Today I ran across this blog by Todd Beane at TOVO. His blogs are available on line and if this one is any indication, this is a valuable resource to bookmark. "As we learn more about how the brain works and how the application of skill works, we see that 'cognitive fidelity' is critically important to applying skills within the demands of task we will perform. What we have discovered is that a key factor for an effective transfer from the training environment to reality is that the training program ensures ‘Cognitive Fidelity’, this is, it should faithfully represent the mental demands that happen in the real world. Have you ever seen children in a park run skill drills? Me neither.... Too many current training sessions get it wrong. We use way too many isolated skill drills. We use far too few games that demand solutions in real time. 'Practice task simulations may be simplified but still be designed to maintain action fidelity and achievement as in competitive performance.'" (citations omitted.) https://www.tovoinstitute.com/2017-10-27-i-wish-wiel-coerver-got-it-right/ This resonates with me and has been my view when I first thought about developmental coaching 25 years ago. I don't think Wiel Coerver got it wrong. He was looking for a way to improve professional players' dribbling. How people have used his methods to teach children is a mistake. I do think teaching dribbling by teaching children dribbling "moves" is wrong. You don't create poets by telling people what to write on the paper. I think of teaching players to attack as like teaching people to write poetry. Let's stick to dribbling for our discussion. First, students learn to write the alphabet. This is pure motor skills development, but necessary to writing. The Coerver ball mastery exercises and similar exercises teach the alphabet of dribbling. Second, students learn vocabulary--words and how to spell them. Words are conventions necessary to communicate with others. Soccer is a team sport. The Principals of Play are the words of soccer. After that teachers give students writing exercises to perform. The coach challenges players with creative exercises too--giving players tactical problems to solve with dribbling. Teaching players to dribble by teaching "dribbling moves" is like taking 6 pieces each from 10 different picture puzzle boxes, putting them in one box and giving the box to a player, telling him to put the picture puzzle together. Dribbling moves don't make sense outside of a specific tactical problem (picture) to solve. Maybe the player will get lucky and find two pieces that fit together, but he won't learn to play the game. I do think many coaches today including USSF have gone too far in the other direction in insisting that every moment of a training session must be a game. It is the whole training session that forms the training environment, not any one single piece evaluated in isolation. I still firmly believe in the efficiency of the classic skills training session from the 1980s and 90s. That is moving from isolated movements without pressure to a progression of using the targeted movements in more complex and game-like exercises until ending in an unrestricted scrimmage. This reinforces good technique while the player is fresh and helps the player use the targeted skill effectively in the game. Early in the athlete development cycle our objectives should include teaching players how to practice on their own. If all we do is group exericses, we will necessarily fail in that important objective. What do you think?
As someone who is a big believer and practitioner in Coerver—I agree in part with what you wrote. Over the past decade I have seen very little transfer of moves (scissors, stepovers, etc) into the game. You'd think that 100% of the players get taught the moves that you'd see them from all players in the game. But I haven't. But I don't know if that's down to personality of the individual or what. I don't think it's how I coach. However what I do see is comfort and confidence on the ball from the players. So even though a fancy move isn't utilized, they can manipulate the ball effortlessly to accomplish soccer objectives; protect it, get behind the defender, etc. A lot of Coerver practitioners have moved on from the brand (big names like Meulensteen and Tom Byer) for commercial reasons, but I do think there's a limit to the philosophy. I don't have a problem with drills in isolation. You see it in many fields and even creative fields. It's also a misconception of the method. The Coerver approach is isolated > shadow pressure > full pressure. You DON'T have to spend an inordinate amount of time in isolated. You see a similar progression in rondo-based education: 3v0, 3v1, 4v2, 5v3+1 for example. Too many Coerver practitioners stop at full pressure 1v1. The next step needs to be, and this isn't mentioned in any Coerver diploma, is how to use your 1v1 skills in a 2v1 context and then larger 4v4 context—the dribble or pass decision making. Last week I watched a video of a twitter follower of mine. It was a nice passing build up for a goal. But in nearly every pass was a 1v1 situation his player had to get out of trouble to keep the movement alive. Whether it was just to create space or turn it IS a 1v1 engagement. And I still believe that there's no better way to develop your roster top to bottom with players that are comfortable/dominant in 1v1 engagements than Coerver. Ten years ago, and probably longer, the USSF courses encouraged everything to be as game like as possible. But in spain and Argentina they have no qualms with things like rondos "not looking like the real game". They trust the innate intelligence of humans to make that mental leap. It helps too if you have a culture that watches the game on tv and young players get to see applied rondos in match conditions. Kids in parks don't run skill drills. But every kid that practices at home, literally practices in isolation. What I've found over the years from my informal research is that in the great soccer countries, their players come into formal training with a higher baseline. When I get kids between 5-10 years of age, some still have to learn the basics of manipulating (or is it podipulating?) the ball with different surfaces, stopping, and changing directions. So kids in other countries can go and work on more team-based topics. Tom Byer's book outlines these basic needs very well. Beginners (kids aged 0-6) need to know how to start, stop, shield, shift the ball from left to right feet, and to change directions. Kicking and passing aren't encouraged because you want the kid to learn to love and keep the ball first and now get rid of it.
