Today's Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider had an exellent article about Jill Ellis which included this advice: "Coaching Advice From Jill Ellis: * Put players in activities related to the game, something they’re going to have to solve. Players like to problem-solve. * Player appreciates information. Give them information. Part of it is setting a culture of expectations of what you want and what you expect. They demand to be challenged and they want information and they want feedback. * Empower your assistants to make decisions, to be able to communicate information to the players. They will provide players even more information and have someone else to communicate with. When the staff is on the same page, it works. * When you have a younger team, help them build relationships. * Let them play, make your point, play, make your point while the play is going on because that’s how kids today get information, receive information. * Find your own voice. Find your own identity. I think it’s a mistake to try to almost coach how you were coached because I guarantee there were certain things you liked and certain things you didn't respond well to. * Make an effort to see more and learn even more about teaching. ... What I always appreciated about my dad is he never got stuck in the past. It was always you have to look at what’s around you." Here is the link for the rest of the article: http://www.socceramerica.com/article/64579/how-jill-ellis-became-a-world-champion-coach.html
* Make sure your central midfielders, who are being played out of position, get yellow-card suspensions, so are forced to play a CM who is actually suited for the role, thus opening your eyes and changing your personnel & formation for the better. But seriously, this great analysis over at deadspin was right on the money. It took a dose of luck, disguised as misfortune, for the USWNT staff to make some needed changes that were a little more apparent from the outside. So a corollary of my own might be, * Listen to advice from others. Be open minded, and willing to change and experiment. You ask your players to accept input from you; you need to be willing to take input and constructive criticism, from others. (Sub-corollary: even the most outlandish or scathingly delivered criticism might have a grain of truth. See past the delivery and try to find it.)
GKbenji, I didn't intend this to be about the world cup, rather about coaching generally, but you make good points with your humor. I don't consider the analysis at deadspin great or even correct. Like a lot of analysis it ignores the fact that at high levels, different games require different strategies. Like Coach Ellis says, how you play is more important than the formation. I interpret that to mean that the game plan isn't we will play a 442 or a 433. It is how the team is going to handle various situations to take away an opponent's strengths and take advantage of their weaknesses. Who is going to key on what. I think that is the basis for our superior play against Germany and Japan. At the group stage, not losing is more important than winning. You also don't want to peak too soon in a tournament. Similarly you don't want to "show all your cards" when you don't need to, and you certainly don't need to during the group stage. Regarding opponents, Sweden for instance presents different challenges than Japan because of the abilities of the players. Likewise an opponent's tactical choices (bunker down and counter or try to run with you) make a difference. Specifically regarding the deadspin article, he argued against playing Rapinoe on the flank. By that comment I give little weight to his article, but you are correct that an idea should be evaluated for its own merit regardless of source. At least he didn't make the too-common commentor mistake of assuming that Japan's players were all smaller than ours, because they were japanese. Duh! Progress in improving play is expected. Concentrating on play out of possession first, before play in possession is expected. Starting slow and finishing strong is a pattern of success in tournaments. Using the "hot" players is also expected. The only unexpected things from the US were how easy they made it look to dominate Germany and Japan, which was anything but easy. To me that means I give credit to the coaching and all the players, not just the goal scorers. The only hint of a coaching mistake I saw was during a group stage match when Rapinoe stopped coming back deep to get the ball and carrying it back up field. That needed to change along with her holding the ball too long repeatedly in the attacking third waiting for a runner, which wasn't what bothered me. What bothered me was that afterwards when Rapinoe received the ball high on the flank, which is where you want her to get the ball, she did not dribble at goal. I suspect miscommunication--that Rapinoe heard "don't dribble to penetrate" instead of "don't dribble to penetrate when you are in the middle third." I don't think it was a coaching mistake to pair Wambach and (Alex) Morgan up top during the group stage. A coach would expect that both players would increase in sharpness and fitness. The obvious hope that they would be an effective attacking pair by the end of the group stage didn't happen and why not doesn't really matter. I think what drove Coach Ellis decisions on when to use Wambach was how much we needed size and height on set pieces versus how much we needed to press and counter. Making roster changes to favor players with past strong performances is not an indication that the coaches made mistakes in roster choices previously. Arguing such is a classic error of logic. It is what you expect a good coach to do during a tournament. In league play, there are different considerations. Losing one game doesn't matter in league play. You expect to lose games.
