area. If there is some "elite" clubs in your area including DA clubs, MLS clubs and P2P travel clubs, you should expect to lose players to those clubs each year. In some cases this can be very good for the player's development. Teams you field for older kids are going to be influenced by what competitions are available in your area.

One more thing I want to point out is that prior to age 10 there is no athlete development reason to segregate players by gender.

Last time I checked USSF regulations, teams with players of both genders were defined as boys teams. There was no prohibition against coed teams although there generally were no coed competitions. I suggest that you don't make things more complicated than you need to.

http://changingthegameproject.com/about/

usyouthsoccer.org has downloads available including a power point presentation on Academy style training for young players and the Small Sided Games Manual and similar materials.

I was unable to get a working hyperlink to the materials. Try googling "us youth soccer academy style training" and "...small sided games manual". First link should be them.

 

Examples of the spreading of wrong ideas are teaching erroneous views of the LOTG (examples: offside applies on throwins, it is legal to use your hands and arms to control players, that it is illegal to charge another player anywhere except the shoulder), of tactics (examples: dividing field players into "offense" and "defense", kick and chase soccer) and even of fundamentals (examples" don't understand or teach proper body positioning, teach players to always keep the ball on the ground, teach players to never use their toe to strike the ball, fail to teach players to accelerate away after making a "move" to lose an opponent).

Regarding my examples--I estimate that at least half of the adult soccer players have misconceptions about Law 11 (Offside). The tactical concept that sides are split into offense and defense like pointy football has so penetrated our thinking that USSF and Soccer America both routinely call backs "defenders" without thinking of the implication. If those coaches never played higher than youth rec soccer, they may never have been exposed to any advanced concepts, advanced tactics or even the fundamentals of the game.

Finally I can usually tell before asking what the highest level an adult recreational player has played by watching for a few minutes how the player plays off the ball. Former college players stand out because they stay in the game when off the ball. Many rec players don't understand how to support off the ball (except by calling "pass to me, me, me.") Some rec teams, without the influence of former college players, play what looks amazingly like a U10 youth rec match, and not the better U10 teams.

 

We are in an awkward space for soccer development hereabouts - many of our structured play opportunities have all the issues previously raised (lack of adequately trained coaches, cost, focus on wins over player development, and travel) and additionally there is no system or pathway designed to promote development. Each club is an island. Instead, what we have is a process that mostly identifies some current level of usefulness to the team (as opposed to technical proficiency or developmental potential) for the player and for the parents, the ability to soak the costs. Usefulness to the team is an odd phrase I know, but what I am trying to convey is that coaches are picking teams when the choose their players - and clearly they are trying to choose winning teams. They tend to choose kids that they can win with now.

So not only is our structured play system screwed, but we don't have a strong unstructured play culture to fill the gaps.

I am a believer that any changes made to the structured play environment have to be systemic for a distinct geographical area. Maybe not an entire state (though they would be the natural demarcation line), but further than most people are willing/able to drive.

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The last couple practices we have worked on contested shooting, getting numbers forward and using more space for our attack. So far so good. We are scoring more and spending more time in the opponent's defensive third.

 

I will be doing lots of reading @rca2, thanks for sharing. So far I've spoken with a couple different coaches to gauge their interest in helping shape the structure of this potential program. Any and all information about how we may proceed is very welcome and helpful.

You made a great point about coaches earlier. We currently have a system in Bozeman where the P2P fees aren't commensurate with the coaching players receive. Part of that is simple - we don't have a large pool of qualified coaches here - especially those that can commit to the extensive time and travel required to coach academy players.

Hopefully eliminating travel would mean more qualified coaches could participate.

I also agree with @elessar78 regarding the importance of matching players by skill level for training.

And I love @rca2 's point about watching players off the ball. I was so very frustrated by our coach during the season that just ended and one of the many reasons why was because of how little emphasis he placed on this. It all starts with building proper habits and he simply didn't address them - don't turn your back to the ball, stay open to the field, see the play before receiving the ball, communicate, are you actually open to receive a pass, how and where do you recover to if beaten, etc.

 

Agreed @elessar78 , it's all about teaching the players to be proactive. Our coach this season kept saying something that made me cringe, "Soccer is all about three things, dribbling, passing and shooting." I wanted to yell out "ear muffs!" to the players.

To me he got the first part right, soccer is about three things. But those three things are Assess, Decide, Do and every player on the field needs to be playing "ADD soccer" without pause.

 

One of the few really good decisions I made this year was to video record (can't say video tape any more! ) games when I had a camera available. Even though we haven't (yet, I hope) progressed to the point of having video review sessions the ability to watch the same play or progression multiple times while concentrating on different players or spaces has been very fruitful.

After the very first game we noted an issue with our outside mids pinching to the middle when the ball went to the attacking third. No matter how many times we told them during the game they kept making their way to the middle. The very next practice after I did a video review and sent out my notes the head coach told them "we can see it on the video" ... and *poof* the problem was solved. Apparently "coach says so" isn't authoritative while "we have it on video" is... Now if only I could just make an app for that I'd really have their attention...

 

Weird moment from one of my game's last weekend. I wasn't there so it has taken a couple of days to piece it together.

Girls were winning 4-0 so my co-coach put our best player in goal. My girls were dominating possession and keeping the ball deep in the attacking in. My defenders pushed up past midfield to keep the pressure on. The goalie (on her own initiative) pushed up and was standing someplace between the center line and top of the 18.

The other coach started telling my players that this was unsportsman-like and how would they field if they did that . She then started telling my co-coach the same thing and it sounds like got her to switch the goalie out for another player.

I know the other coach but am waiting to ask WTF she was doing until I can do it calmly

 

The opposing coach is an idiot. You don’t change your game because she doesn’t like it.

What if you took your best player and kept her in your attack instead of putting her in goal. If I heard her say that is what I would have done. Then I would take another player and put her in goal and tell her to stay on her line. Then tell the opposing coach are you happy now as you get a bigger lead on them.

 

elessar78: I'm curious what ages those guidelines are intended for. In particular I'm not big on the All Positions Rule for older kids, but certainly for younger ones. At some point you do need to start to specialize lest we raise generations of "jack of all trades master of none" players. I'm curious at what age USSF and the FA suggest honing in on specialization.

To be clear, I think these are good rules by and large, I'm just not clear what age range they're targeting.

 

Looking at the Respect League's website, they go from U7-U13 and I'd suspect that's the age ranges they're targeting.