i like teaching the coerver ball mastery to get players comfortable manipulating the ball like @elessar78 said. i don't see the stepovers or scissors in games very often either, but i think the repeated manipulations at practice increase confidence in their dribbling, first touch receiving, etc. that's the true value to the coerver method to me: confidence on the ball. i know i don't personally use a stepover or scissors more than every few games, but the time i've spent on the ball every morning practicing different moves makes the moves and touches i do make almost automatic and allow me to get my head up a fraction of a second quicker than i would have done otherwise. using a progression from stationary footwork to going against a stationary defender to going true 1v1 to going to a live scrimmage has to be the best way to introduce these ideas.
When I was a child on the playground, I used scissors and stepovers--I called them both step-overs (both directions inside out and outside in) until I learned what the conventionally trained people meant by the term scissors. Those kid's games were all about dribbling up and down the field. (I also didn't perform some of the "moves" like the conventional versions today such as 270 spin turns.) I don't see it possible to dribble a ball without doing a lot of the basic moves--coached or not. When I played as an adult, I rarely used stepovers and scissor like moves because they slow you down. I usually either passed the ball before the opponent reached me or else I used quick touches like inside and outside cuts that didn't slow me down as I ran around opponents. In other words I dribbled like a winger does and rarely did anyone pressure me enough to reverse direction. Ronaldo-style multiple scissors are good for stalling while a teammate makes a run.
What Wiel Coerver did was break play down into its most basic parts. All it is is learning these basic movements—like musical notes or chords. I'll teach you how to play the note and eventually you can combine these notes on your own to write your own song. You don't have to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" forever. As I posted recently, there are many ways to correctly teach this game. I follow Todd Beane on twitter and his ideas, like many others, are sound. Each teacher must find a style, philosophy, approach that works for him or her and doggedly refine and reanalyze what is working and what is not. The coach needs to answer how is the teaching style, in it's current form, not producing the desired type of player? What do I change? Probably one of my proudest, consistent accomplishments is not producing what I term "Coerver monkeys"—players that do 20 stepovers/scissors/stepons in a row and go nowhere. Get into the move, trust the move worked, and get out of it (pass/dribble/shoot).
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast...ng-director/id1093227591?i=1000380837199&mt=2 Sorry, cross post from the main thread. Lemov says how mastery frees up your brain for to think of other things—higher cognitive things as opposed to simply putting out the fire when you take a bad first touch or steering the ball into the right direction with your second touch because your body shape or first touch was in the wrong direction.
Clumping is what makes kids tactically fast. Before clumping, they play at a turtle's pace. Same idea as mastery. Although I think what he's getting at is that first touch skill is crucial.
I consider Vince Lombardi the father of modern coaching. Breaking down movements and teaching players movements step by step was his innovation. My guess is that Lombardi inspired Coerver.
