Been thinking of my post-season analysis. One realization that I'm making is despite working on this Positional play/Possession system for the past two months—where our attack would bog down was the outside mids, typically because our strongest players were in the spine. More specifically, these players on the flank are not very good 1v1 players which limits their effectiveness in the passing game. All winter, I think, my primary goal is to spend a lot of time working with these 5 players to develop their dribbling game. They're decent, just not dynamic.
I understood the words, but I am not sure of what you meant by all that. I suspect that you have recently been working a lot on passing and related tactical movements. So working a bit on 1v1 skills would probably be a good thing for all your players. I am out of touch with the current terminology, so bear with me. Most of the dribbling exercises I see are either complicated movements and shielding in a confined space or running with the ball without pressure. The exercises I see that involve wing-like play are actually functional training. (Are you going to be playing 9v9 next season?) http://www.uefa.com/trainingground/coaches/video/videoid=1766841.html So I think you need to come up with some original exercises to induce the dribbling movements you want to see. The hyperlinked exercise uses lanes, but that reduces movements to north-south. It also doesn't allow angled approaches by either the defender or attacker. You could just use end lines and have the players start on the lines and attempt to dribble over the far line. The space should be big enough to encourage running with the ball. You could have a lot of pairs using the same lines simultaneously. But that gives the attacker a lot of leeway and the defender a lot of ground to defend. To reduce the attackers options, you could give him two safe zones (towards corner flag and towards near post) as targets to dribble into. The starting position of the defender should be varied to change the angle of approach or even create a through-ball-into-space situation. I just wanted to get you thinking. I am sure you can think of something better.
Sometimes it's scary how on the same wavelength were in rca. I played a 1v1 today where they had to dribble over end lines BUT it was too short-they needed room to run with the ball.
Yep finished Sunday myself. Two teams were already done. Our C team played their final match. Lost 3-2. Can clearly see the effects of missing practices. I had to cancel Tuesday's practice - imagine my real work got in the way. Saturday was poorly attended. Got a lot in this group that are attracted to the ball and also like to attack. Bad combination when you want defensive positioning. Anyhow, think I may have found another goalkeeper. One seldom-attending kid (due to fall baseball conflicts) had a good nose for the position. Made sure to tell his parents so after the match. On to the indoor buildings beginning on Saturday. Blech.
A Tale of Two Teams I coach a Gu11 and Gu9 "competitive team". I've had the Gu11's since they were u9. We were always about .500 up until this year. We've played in tough leagues and even played up this past spring (lower level, but older and bigger opponents). This team is on-fire is is having a great time doing it. Kids are great. Parents are great. Practices and competitive and enjoyable. We are 5-0 with 3 games left to play. Good chance we finish undefeated. With the impending age group changes, I'm crushed that this team has to break up. We have 5 girls that are 2004 birth year and 10 that are 2005. (I think most of our competition is heavier on the 2004 players). I'll continue to coach the 2005's next year. My Gu9's are a completely different story. The talent level on this team is probably better than my u11's were at this same age. Much more even split of talent. (The older team had 2 standouts and the rest were middle of the road). This team has no real standouts, but the average talent level is much higher. But this team has not grasped the concept of playing consistently and their effort levels trail off at inopportune times. The parents don't hang out like we do on the older team. Kids don't invite each other to birthday parties. Nobody goes to lunch or dinner after games. My older team is full of 15 kids that are super close friends (and they go to 6 different elementary schools, so it's not like they all hang out at school). I've had to address several parents for sideline coaching and referee "abuse." It's just not a fun team to work with. I'm sure the parents think i'm not a competent coach due to the way we play. At practice there are 2 or 3 girls that don't focus at all. I joke that our team sponsor should be "Ritalin." The Age Group change for this team will be a welcome change. 5 are 2006 and 5 are 2007. This team is currently 1-3-1 and 2 of our 3 losses were due to simple mistakes that the other team capitalized on. Whenever I've picked players for teams, I've never picked just based on size and/or speed. I looked at relative skill level. I may need to change this for this team. Of the 5 kids from 2007, I think I'll cut 1 of them. The other 4 are solid players but need aggressive, smart and coachable kids to play alongside of them. I'm seriously debating on whether to continue coaching this team or not.
The older team doesn't have to break up, if you want to keep them together. Bring the 2005 players and play in the 2004 age group. If your club says otherwise, I would suspect someone wants to take your 2004 players. Even if the move is next year, you could position your team early so that they age-group changes won't disrupt your team.
You probably should stop making those jokes. ADHD and ADD are classified as mental illnesses. (Not something I agree with. Next thing you know, they will start calling diabetes a mental illness because it may cause mental confusion and even seizures or comas. To me it seems like a regression to the Middle Ages. Do you believe that a widow's normal depression and grief even the day after losing her spouse was classified as a mental illness by the DSM-V? IMO the drug companies have pushed the health care industry into adopting practices that maximize the sale of prescription drugs.)
Not sure that my 2005s would be best served playing against kids 16-18 months older. And even my oldest 2004s would be 9 months younger than the oldest kid on a pure 2004 team.
Well, that is the primary consideration. Playing up would also be more stress. My suggestion was based on the fact that you played up this year. At this age for girls, physical maturity should probably be considered. Peak Height Velocity is reached at 11.5 years of age on average. So the majority of the opposing players would have reached PHV next year, if you have not already faced that situation last season. I have had only one match played against older girls (U10s against a selected team of post-PHV U10 girls who were well coached). This was also 2-year age groupings. We lost, but we almost won (the game was tied until the last minute). PHV is an advantage, but not as much an advantage as with boys. The size and strength advantage is offset by a higher center of gravity and loss of quickness because of the longer limbs. Even my 8-year olds were playing hard, winning tackles and shoulder charges. This was 20-years ago in a house league though and play was clean. I was lucky to have an exceptional group of players and parents. In 1-2 years, PHV won't be a factor for this team.
