How do you handle a Monday practice after a physical, hot game that was played at 1pm on Sunday? My Girls 04 team came out on top 4-1 on Sunday. Air temp in the high 80s. No breeze. No shade. Fake turf field. Ref said he measured the surface temp of the field at 140 degrees. That sounds high, but it was certainly above 100. Pretty physical. Lots of whistles. About equal for both sides. Started the game with 4 subs. Finished with 2. (Back tweak and foot issue). Limited sub rules (no re-entry in the 1st half. 1 re-entry in the 2nd). 40 minutes per half. Refs did allow for a water break at about 20 minutes in. First game of our season and we looked pretty good. Scored at 30, 38, 56 and 61 minute. They scored at minute 77. We practiced tonight from 7pm-8:30. We practice again on Weds. Some girls will do conditioning on Tuesday or Thursday. We play again on Saturday. Today, we didn't do anything too competitive or physical. We spent most of the practice on technical work - Ball mastery, finishing and first touch. After the fact, I feel that I may have wasted a practice. But trying to let them recover a little. (Probably could have done more shadow play. But the girls tend to get a little bored if we do that for more than 10-15 minutes.) Thoughts?
i see no benefit. it just shifts the REA. i think our club has lost a few players because they don't get to play with their classmates any more.
recovery day. i would do an extended warmup and add in some yoga to make sure everyone gets loosened up well before doing anything demanding. then i'd pick out some issues from the game that you can work on without making the players exert themselves too much. shadow play, set pieces, etc.
We kept our team together and didn’t split with the age change. We play 2004. 18 on the roster now. (One had recent knee surgery and is out for this season). 3 of them are new this year. The other 15 have been on the team for at least 3 years. 8 of them are 2005 birth year. Last year- we had a rough season. Teams with more mature 04 players give us a hard time. This Fall- I don’t think we’ll lose a game. We play in Flight 2. Same as last year. To be fair- the 3 teams that gave us the most trouble last year moved up to Flight 1. We also did well in Spring league. We don’t play a ton of summer tournaments (I don’t think 4 games a weekend is a good idea). We played in a sand soccer tournament and won. We played 2 tournaments 11v11. First one - Lost in the semi finals. 0-0 tie and had to go 9 deep in kftm to decide a winner. Second one - lost in the championship game.
Coaching our team's back line this season so far, summed up in a meme: We're working very hard with them on keeping the line together and a couple of them keep dropping back a few steps too early. If we weren't blessed with very fast players on our back line this could have been a disaster many times over. Oddly, they'll alternate that with all dropping evenly together, even into the 18 with no one stepping up to slow down the attack. I'm working with our (brand new) keeper to communicate better (and louder) with them to help things out but it's a slow growth. Last year two of our four played for our JV team where the coach used a diamond backline so they're used to the security blanket of always having a deep defender. It's a little more nervy for them now as a flat line but they're coming along. Now if I could just get my center backs to stop trying to dribble out of heavy traffic inside the 6 I think I'd be a happy man for a day or two...
We have a pretty good recruiting area for our club, so we win a lot of games. Our B-teams beat most clubs' A-teams. Our social media director has been posting weekly scores. Seems antithetical to our development first approach. We call into our DoC after the weekend to chat about the game—the scores are the least of the concern. How did they play? How well did they apply the week's lesson(s)? Those are the main questions that have to be answered. I don't think the score postings reflect our values. Am I being a wet blanket?
Publishing results over local club is promoting the club as business. It is not about development, but rather marketing.
All of the big clubs do it around So Cal. I follow them on Instagram. It’s funny to see them touting “our 2009 girls team won both games this weekend scoring 15 goals and allowing 1.” While their 04 team lost 3-0.
From what I recall your club posts all the scores, vs just posting the wins. For that and other reasons I mention you when parents ask about Classic, but you're still a little too far away so they tend to end up at the North London Derby clubs
Catchy name. If the north “newcomers” ever get traction then we will be back to square one. One of these days we will have to get together for a beer. There’s got to be a better way to do youth soccer.
Everything has a social media presence now. Yes it’s about marketing. But if it’s marketing-you could do it even better. I’m in the club and I can’t even remember what the overall record for each week is. And teams are color coded now and to the outsider no one knows if Blue is higher than White or Gold.
