I have been coaching at the same school for a long time. For reasons that aren't necessary to get into, we essentially *never* have at our school the type of big, fast, aggressive forward that typically gives us fits in games. I've found that preparing for these types of players is very difficult when you don't have anyone on your team who can pose a similar challenge in training. No matter how much we practice and preach not diving in, keeping your feet moving, winning the ball early before the forward can get the ball, etc., it always takes my players a long time to adjust in a game. How do you duplicate the challenge presented by this type of player in a training session when you don't have anyone remotely like him or her? I feel like we have the potential to be organized, quick, and proactive enough to handle it if it wasn't such a shock to the system every time. Obviously I know that most teams lack this type of player at least most of the time, so I would venture that some of you have had similar challenges?
Book some friendly games against a team that has that kind of players. Your backs should be spaced right and staggered for depth. So if he beats one back the staggered back will beat him to the ball, beat that back the next back who is also staggered for depth will beat him to the ball. Play with a sweeper keeper. Play deeper so your players are less likely to get burned over the top.
I think the typical solution is playing an older team (or girls playing a boys team) in club situations. In schools, the freshmen scrimmage the JV team, the JV goes up against the varsity. The varsity reserves play against the starters. So by the time a player gets to be on the varsity he has a lot of experience playing against older, bigger, quicker players. This is really a mentality issue. The mistakes you identified are mistakes against players of any size or ability. And it should only happen the first time they face a situation like that. It should not happen every match. My small town class B high school had a state-hall-of-fame football coach. He was amazingly successful with relatively small players. His pattern was to arrange at the end of the pre-season a game against a big Detroit high school. Big school, bigger players. Playing against opponents that had a 40 lb. advantage, not winning or losing, was the point. After that game, playing the other class B schools in our league looked easy. The next year, he did the same thing. Like Nick suggested, play a friendly against a tough opponent. In addition, I suggest you review your game preparation, with a view of not only getting the players physically prepared to play at 100% intensity at kickoff, but mentally prepared to play at 100% too. Sports psychology is a whole other topic. Do you have game films that you can use to show clips of your players making good plays? The high school football coach used to show game films and repeat the great tackles several times to loud cheering. It has been almost 50 years and I still smile remembering those film sessions. Now days for professional athletes, they put together highlight tapes of their best plays that they watch at home before matches to create a winning attitude before arriving at the field. The solution, however, might be something simple. Like ensure that the pregame warmup ends with a few minutes of a 100% intensity game. If the warmup ends with activity at the 50% intensity level, the players will not be mentally ready yet to play at the whistle. Literally the players would still be warming up during the first minutes of the match. If the other team is ready at the whistle, they may score a quick goal.
Good thoughts here. We always play non-league competition that is tougher than our league schedule on the whole. My defenders are well-trained in pressure/cover but disciplined positioning seems to be one of the first things out the window against physically intimidating opponents. I've thought a lot about playing a lower line of confrontation and sitting back a bit with my current team, but I have always had more success with high pressure defending in high school coaching. rca2 your point about ending the warmup at or near peak intensity is a very good one. Always used to do that and have somehow gotten away from it.
Had another thought, but it is not a solution, just a possible cause. 40 years ago school athletes typically played 3-4 sports, including contact and collision sports. A hockey, football or basketball player is not going to intimidated by the contact in soccer. Today athletes typically specialize at an age so early that it has to be the parents directing it. An unfortunate change for development. Physical aggressiveness was something I had expected to train with some U-Little girls, but I would not have anticipated that subject needed to be addressed with boys. Where I grew up some of my friends had started playing hockey at age two.