Currently reading Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. Good stuff, inspiring stuff. Here's a good question: how often do any of us coaches practice coaching? Go over mistakes we make, rehearse making coaching points when away from our team, etc? Like a musician practicing a phrase, when they mis-play a note, they go back and try to play it perfectly (Deliberate practice). I haven't done this type of stuff in the past, but have started recently. Can't wait to start coaching again in about a month to see if I can gain some improvement.
I was at the field the other day chasing my younger daughter around while my eldest was doing her little kid soccer program. A dad was out there with her approx 14 year old shooting on goal. It was very cringe worthy. The training was all wrong to improve her shooting technique. I'd venture to say that apart from building a father-daughter bond, more harm than good was being done from a socccer perspective. The best thing I can say, which is not for nothing, is that at least he wasn't some raving drill seargent. He was actually kind to his kid.
What about it was wrong? As a dad of a soon to be U11 who stays after her practices to shoot, I want to make sure I'm not screwing her up.
My whole walk past their "practice" took about 5 minutes. So all these different things took place in 5 minutes and they were out there for a long time. So they had about ten balls out there, they were scattered at different distances and different angles to goal and he just made her shoot on goal. Then at some point he stuffed a ball in each of the net supports and told her to aim for them. Then he made her backout to about 20 yards and told her to pretend that a GK was rolling balls out to her and to shoot them one time. Then to which he told her, her objective was to aim for the center of the cross bar. She flubbed some of her shots. Why was she hitting the ground when she kicked? How do you fix that? All her shots had right to left english on them. Was that on purpose? I don't think so. So she's striking the ball off-center right. She wasn't landing on her kicking foot. Identify and fix. Not all at once. Once First, if you're shooting with your kid, the first thing is mastering the kicking technique. For a sport that is about propelling the ball with one's foot, I'd say upwards of 80% of players have deficient kicking technique. We have to work on making it perfect. Lots of reps is just lots of reps, you're not getting better unless each rep is aiming to be the ideal. I would've made her work on her mechanics without the ball first. Then with the ball. When I do it individually with my players, we stand within a yard of the net and "shoot" with no power first, all technique.. The net is just there so we don't have to go shagging balls. What they find is, once technique is right the ball jumps off their foot—without having to strain for power. I'm not worried about accuracy, because with good technique comes accuracy. And we'd do it with both feet.
Starting to gear up for the fall season here. I'm more than ready for it having taken the spring off. My girls will be U12 this year and our club has them moving to 11v11. Seems a bit young to me.
Trying to coach your own kid is tough even if you do it right. I remember 1 pre-match warmup while coaching my U12 daughter's team. She was keeper and I was trying to warm her up (just simple back and forth passing foot to hands). She was totally uncooperative. After about a minute, I switched jobs with the other coach, let him warm up the keeper while I took the field players. She was fine with the other coach. I coached her 3 years and that was the only time she was uncooperative. To this day I have no clue as to why. The only time I helped my son was when he asked for help with his goal kicks while he was on a U14 team whose coaches were all clueless (I was never able to coach his teams--seems there is no end of Dad's wanting to coach their sons). I spent about 30 minutes with him improving his technique starting with helping him find his starting point and running through the entire process step by step. It went well (at the time he was absolutely unmanageable otherwise--go figure). I got him an extra 10 yards (40 to 50) immediately just from the improved technique. He never asked for help again, although we played for 15 years on the same adult team. Again no clue as to why the different behavior. As for coaching, you need to figure out what your coaching objective is. Kids need to learn fundamentals, striking technique before finishing. I teach striking technique while shooting at goals because it is fun that way. You want to put them close enough that with good technique the shot will be on frame. Only after instep and square pass techniques are learned do you worry about finishing, bending, chipping, etc. Normally what I did with my kids from about 2 y.o. on was play with them. Pass the ball around, dribble mazes, and play 1v1. No pressure. Just a good time. Short attention spans so it never lasted long. The parent is not supposed to be trying to impress the kids with their skill, just having a good time even when making mistakes. Teaching good attitude is more important than anything else.
It is. Just completed a 11v11 tournament (we play 8v8). Field is too big for U-12's. Goals are scored off of poor goal kicks and breakaways.
How did your extra players do over all? Were they new to the team? Who took your goal kicks no one on the team that can kick a ball 45 or 50 yards. Any of your player just stop moving? Tell your players if you get tired just walk up the field you can still support a player from further back. You can't support a team mate if you stop and watch the play. If they stop they are asking to come out. Listen to them and take them out. Let them all know that. Use horizontal takeovers it will help make the field seem smaller. On breakaways you can prevent them by better organization and by better spacing and depth. Watch your back players spacing before your team loses the ball and not after. After it will probably be too late. One of your coaches should coach from the back. They can adjust their spacing before the ball is lost.
Yeah, if you noticed from my post I wasn't coaching my daughter's soccer program. It's run by the club I coach for and they certainly asked me to coach the little kids. We tried that last year but it was confusing for my daughter (5 at the time). I was more of a distraction for her because I was "dad" and she'd never seen me in a different capacity (i.e. "coach") before. One of the mind-tricks I'm doing with her now is that I "coach" her with little every day things and I specifically call it "coaching" to her. Just yesterday I taught her how to use "grown-up" scissors, I demonstrated and guided her through it and monitored for safety. Her scissor technique is top-notch! My goal is to frame in her mind that I play this role as "coach". It seems to be working because she asked if I was going to coach her one day when she was bigger.
It was actually an academy team 20 players from five different teams, so gelling was a bit of an issue.2 playing up to our U-14s, 1 from the girls academy and our GK had never played an organized match before-and is technically a U-10 - his older brother started playing last fall on my son's team and has developed into a monster GK talent, I assume his brother is going to do the same. Our strongest defender was able to get a GK out 30-40 yards. Not that they stop, more that they get out of shape, try to tackle up the field and making up ground is not possible on the big field. That and the heat warning of over 100 degrees caused some slow movement. Yes, we were much better off when all four defenders and both CM's stayed disciplined. We only had 4 practices with them (with only about 1/2 - 3/4 of the team showing up each night). One was a 442 tactical offense one for defense. It was a learning experience for us coaches. We plan on doing it next year with a few more pratices and identifying what to work with with the players ahead of the tournament. We are at a disadvantage playing against players that play those fields all the time.
Yes it is a matter of your players getting used to how to play on it. They will get after all they will have to.
Is it time for the "I'm Ready For Fall" thread? I've been off for over a month and looking forward to getting started again soon.