In the middle of our snowstorms I'm getting excited for the upcoming season but I have one major question. I've posted previously that I coach a rec U10 team that really struggled this fall (0-8-1) after taking over for the prior coach midway thru the spring (the team went (1-7) that fall and (2-6) spring). Well, it turns out that I'm the sucker who agreed to additionally coach a U12 rec team due to our club firing the coaches (husband/wife) for using players that were not registered etc. Here is my problem. My current team and I've been told of my additional team is that we have a very large skill gap on these teams. For example on the team I coached this fall I have 6 kids that are decent players, I have 4 that want to play but really have large gaps in technical and physical ability (I have one kid that cannot run backwards, 2 that have absolutely no touch at all). Then I have 3 kids who I'm not sure why they are there as they provide no effort and during game and SSGs simply try to not touch the ball. I also have 1 kid who the school district put on the team as a way to try to improve behavior, give a goal and has major attitude issues. I've seen the U12 team play as I'd guess its a similar type of makeup. As I stated in an earlier post I started in the fall with a plan to follow the USSF Play-Practice-Play and had to abandon it midway thru the year as we had to work on other things and I wasn't seeing the improvement I wanted. We focused on situations such as goal kicks, throw-ins. My practices became much more skills based. Practices are 60 minutes 2x week and we have no alternative space if cancelled due to weather. With only 60 minutes I've found we generally have time for 3-4 different sessions. However when I have tried 4 it seems like time is up when we finally get into a drill. A typical practice is 15-20 minutes on individual ball skills, dribbling, teaching moves, hoping to get kids confidence to grow. Then 15 minutes with shadow play (walkthrough) on how to play out of the back (initial positioning) and then first passes or something similar. We then often jump to one of several attacking/defending things such as a 4v2 (with goalie) in an attempt to teach kids to get open, find space, teach defenders when and how to close down. When we have a full field (1/2 the time) we usually will try to do a full scrimmage. Due to the skills gap between the kids we can't run a 4v1 rondo very well as the weaker kids constantly get rotated in. During a 4v2 drill the other kids ignore the weaker players and the weaker players let them. SSG of 3v3 end up often being sloppy messes. I run the individual ball skills as an attempt to get all of them confidence of the ball but its not enough. I've been planning to run more 1v1s and 2v1 (2v2s)with the defenders being more shadows at first. Running 4v0 rondos so there is no pressure. Do you simply allow random rotations to happen or do you put the weaker ones together & better together to make it even? Would love to get your thoughts.
It's REC—have fun. The coaches I coach with this year are really good at making things fun. So I've learned stuff from them in that regard. I prefer putting in work at practice in the warm-up phase particularly—lots of ball mastery and technical work. I think my players have always found the 1v1s fun, same with 2v2s and other SSGs. Even rondos—it's a different kind of fun. Challenge fun, rather than enjoyment fun. If that makes sense. But at this level, I'd maybe stay away from Rondos. Anyway, my colleagues do fun stuff in the warm-up phase. Basic games that encourage players to use their ball skills in a play setting. Why I don't prefer this method is that I don't think it's optimal for skill acquisition. But there are many ways to skin a cat. Anyway, design fun activities where the skill gap can be negated. A 4v1 rondo is probably too demanding for a novice. I think players comfortable with the ball is a big win, I think competent 1v1 players is a big win, a player that can use a teammate to go forward/get a goal is a big win (2v1/2v2). IMO, you don't really need to get bigger than 2—player with the ball and a partner. Reduce the complexity in the game.
Thanks. I do focus on making it fun. My son is quitting basketball because the coach there has not made it fun. I suspect that his team will lose a 1/3 of its players next year. None are superstars but some have potential. The basketball program in 3rd grade has already created 3 levels of teams and the A team is full of good athletes and no good ball handlers. The athletic advantage they have now will be gone in a few years as kids get more coordinated. I typed this up because I realized that during the SSG and especially the scrimmages the weaker kids purposely pulled away. They would rather not make an attempt on the ball vs making a mistake. I worked with one as a personal goal to win the ball back 3 times in a game and it worked for a half. My way to counter from losing these kids was to do individual drills so that there wasn't a natural competition. That said I don't have anyone really comfortable on the ball and I think 1v1 and 2v2s are a way to do it. Do you then pair up your best against best and mid against mid and weak against weak so they are competitive and it causes them to work or just let random happen?