Watched a girls' HS game last night of two of the better teams. Not to go all negative, so I'll try to highlight some positives. Away team had some nice attacking patterns that you could tell they were drilled with. But that was really it. Bothers me that both teams, lots of players didn't know to receive with the correct foot. There were really no passages of possession through midfield. Again, away team combined well in the back when there was no pressure but while I wouldn't call it all kick-and-chase, everything was so vertical. Best piece of soccer, IMO, was when the ball was fed to away striker at the top of the box and she did a nice cruyff turn with a change of pace that caught everyone off guard. She just missed getting to the ball before the GK.
I had my 1st 2 training sessions of the fall. Practices are going to be a blast. Both teams are a blast to coach.. The highlight for me was a dad who was watching his 5th grade team practice on the adjacent chunk of field, told me me liked the ball control, movement and passing he was seeing.
I started my watch when ref started his, I could see him. I glanced at my watch near the end of the match and there was 30 seconds left-no injures to add time for. Other coach asked for time remaining and he raised a finger and said 1 minute. It was a loooong minute. We ended up countering and scoring. After we scored he blew the final whistle. After the game, I had no idea what the score was. He said 5-3 us. Then he said “I was trying to give them one last run in but you guys ended up scoring.” Seriously, wtf?
There is the law, and there is reality. Sometimes they don't match. Many referees will hesitate to blow the final whistle when it will cut short a promising attack for the trailing team. I expect referees to end a match promptly if the winning team is in possession. Puzzled here like you.
My G04 team is 2-0. Won 4-1 and 6-0. 7 different girls have scored at least 1 goal. Next week we play a team that has won their first 3 games. They might be our only test all season. My G05 team is the opposite. Lost 4-0 yesterday. They just don’t have someone who can score.
Interesting weekend. 8th graders lost 5-0 but it didn't feel like it. There were stretches of great passing and ball movement which were followed up by a defensive lapse. 9th graders tied 1-1 yesterday and played really well. The team is the merger of 3 teams and they started to play together well. Today they won via a forfeit and just scrimmaged in the rain.
Well of course I like the team that wins more than the team that loses!! Kidding- the 05 team really works hard and plays pretty good soccer. “We” just don’t have much of a scoring threat. They hold the ball a little too long. Or pass it a little too soon. I think I need to bust out a video camera for a game soon.
@Timbuck You started each paragraph with a possesive "My". There was no alienation communicated, to me at least.
Both teams played well/better this weekend and both won. Still a lot of room for progress. Started to see adjustments with the problem of running into/dribbling right into defenders. Got a better idea of the GK corps for the age group. It's rough when you have to field 4 per game.
G05 team moved up 3 divisions for this fall. Going better than expected, sitting at 5-1, three quarters through league play. We have two tournaments in October, the first one we somehow got placed in the top division. Should be interesting to see how that plays out. Areas of improvement that I believe are responsible for their level of play; playing the way you're facing. Helps encourage teammates to provide good passing angles. The girls do a good job of this especially playing back to the keeper then providing her with options to play outta the back. This also puts an end to the other teams attack instantly. There are times where she plays the long ball forward as well. Making forward runs to provide teammate on the ball an option forward. They're starting to understand the benefit of the diagonal run better as the season winds down.
What do you do in blowouts? We tried every player must touch the ball, this many passes in a row, etc... - Is there a point where you just stop letting your team shoot?
What age? How big of a blowout? Opposite foot only. Can only shoot on the first touch Shoot but aim wide. Can’t cross midfield (helps you work on playing out of the back)
What level? You can offer to mix teams, for our rec program this is done automatically. We start to play down. Last week we were playing 2v4 at U6. For older teams, at a certain point, say 4-0. Then you gotta try to get every one on the team a goal. We've done this and some of our players just can't score even if you put it in front of goal with an empty net. I think the worst was maybe 7-0 when we did this. Or you can just tell them to play normally but don't finish. Just put it out for a goal kick. Then you have them retreat into their own half (set the line of confrontation at midfield). Certain things like "you must play two touch" or "everyone touches the ball" has the opposite effect. You're basically telling them to play how soccer should be played and they just move the ball around better and get even better chances.