Entering the Twilight Zone of H.S. Soccer

Discussion in 'High School' started by RunSudoSane, Mar 20, 2012.

  1. england66

    england66 Member+

    Jan 6, 2004
    dallas, texas
    Update from two years ago....my approach hasn't changed and we still have not run a single lap in three years. We don't ever do 'fitness training'. We do everything with the ball, lots of short-sided stuff, lots of possession type games and absolutely NEVER any 'standing around'....None of the notorious three 'L's'....Lines, Laps, Lectures... We just recently won our second State Title in a row and will return 9 starters for next season.....and are the fittest team around.

    I have a lot of top level ECNL type club players....EVERY single one of them tells me they MUCH prefer playing and practicing with the school team because it is so very much fun...intense, focused and competitive. Our practices NEVER go longer than 90 minutes, ever.....we are unbeaten in our last 22 conference games over the past two seasons and all of us are having a total blast representing our smallish school in a very positive way.

    You play soccer....you don't 'work' soccer....I never yell and scream at the girls unlike many of the 'coaches' we play against and I am always very positive with them. As a result they play 'without fear', don't have to look over their shoulder to see if I'm going to 'yank' them for a mistake (they all know that if they make too many they may end up on the bench more than they would like)...I learned a long time ago that mistakes are part of the game and that everyone makes them at every level....in every sport.

    At the pre-season parents meeting I tell them to 'just enjoy watching your daughters play a sport for their school...these years will be over before you know it'....I also tell them that 'soccer is the easiest game in the world to play.....while sitting in the stands'....so NO negative comments....EVER....not at your own daughter and certainly not at anyone else's daughter.

    With teenage girls this seemingly obvious, positive approach works wonders
     
  2. tuffnut11

    tuffnut11 Member

    Mar 16, 2014
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    WOW this is like my daughter current travel coaches philosophy. He has gotten rid of two coaches who wanted to coach with the kids constantly moving with a BALL... imagine that.... instead he'd rather have 8 /9 year olds run sprints and laps around the field and static stretch for 30 mins all without a ball. SMH and apparently this club holds this coach in high regard
     
  3. UH60Blackhawk

    UH60Blackhawk Member

    Oct 5, 2013
    I do like what england66 writes. Of course it is probably a little easier in some ways to coach (if you know what you are doing), in an area like Dallas, especially if your team is mostly ECNL players. Those who are not are probably pretty good as well.
    Moving around our daughter saw good HS and some pretty bad HS. The two best... a school where the assistant coach use to be the head coach of a top community college team, but decided to take time off to be the assistant for her buddy from her professional days when she started having a family. I only saw the girls run a lap without a ball once- that was the first day when they took the 1.5 mile fitness test. There were over 100 girls trying out (the school had four teams, varsity, JV, 9th grade and "modified B", kind of like rec league), so they had to start cutting somewhere. For conditioning they even rode their bikes to the next town over once for a scrimmage rather than taking the bus. The girls had a blast... I'm not sure how the coaches survived the stress. Never saw lectures, though they did get together Sunday evenings and watch film every other week. My daughter said it was very instructional. The coaches also ran indoor footsal training during the winter and put together an indoor team, though the coach was up front that club soccer was the priority during the off season. Finally, girls were given summer work out programs (the HS season was in the fall), that included speed, agility and footskills. Like I wrote earlier, girls were expected to show up fit, not get fit when they showed up.
    Another school had a fantastic weight program. Girls who were varsity athletes took "Women's Core" for PE instead of the normal PE. The program was geared toward the girl's primary sport, so my daughter worked on her squats as well as other leg strengthening exercise to protect her knees as well as speed/agility exercises. The PE coach knew her game schedule and adjusted her workout accordingly. The school coach was great as well. He was the type who worked with the team he had rather than the team he wished he had. Again, "conditioning" took place with a ball. I remembered one parent asking him why the team did not run more or have a "hell week". He responded that the cross country team was over there (pointing), but if his daughter wanted to play soccer it met here (pointing to the soccer pitch). Considering the mix of players from top clubs, rec league, and lacrosse players looking to stay in shape during the fall he did okay. Did we make it far in the playoffs? No, but my daughter, a player for an ECNL team, loved playing for him and learned so much from him. He was normally fairly quiet during games, maybe occasionally calling over a girl to give some advise or reposition her, but never yelling at a player.
    But I have seen the flip side of very poor programs with coaches who were drawing pay checks.
     
    mwulf67 repped this.
  4. Seoul Man

    Seoul Man Member

    Sep 17, 2001
    World Wide Web
    Nat'l Team:
    Korea Republic
    My son just started high school this past Fall. His school has been one of the more successful programs in the state (east coast US). The varsity coach runs a program that puts academics first, respect second, winning third. They had over 120 kids try out for the team, and have 4 teams - varsity, jv, freshman, and development. I really like the environment that the coach fosters of high character, high work ethic, and winning attitude. He has mentioned more than once that the recent caliber of player coming into high school is the highest he has seen, technically and tactically. His teams play a high fitness, high pressure style, tending to revert to kick-and-run at times, and it will be interesting to see how he adapts and evolves his style to a higher skilled core of players. It was interesting that he called my son up to varsity over other freshmen teammates who were bigger and stronger. He was one of the smallest kids on varsity but got playing playing time over other older, bigger kids who weren't as technical. Hopefully we will see the smarter h.s. coaches evolve with the times and learn to utilize the skills of a new type of player, a generation that has been playing since age 7 or 8 and are more technical and game-savvy than the previous generation.
     
  5. jhart35

    jhart35 New Member

    Aug 15, 2016
    Great post, I wish your family the best and keep up the good work! It doesn't matter who's the biggest or strongest. It's who have the biggest heart that matters.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  6. england66

    england66 Member+

    Jan 6, 2004
    dallas, texas
    Update on my last 'update'....this past February my girls high school team won our state championship for the third year in a row.....did not lose a single game (15 wins, 3 draws)....let in TWO total goals all season and finished highly ranked both in the state and national rankings.....still have not run a single lap EVER, do everything with a ball, train with high intensity, train smarter, train better and train less....Just about all my ECNL players are now former ECNL players, having stopped playing club because it 'just wasn't fun anymore'....in the State Championship game we started 4 club players....2 ECNL and 2 Lake Highlands D1....the other 7 starters have all quit club soccer over the past three years....
     
    nicklaino and bigredfutbol repped this.
  7. nicklaino

    nicklaino Member+

    Feb 14, 2012
    Brooklyn, NY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Congratulations you helped your players become very good and gave them a winners mentality. Which will help them with their future football career and in life outside of football.
     

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