An afterthought. Sports psychology played a big part in the 99 world cup success. I can't wait to read about what they did in that regard with the 2015 team.
As a matter of luck a similar to the USMNT in 2009 at the Confederations Cup. US played two matches (one good vs. Italy until red card took them out and an awful match vs. Brazil, and again a red card). Bob Bradley would have likely been fired following the Egypt match. He was having trouble positioning his players and get both Donvovan and Dempsey involved. From his player meeting was born the idea of getting both of them away from forward and CM and putting them of the LM and RM allowing each to pinch central as needed. This led to a tremendous run of form right through the WC in 2010.
What you call luck I call good coaching. The problem in 2009 was that Donavon and Dempsey were the two best forwards and the two best midfielders. Playing them close to goal is a good theory, but won't work if they are too isolated to get quality service. This is not a unique situation to the time or team.
Of course it was good coaching that finally found it. It was luck that they came upon it after a player meeting (especially Bob with Dempsey), but the result in the Egypt game (and advanced despite very low odds) propelled them to beat Spain and play a helluva good match vs. Brazil in the final and then beyond. The other problem was that Bradley was always putting (usually LD) at forward where he would lose touch with the game (he was always more aggressive when he had defensive responsibilities at R or LM). It also allowed a player like Charlie Davies to get onto the field adding an additional element to the attack that neither LD or CD provided.
My view is that Donovan played better facing goal than with his back to goal. Out wide he had the advantage of speed running at goal, playing high with back to goal negates his speed and allows opposing centerbacks to maximize their advantage--more size and strength. His playing striker in a counter-attacking system does work, because he will be running at goal. And that was what we were trying to play in 2009.
I agree with what you are saying plus, cutting in from the left side with the ball on his right leg was an added bonus. He was always more chippy/fighting the game when playing some defense as well.
The only advice that she said that I agree with is play your hot players in a long tournament. Next advice was give your men assistant coaches control of corner kick practices.
I am finding myself talking about international soccer constantly, even with my friends and family who don't watch soccer and don't care. I was hoping we could talk about coaching youth, which is what the Youth Soccer Insider article is about. I realize everybody including me is thinking about international soccer this week, but this would be a nice break from the otherwise constant discussion of international soccer.
As for those "little" secrets to success, I haven't read anything in regard to sports psychology, but I think a big factor that may be of interest to coaches was all the attention that the team paid to fitness, nutrition, and recovery and the constant monitoring that the staff did of players' hydration, sleep, heart rates, etc., which is all due to Dawn Scott, the strength and fitness coach. You can read more about her involvement with the team here: http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/dawn-scott-secret-to-uswnt-success/ And about some of the technology used here: http://www.wired.com/2015/06/wearable-prepping-us-womens-soccer-team-battle/ As for nutrition, the USWNT also traveled with a chef for the first time: http://www.si.com/edge/2015/06/05/uswnt-womens-world-cup-dawn-scott-kelley-ohara-nutrition
Scott’s secret is in “marginal gains,” a concept that the Newcastle, England, native picked up years ago from Team Great Britain Cycling. It’s an idea rooted in minutiae, that the smallest of things could make the greatest of impacts in the grand scheme, especially if micromanaged from player to player. It’s the 0.01 percent in which Scott and the rest of the U.S. Soccer staff operate. And of course those of us who are cycling fans cringe at this quote as we watch Sky riders make the rest of the Tour De France field look foolish while going up hill. 'Marginal gains' and minutiae and smallest things are not what we are thinking makes Sky's performance so impressive. All these things listed above, of course are standard operating procedure for any professional team at this point. Hell, most serious college programs have this type of stuff available to them. I also noticed that the players sports bras had HR (and likely GPS) built into them. Can't do that in the mens game so easily.