How you assign players to groups makes a huge difference. How you adjust exercises on the fly to fit the play you see makes a huge difference. There are always huge differences in skill levels and experience in any large group of players, including professionals. Every successful coach engages his players and leaves them at the end of the session wanting more. It is impossible to do with every player in every situation, but that is the challenge. I would not spend so much time not playing soccer. 15-20 minutes into the session before the kids get to play soccer is at least 10 minutes too long. When training technique a few quality touches are more important than large quantities of touches. Some coaches begin the warmup with games for the express purpose of engaging the players and then spend a few minutes on technique before getting to the SSGs. For that age group shadow play was always an exception for my session plans. I just used it at the beginning of the season to introduce the system of play. I did not use it to teach principles of play or skills. I spent 5 minutes 1 time on each restart at the beginning of the season. Just to go over the applicable Law and special techniques (throw in). No more. They need to learn how to play during the run of play before you worry about restarts. You can adjust the SSGs to provide all the restart experience you want while they are playing the SSGs. I try to mimic the match with the physical activity (intensity and movements) during the training session. Do your matches start with 15-20 minutes of individual skill work, followed by 15 minutes of shadow exercises--all without pressure from opponents I assume--and performing restarts? No. Of course not. Like said above, get the kids playing soccer first.
Doug Lemov's a teaching expert but he's also got a side passion for soccer. He's consulted with USSF on teaching techniques. One of his best, IMO, and primary tenets is: encode success. He's got a great book Practice Perfect that I'm always pitching here. Meaning you got to let players experience success in whatever they are doing. It's what drives them forward, motivates them to keep improving. So in your situation, I'd make sure they succeed in the 1v1s. Make it 1v1 vs a defender that's passive. For me, a lot of learning 1v1 play is in the approach, when to start a move, getting a feel for the timing and spacing, accelerating away, "shutting the door". I actually step in as defender because I can administer the correct amount of pressure for a player who is trying to learn. The actual move (scissors, stepover, cruyff) is actually a small part of it. A second point on: They would rather not make an attempt on the ball vs making a mistake. It's a culture thing. Be intentional about creating a culture that doesn't fear failure. How do you react when someone makes a mistake? How do you phrase your coaching points (positive? negative?). Do you recognize the effort, even when it fails? Culture changes also don't happen quick, so be patient. tl;dr: encode success, praise the effort so they keep making an effort
Thank you both. Appreciate the comments. Reading these comments caused me to think about if my memory was failing or not. Because I don't think I was leaving my kids wanting more play and I would move on from an activity if I saw the effort get sloppy or lazy from what I perceived were tired of the activity. That said I didn't keep any notes from each practice (I have the notes of what I wanted to do at each practice sent to the other coach) but nothing on what worked/didn't. I kept the kids working and they wanted to come back for more each week which was good. As mentioned in this or another thread I tried lots of SSGs as I was following the Play-Practice-Play methodology but I realized that without the ball skills to receive a pass or the idea of feeling comfortable with the ball at ones feet they couldn't really do anything and weren't comfortable to try which is why my practices changed. The shadow play allowed kids to start seeing how to move. (As an aside - I coached my middle sons U8 team for indoor and the intuitive knowledge between the U8 and this U10 team was surprising. I'd be surprised if the U8s would lose to this U10. Ignoring how I structure my practice can either of you describe how you managed your skill level differences in practice? I generally try for balanced teams but if a kid doesn't want to commit I can't make him. I had some success with one kid when I set a private goal for him before a game that I wanted to see him win 3 loose balls or 3 challenges in the game. It worked for a half and worked for about 2 practices but then he backed into a shell.
An example. 3v1 keep-away. Don't assign the 2 best players and the worst player to the same side (unless the 2 better players will work with the 3rd player. It is far more effective to place one of the best players with two weak players because it forced the player to use the other 2. The key is being flexible. One size doesn't fit all. If the plan is not working for a particular player, change the plan for his group. If the team cannot maintain possession, reduce the difficulty until they are successful. You can increase the space. You can make it 4v1. You can have the defender only put "half" pressure on the attackers. Or even less pressure--limit him to 2 steps. (The steps are useful "cues" for the attackers and a necessary part of the exercise for the kids to improve.) If 3v1 is too easy for the attackers, you can reduce the space or change the balance by making it either 3v2 or 4v2. Once they have succeeded at unbalanced keep away, balance the sides and add goals. If that is too difficult for attacking success, you can unbalance the sides by adding nuetrals that only play with the team in possession. Example 3v3 with 2 nuetrals. So it is actually 5v3 when possessing the ball. Add multiple goals or increase or decrease the size of the goals. Restrict where shots can be taken or provide tasks that must be performed prior to scoring. The actual adjustments that are possible are limited only by your imagination, but I generally used the same type of exercises and the same adjustments for similar topics.
