First time in 12 years(?), that I'm going into a season without a team to coach. I already have had three clubs ping me about coaching, clubs just need warm bodies to fill the demand (as opposed to anything I'm actually spouting off). One offer really tempted me, but I chose to leave it alone. I'm going to enjoy some free time. Maybe I'll take on more of a DOC role and be a resource for other coaches in my previous club.
Today was supposed to be our my 6Us' first training session, but the club cancelled everything tonight due to the heat. I wasn't going to run training any way. I have 5 players. 2 are quarantined, and my daughter is just getting over a non-covid cold so we were going to hold her out this week. Great start to the season.
Final course meeting for my C Course today! Very ready to be done. A full time job, coaching 4 teams, owning a business, and doing the license was a bit much. The course was a lot more work than I anticipated; I bet I averaged 20 hours a week since mid-March on the assignments and meetings. I had heard horror stories about the C License but I was actually super impressed with the instructors. They have really good timely feedback and went well out of their way to make themselves available to students. I feel like I learned a ton and actually really improved as a coach. Now time to try and juggle 4 teams for the Fall, hopefully I can watch my own kid play once or twice [emoji23]
They asked if I would be interested in attending the Grassroots Instructor course in KC so I hope that’s a decent sign lol. Course was based out of Bozeman, MT. Lead instructor was Andy Coutts with Matt Dacey and Sara Campbell as the other 2.
Yesterday I helped run the club's pre-season new coach session. We had 17 RSVPs so I was excited about have a nice small group to work with. We ended up having someplace between 80 and 90 coaches there. After we got over the shock, we just split them up into groups and made it work.
It was pretty unreal. We start the session by getting them scrimmaging small sided(ish)-- demonstrating Play-Practice-Play and we had to keep adding fields. We ran out of pinnies and had to start splitting them up by shirt color. I haven't seen final head count data, but do know we ended having 475 teamx for the fall rec season. This covers kindergarten through high school.
My 6Us had our first training last night. We learned about penguins, chickens, and eagles and played squirrels and nuts and eventually made it to playing soccer to end zones and then to goals. An hour long session is too much for 5 & 6Us. They've got about 40 minutes of good training in them before it devolves.
What did I do??? dropped my kid off at her first practice. Went and grabbed a beer at a nearby outdoor brewery. I come back and they are doing wind sprints (at least w/ a ball) and then push-ups right after. Followed by an interminable wait to start a one big goal/two small goals SSG. Watching another field of boys running wind sprints. Followed by a loong lecture on spacing and positions (probably). They’ll probably play for 10s before he goes into a 5 minute coaching point.
I used week 1 from this set of plans: https://logansoccer.com/files_uploaded/6Uweeklylessonplans_1.pdf. I haven't looked ahead, but I intend to use premade plans for these kids until I see specific things we need to work on as we go along. I also took the USC 4v4 online course which was a great way to change mindset from coaching high school boys in the spring. It was only $20 so that's worth the time and money if you can do it.
Our indoor season just ended and we got 1st place for the first time. The kids all got medals and we had a pizza party right after the last game. 7 wins, 0 losses, 1 draw We had a really good goalkeeper which is quite rare for U8. I hope he continues.
Had my 1st session with the 3rd grade girls. They are going to be a trip. One of the new girls came up to me during the water break and said "just so you know, the girls from my team are stubborn and a little sassy." In other words, they are perfect for my coaching style
@Maclid shared this on the college soccer board. I thought it was worth cross-posting here, especially the discussion from minutes 8 to 11 about building culture...
How important is it for players to have flashy moves? What if they can beat defenders and have good control, but don't really have a lot of the tricks/bells/whistles?
To me it is about end-- not the means, so if they have what it takes to beat the defenders then I think it fine to not have flash
I think it's good to learn moves even if they won't use them in a game. Messi doesn't use flashy moves which proves you don't really need them. But some pros do use them to effect. So I think it just depends on the player. They should learn and experiment and find which moves they feel most confident with, or maybe they realize they don't need them.
My point was going to be that if they were youngsters beating low level players with their outstanding touch (and size and speed?), it might be worth trying to teach some more options in case their current advantages disappear as they grow and move up. They might benefit from having more options in their bag. More options is never a bad thing if you can still K.I.S.S. If on the other hand they were elite 19Us having great success with a meat and potatoes approach, I'd say forget the flash and keep using what works. Ultimately, choose the simplest, most effective option that will get the job done.
My POV is that they should learn enough ball skills that they're comfortable using all the surfaces of each foot and moving in each direction so they can handle whatever situation comes up. Teaching specific moves can be part of that, but I don't think it's super high on the list just for the sake of saying they have 12 moves. I was playing at a camp when I was a teen, and one of the coaches said we should each develop one fifty dollar move. That's the one we would be so confident in that we'd be willing to bet $50 would work on any given opponent. If you have one move you're that confident in, it's worth more than 12 you can do but aren't effective.
At 11yo, they should all be working on one or two moves that are useful in a game. If they are dedicated to a particular position that would influence what moves they use. I think all positions should learn a v drag. Very useful and effective. La croqueta as well. 11s and 7s should do scissors well. Mids should learn maradona/roulette spin, can be very useful. Everyone should be able to change direction with instep/outstep, drag back/pullback. Everyone should know feints, but those would be most useful to forwards.