For those of you coaching U9-U11 travel teams, how many fall practices will you hold and for how many hours per practice? For my U10 team, we started with our first practice August 23 and end with our final game (a rain make-up) on November 22. Over those three months, we will have had 25 practices of 1.5 hours each for a total of 37.5 practice hours in the fall. Our last evening practices are this week because next week it will be dark at 5:20 and we don't have lighted fields. Just wondering where we fall in the bell curve in terms of practice hours per season.
That seems about right. We practiced over the summer too. And we had a weeklong camp (3 hours per day) during mid August. We have 3 weeks of games left and will practice under the lights until November 13. We practice 2x per week for 1.5 hours. I do an optional skills/agility session on another day. And my 2 goalkeepers have a keeper training 1 day per week (in addition to the above).
academy format In the fall with 36 players we practiced 2 days a week 90 minutes. 1-2 coaches plus some help from U-16 players Indoor 40+ players, we pool our indoor time. Instead of each team getting 75 minute practice, we pool it and have 3 practices each week (most weeks Nov-March). They can attend all or none.
I have a U10 that plays up for U11. Physically he's there, good athlete, my dead ball specialist who's scored half dozen times off freekicks in two years. But he's just not there mentally and his workrate is lousy. I'd place him in the bottom third of the team mainly because of these last two attributes. In contrast, my best player, a U11 that also plays up at U12 and he's the best player in our state and he's the best player in our club 2 or 3 age groups up. Should the former player be playing up? He'd be a dominant player in his own age group but it would just indulge his current skills and not force him to grow. But while playing up he's not keeping up with the game. I've been thinking that he's where my U11s were last year in terms of game play—so he's fine age appropriate. But which age group serves him best? He's still a key sub for me at U11—because he's aggressive and high energy
Where is he challenged. Being the best in the group, while nice may not be challenging. if you have the option of putting him with a U-10 team for a tournament to keep up his 'star' status, that is great. There is a lot of mental growth with the 10 yo playing in U-12. I had a debate with parents last year that played their 10 yo up (late birthday). They argue that he (is home schooled) is at the same level as a 6th grader. My return point is he is 10. The 6th graders are 12. How he learns soccer will be different than school work.
Where is he challenged? -indifferent about conceding possession, he's still just launching it forward while his teammates are making high percentage passes on the ground (most of the time) and playing out of trouble. -loses discipline, surges forward and breaks our shape -dribbles at wrong times/wrong places If I had to sum it up, it's in the decision making. He pushes forward when he shouldn't, dribbles when he shouldn't, passes when he shouldn't, dives in instead of holding up—it's not all the time, half the time? He plays at his age for travel, a step below club-level in our area, so he's better than most of those kids and no one makes him pay for poor decision making.
As I have never seen him play, I would have to judge your assessment. Sounds like a U-10 player. Very individual-based. Putting 10's into the 12 more team-oriented atmosphere, despite their skill, they are not ready for it. In our pool of 44 U-12's this year, approx 75% are U-11's and yes we are having issues with adjusting their individual play into team play.
I am used to 2-year age groups. I think it is a better development situation, makes physical maturity less important. At some time during the cycle everyone is forced to play smarter because there are competing against older, stronger players. Doesn't happen with most players in 1-year age groups.
Aggressive and high energy with a lousy work rate? That seems internally inconsistent to me. What gives? I'm not a fan of playing up an age group. As a general rule of thumb, I don't think anyone should play up unless they are in the upper 10-20% of the group they are playing up in (not their own age group). Anyone who is average or below in a higher age group has no business whatsoever playing up, so far as I'm concerned.
I would think playing up would have more to do with supplying a challenge to a player rather than a comparison to other players. If the player is not challenged at the current level, he is wasting a year of development time. A particularly bad thing at that age (10-12), as it is the golden age of development.
You mean top third of their own age group or the one above? I would say someone in the 70th percentile of his own age group playing up would be an absurd decision. Not that people don't do it because they certainly do. If you are talking percentiles of the player's own age group, I'd definitely say the 90+ percentile, i.e., dominant to the point of not being appropriately challenged. If you're lower than the 90th percentile, you're probably not even the best player on your own team and you face a player or two from each opposing team who are better than you. In that scenario, I see no point in playing up. But I realize my poisition on this is extreme. I've only seen a handful of players playing up who actually met my criteria. Almost all the others end up dropping back down sooner or later and even then aren't dominant in their own age group.
My fall season is over. This makes me happy. I forget how savage the time demands are. Once again the biggest challenges I faced this season were: 1) the disparity between the girls who have a solid base of fundamentals and the girls who either never learned or only just started playing soccer. 2) no one watches professional soccer - complete lack of soccer culture. They don't know what a good game looks like. No doubt I'll sign up for more of the same again next year.
It's not an option available to everyone but I cut several players who were in that bottom tier. Every practice was bogged down because they would either mess up or just be so far behind that sessions had to be dumbed down. In retrospect, I think we need to watch the skill disparity at tryouts and make sure it's not too great. It might be better than having only one or two subs and a more homogeneous talent base. We worked with those players we cut but they were just not at the level of their teammates by the end of the year. We kept four kids that were on the bubble-two have stepped up and two haven't. But I've talked to them and their parents about goals for the next 8 months. "This is how you stay on his team", without saying it.