I sent this out to my players recently. check out Lampard checking his shoulder . . .11 times in 17 seconds. Knowing my defender situation/space situation helps with speed of play IMO—knowing where I can go with the ball, how many touches I can take helps with speed of play
Have had a weird 48 hours. Had to send out rosters for our team, in the fall we went A/B this season we're mixing them up more since they're really young. Anyway, parent behavior toward me has been weird and up and down to say the least. People didn't know that we were going to balance the teams, so they were really worried about A/B placement. Parents were making excuses for sick kids—worried about affecting placement. Parents were being overly nice. This is for the Cup club I coach for. Later in the week I have to present the pool idea to our town club coaches. I've known since college, when I was in a fraternity, that people are so resistant to change and "this is the way we've done it in the past" is usually the argument. As a coach, that mindset is antithetical to me—my whole coaching existence is about instilling (positive) change.
Human nature. Take "climate change" for instance. The 2 big "issues" are: 1) Is it changing, and, 2) If it is, how can we stop it. Reality is that climate on a living world is always changing and we cannot stop it. What we need is an understanding of how humans impact the environment and how to lessen the adverse impact (a political solution is needed). But we keep arguing over whether there is any change.
We have an intrasquad game next week. We split the pool evenly and it's a league game. I was thinking of having them play for medals. Cheap ones- they are only 8. Thoughts?
Main reason I'm doing it is that it's Easter weekend, a lot of people seem to be treating it as a "blow-off" weekend. I've been building a "competition culture" at practice. A lot of things are competitive with rewards/punishments at end, like burpees or jumping jacks. The kids really get into it. Or would ice cream be better?
Make the teams like this call the best team with the most talent the B team. All the parents will want their kids on the A team. because as we all know A is always the best and B is never the best in parents eyes. Then in league play the B team players can play on both teams. You can play up but not down.that is what we did when we did not have enough players to make up 2 teams. Then all is well with the world. But I am not saying parents are stupid. Maybe I am saying it.
Even calling the teams with names of colors can be a problem. Never call a team team gold. Gold is always the best. Silver is never the best. So. I guess call one the blue team and one the red team.
How did you get some of your parents to accept it did not matter them some of them with be on the B team
1st practice for my teams is this Tuesday. I'm ready for the spring to start. The one bummer is one of my players just had to quit. Her AAU basketball team is practicing 4 nights per week this spring and is playing in a boatload of tournaments. It may be a long spring in terms of record (6th and 7th graders are playing D1) but I can't wait to see my girls again
Yeah. We won both games playing very fundamentally sound soccer. Parents on the former A team were surprised how much the B players had advanced. B team players were ecstatic that their kids go to play on a team that won. Not going to say it will always be smooth sailing but they believe in the process a bit more. In our U-little rec league that pool training and random game day rosters are working really well. And generally well received SO FAR. No longer do we have a single team practicing with only 3 players. We have more control over what our players are taught. We can work toward eliminating pointless tryouts for travel, because now we can scout the whole player pool in practices and games. It's awesome on so many levels.
Wonderful article. http://www.soccerparenting.com/parents-guide-analyzing-youth-soccer-game/ I'd amend the U4-U12 section to simply say: "What is the end result when your child has the ball at his/her feet? Does he beat a defender with the dribble? Does he complete a pass? Is he first to loose balls? Does he take the ball off attackers? Is there a discernible idea behind a "kick" or is it just an aimless kick of the ball?" Some of it happens closer to U12. But you get the gist, I hope.
Wish I had this Saturday, I had to run the "Welcome to coaching the rec league" meeting on Saturday. I hit most of the points but sometimes it's nice to have that "appeal to authority" in your back pocket Thanks for posting
I want to think you guys for the knowledge you've shared over the past 2 years, you've been a big help. my kids have finally had enough soccer and even after nearly a year off don't miss it enough to sign up for fall. done for now. they aren't allowed to quit karate though.
Careful. They might learn too much karate and there's not going to be anything you can do to make them keep going. Or anything they don't want to do, for that matter.
I did get my first snarky comment from a parent tonight about the pool coaching. She was asking where to find the U8 coach and I pointed him out. She walks a few steps and snarks, "Just asking, 'cause you know there's no coaches." Well lady, there's actually 3 here standing in front of you. I just pointed out one to you and another one walking right next to him. We're also a month into the season, so if this is still an issue for you you're in the minority.
I am excited. Club coaches meeting tomorrow. My first step back to coaching since I "retired" from coaching in August 2012.
You may remember that I resigned from my middle school teams at the end of the fall to take a break before my little one is ready to start playing herself in a few years. That lasted about 4 months. I got on the board with our local club, and I've been helping with the U14 3v3 league they have up until this week. This week I started my second task for the season: observing the other rec league teams and giving feedback and suggestions to their coaches. We have 15 teams from U5 up to U11, and my goal is to observe one practice and one game for each this season. My schedule is BOOKED. Our little girl is due next Monday so her arrival will certainly complicate and change my plans, but that is what it is. In the end, I just couldn't stay away from the game knowing there was a need and I had the time and experience to offer.
Slowly getting my 7YO into soccer. About a month ago we started doing footskills. We started charting the number touches and she gets a kick out of seeing her totals on a bar graph. Most weeks she'll do 600 touches on average. Last night we watched a video of Messi and she started making connections between some moves like inside- outside and tic tocs (la croquetta) and how he does feints to send the defender the wrong way.
Weather today was pretty miserable for the start of the Rec season. Morning games were played in rain and then all games not on artificial turf were cancelled for the afternoon. My games all went well. During the 6th grade game, my daughter turned to me and said "You've found the unicorn-- a forward willing to pass." 7th graders played well-- annoying part was my goalie making a boneheaded play that resulted in giving up a goal. HS girls played down 3 players and still only gave up 1 goal.
Only vaguely coaching related. While playing last night (after 2 hours of coaching), I scored 2 goals. At the post-game bar trip, a fellow player who coaches asked "were those toe balls or did you use proper technique"?"