I'm open minded, but so far I think Play-Practice-Play is junk. Every few years, USSF jumps on a new bandwagon of training methods.
The "play-practice-play" doctrine is one indication to me that "grass roots" is a euphemism for recreational. That is scary because it means that in their mental vision of soccer in the US they think players are sorted out by ability at age 6. For a day care program for 6 year-olds the doctrine makes sense but not when you are actually trying to teach fundamentals. I had the privilege of watching a couple of coaches run a session for 5 year-olds. Both of these coaches were extremely experienced and one of them was a well known and respected college coach before MLS came along. They didn't use ppp and had the kids playing 3v3 at the end, basically following a pretty traditional session format. The really valuable part was seeing how they interacted with the kids, although I was paying close attention to the plan and they answered all my questions. They were a great help. I don't think these parents had a clue as to how lucky that they were to have these guys running the sessions. Some people have a weird idea of what good coaching is. Good coaching is not making training to play a game feel like hard work. Good coaching makes hard work feel like playing a game. And that is true at every level right from those 5 year-olds to senior international teams.
One thing I did, and I don't know if this would work at your age group or not since I haven't coached those ages, was to put the best player in the middle and have them play as a pivot. We were running roughly a 6v2 with very mixed talent levels and as you said the "worst" kids either got ignored or stuck in the middle and the best kid got bored and tried youtube-inspired flicks rather than working on his skills. By placing him in the middle I forced him to be more involved - suddenly he didn't have time to be goofing off and joking around as every pass might be going to him - and also take more responsibility because each other player could be looking to him for the next pass. He also got to learn a lot about positioning without the ball because the defenders started to shrink towards him which left passes around the outside open. Being the best player, he wanted the ball, so now he had to do something to actually get it. From a coaching perspective the best part is that he didn't handle this new role particularly well right away but just through the course of time and some gentle suggestions from me he grew quite a lot - and not only did he learn more but everyone else got more touches and had more fun. I can't remember all the team sizes for the various U-groups so maybe this won't be useful but I just thought I'd share a positive experience. My teams always have widely varying skill levels so finding ways to involve everyone at (or just slightly beyond) the level of their talent is a constant challenge. In the words of a former President, "ah feel yer pain".
Thanks. Often I put one of the worse kids in this position as it requires them to be involved continuously and I figure it will get them more touches. That said I rotate these groups regularly.What happens in reality is the drill falls apart with the defense constantly winning or never getting beyond the basics. I wouldn't have thought of this purposefully. Lets say we are doing Rondos. We have 14 kids so if I don't step in and self sort the groups I will get 2 good groups usually (one 4v1 and one 3v1) and then a group of the few weakest players all together. Is that ok? If I don't sit on that weak group they will just stand and not move so I have to spend a ton of time with them ignoring the others. -but if split the 3 weakest with 1 in each group they will invariably get "it" and stay it and for 2 of them they won't hustle/don't care which upsets the other kids who want to do it. Say we are working out of building out of the back. we'll play 6 (2-3-1) vs 4 with multiple goals. the ball will never hit those kids when we work on space and making a diamond. The CM will get the most touches so I put the best kid there vs the worst to try. Will be interesting when we get back in a few weeks. As a coach you are constantly adjusting but was looking for others.
While you're trying to build everyone's ball skills... Give your weakest kids lots of rotations at the forward spot in the 2-3-1 v 4. Also, if the 4 are killing it regularly, there's no harm in going 6v2, especially if you're playing the 2-3-1. Most likely there will be times when the 3-1 do not track back so the 2 will face a 4/5 v 2. I'd work with the weak kids on moving off the ball, especially the far post run when a shot is coming. u10 keepers tend to let a lot of stuff through the hands/legs, your weakest kid starts burying those for goals and the rest start to think coach must know something.