Just watched this video to get a better understanding of TOVO- (it really kicks in about the 10min mark). I don't think this is anything groundbreaking- the 343 guys have been preaching a similar way of thinking for years- decision making is the key. I really agree with the point at the 12min mark, US players (and their UK mentors) lack composure, are always in a rush. I like to tell my players- don't be in such a hurry to lose the ball. Boxers throw jabs for a reason- you can't win fights by throwing haymakers only. So maybe this analogy will work for the Coever vs problem solving method. When you're given a spelling test you can memorize the letters for each word or problem solve (sound out the words and plug in the letters for that sound). Memorizing the letters is a bit like memorizing stepovers, scissors, passing back and forth without pressure. It will work for easy situations but complex problems/words you will need to break down and problem solve. I still think you need both. The best advice I got before starting a u8 team was from the bowels of this messageboard.. "get them playing keep away as soon as possible".. You have to teach them the basics, the ball skills, the turns and deception. But while you're introducing those skills get them to think on their own. The only license I took was about 4 years ago and they were all about the street ball- let them figure it out etc.. That won't work.. Go to any playground at recess and you'll see kids using their toe, running around the ball to change direction rather than a pull back. These kids play every day and do the same bad technique everyday. The basics need to be taught- kids won't figure this stuff out until it's far too late if left on their own. You need both, you need a balance. You need to be taught the basics, have the hunger, the environmental pressure (street ball) and the structured environment to progress to the top. in my opinion.
Some coaches have always talked about training the brain. (And some are foosball coaches.) Since the 1970s that I personally know of. Street soccer provides the best learning experience when it is mixed ages. The first reference to triangles that I remember from over 40 years ago was to drill design and was a reference to including a decision point with at least two options. I believe the advice came from a French source, but I could not find any reference to it years ago when "triangles" became the popular tactical buzz word. I knew of it when I designed exercises in 1993. Many years ago a coach also recommended giving the players mental challenges to perform while playing to improve their multitasking. A call and response between coach and players based on math problems or colors used as cues. (It certainly demonstrates proficiency, but I am not sure that it has much training value.) I think that was from the early 90s. Here is a current version using physical tasks rather than math problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=RcIcbi3ABXg
only a bad coach or one that doesn't understand Coerver says there is zero decision making in that method. As soon as you get past a ball mastery warm-up session progresses quickly into 1v1 (loads of decisions) then SSGs (even more decisions). THE METHOD; 3four3, TOVO, etc doesn't coach. Coaches MUST coach whether it's patience, shoot/pass/dribble.
I agree except that the method is not the exercise. I design exercises to force players to make the tactical movements and use the techniques I want to see and then I use positive reinforcement. I also design exercises around the decisions that I want to work on. If I am not seeing the movements and techniques I want, then I adjust the exercise until I do. My point is that coaching is not just talking. I think that the point you are making about the Coerver Method, et al., is that if coaches fail to structure the exercises to include decision making, that is a coaching failure, not a theory failure.
@Dynamo Kev wanted to be very clear NOT calling you a bad coach or not understanding. Nothing but respect for you.
I think understanding the method is more than that. It requires understanding why those particular exercises are used now, what a coach wants to see from the players, and how to adjust the exercises to maintain a progression appropriate to the player. This last point is critical to efficent, meaningful training. I suspect that all that is already included in what the phrase (training "method") means to you. It is more than a compilation of exercises.
Regardless of the method, I see too many young players dribble right into a defender. I've been able to coach this out of my players in the past, but I don't understand why it happens in the first place? I've learned not to buy into what I believe is "obvious" but this one still baffles me. One of my first coaching points this year was: "don't let the defender touch the ball" (in 1v1)
My guess is target fixation. Like when shooting at goal, striking directly to the keeper. If they are thinking about beating the opponent, they may subconciously be dribbling at the opponent.
the first two automobiles in the state of ohio were involved in the state's first two-vehicle collision. i don't know if that's true, but i've read it several places. target fixation indeed.
Just last fall, I taught my kid dribble where there is space, even if it's towards your own goal. She took that advice very liberally sometimes dribbling 20 yards backwards. Parents would yell "wrong way". But I knew what she was doing and it needed tweaking, refinement not throwing the idea completely out the window.