Today's the day. First training session of the spring for my 19U boys. We spent yesterday afternoon doing field setup. Temperature was 40, but it felt like 20 with the wind. Today should be better. Here's to the start of another season...
Things got feisty at training this past week. It's interesting when 9YO girls get into it. It was mostly shoving and fighting/grabbing for a dead ball. But I like it. For the past few years they've all been quiet, meek young ladies. It's nice that they're developing a competitive, harder edge to their game and attitude. I have to be careful and manage it so it doesn't devolve into interpersonal issues.
We got our first two sessions in, but we're cancelling tomorrow. Windchill is supposed to be below 20* tomorrow morning after highs near 70* on Wednesday and Thursday. It's March in Indiana.
The past few years we've cancelled much of April. We'll be indoors through April this year so awesome, but not sure why the powers that be don't just push the season back a month and play into the summer (when weather and temps are gorgeous here). Yeah yeah, summer vacations. But it doesn't seem to stop other sports.
There's a couple threads covering this in the college forum if you're interested. Also, we had 2.5" of snow yesterday morning. It was gone by the start of the Milan game at 3:30. Training this evening is on as scheduled. Lol.
Finally had a proper session yesterday and it went lovely. So glad to be back out on the pitch. State Cup coming up soon too! Started to implement what I've learned in the USSF C course and its paying dividends.
Spring Break sucks. We have 9 players available to train today and only 11 available next week... at this point. It looks like we're going to cancel everything until the following week. That gives us 2 more sessions before our first game.
Too complex? I ran an activity today that was confusing for some u9s. 1v1+N. Goals were north south in a 10w x 20L. The restart rules were a little tricky. Team A on one endby a goal and Team B on the other end. Same u9s are great in game-probably because soccer is a simple game. Goals on either end. Pretty clear which way you are going, how restarts occur, etc. Is there anything to be said about training activities that are no more computed than the game itself? If a kid can get soccer but not your activity in,say, five minutes -is it too complex? Or should we challenge our players' attention and thinking skills? For the curious, the restart was "shooter stays". If Team A shoots (make or Miss),Team B plays the ball into a neutral to start a 2v1 going the other way. Former Team B player goes off and a new Team B player comes on as a defender. I like games like these because of the transition component and the players learn to never switch off. Done several times over different practices, the players learn the game so the confusion is less of an issue.
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@elessar78 Have you ever used neutrals before with this age group? Perhaps it would have been better to start with a simple SSG and progressively add the bells and whistles until you get to the full exercise.
Yes they know neutrals. I primed them by running a 1v1 in the same space and orientation. The lesson was learning how to play in a 2v1 situation. My thinking was that experiencing 1v1 then adding a “helper” would make them understand better the usefulness of the having an extra teammate. Overall, the activity went well but a few stragglers. Thanks for the feedback.
I have my first every session with my 09s today so I'll have first hand knowledge on how difficult this can be lol. Your session itself doesn't sound complicated, but I do think theres better ways of explaining the practice. Its been drilled into me that if you can't get them into a session within 90 seconds/2 mins then its something YOU'RE doing wrong as a coach. Less is more.
I've had my 1st sessions with all 3 teams. It should be a fun season. One of the nice things about have practices on 2 different days, is that I can tweak the plans so that my last team gets a practice that works well. Two of my teams are in the same division this season so on May 11, I will be coaching against myself . I'm still working out how I'm going to do it
In addition to my other coaching duties, I've been assisting this A-licensed coach for the past year, so I haven't ran or planned a lot of sessions independently. Admittedly, I was skeptical about this role. Recently, I've had the opportunity to run sessions on my own again and I was curious how I would do having not done it regularly for close to a year. Surprisingly, I felt sharp and without actively trying to learn to be a better coach, I absorbed some great, new habits from the past year: I learned how to manage and time intervals better. How to be less distracting when they are working Delivery coaching points more effectively The 3 things I listed above are, unsurprisingly, linked. So at 60-90s intervals for early activities, they work hard and get a lot of reps. Since it's short, I don't do as much talking (so I'm less distracting). Since they were working hard, the coaching points come during the recovery periods. So we work hard physically and think hard. Since I'm not talking as much during activity, I'm observing more and making my coaching points more relevant. Still incorporating techniques I've learned from education expert Doug Lemov: "No opt out"-where I ask one player a question. Invariably lots of hands go up, but I stick with the original player and we take the question to it's logical conclusion. No one else is allowed to bail him/her out by answering. Check for understanding/using metrics—so I give a coaching point and we measure for improvement. A rondo might be measured in passes completed. Or a an activity about advancing the ball, we measure how many times they advance the ball across a certain line. (This is also a Horst Wein adaptation). I don't construct sessions and activities similarly (nor could I). I feel like some of my strengths in my sessions are flow (one activity progresses to the next logically) and time management. The lessons I picked up, I feel, helped me enhance these attributes. Thanks for reading what could be construed as a self-congratulatory post, but really not my intent.
I'd love to have someone to work under or even someone to serve as a mentor for me. You're fortunate to have that as a resource, and I'm glad to hear you're growing from the experience.
I had a shitty attitude about it at the beginning of the year—I took it as a demotion in terms of role, and I should've been more of an eager learner sooner. Essentially, I got paid to learn from someone with more experience.
I have a long standing theory that up until age 10, birthdays are a strong indicator of soccer "ability". I went through the teams in the Rec program I oversee for a local club for all age groups and one stood out. This one age group commissioner, we asked him to switch but he really wanted to stay in the age group of his older daughter. He said he had good ideas about how to "balance out the teams (from last season)". AGCs submitted team rosters late last week, I didn't have time to review them bar only for any glaring scheduling conflicts. Today, I went through the teams and age groups and more granularly. The AGC above stacked his team from a birthday perspective. The division has 4 teams. Team 1 (AGC's team): average birthday mid-February Team 2: ave. birthday early-June Team 3: early August Team 4: late August. Curious to see how this season plays out for this age group.
Do you think the AGC was aware of the birthmonth thing, or he just stacked the team based on he's familiar with the age group and knows who the better kids are to put with his offspring? Get the message out to the Aug people especially - it's rough now, but if they stick it out until scholastic soccer, they're going to be ahead of their Jan-Jul of the following year classmates, having years experience "playing up" against kids one grade above them.
Don't look at it as stacking teams for competitive advantages. Look at it as sorting children by physical age for training for development purposes.
Can't tell if you're being facetious, but he also didn't take every kid that was in, say, the first 3 months of the year for Team 1 either. 50% of the age group is new to the program, so there's not a lot of history to go on when it comes down to it.
Was being serious. Look at it from a development perspective instead of a competitive perspective. It may change what you see. The question is did he add early bloomers and the most talented athletes to the older group? I don't expect something like that to match my own thinking completely because it involves so much subjective judgment. So you should expect some rough edges.
My boys won their first game of the season this afternoon. 3-0 against a team that played a man down for 60 minutes. I was happy that they kept a clean sheet, but we have lots to work on. I'm excited for training tomorrow. I wish I had these guys 5 nights a week so we could get more work in.
We won our game this weekend too. It was a beautiful day outside: sunny, 60s, slight breeze. Alas we were indoors and it was a sauna in there: high humidity, I'd estimate 85°. I was seeing kids with signs of dehydration. Opponents were really struggling to build out. We have a build out line rule. Anyway, what's the sporting thing to do after the score is out of hand? Should I pull the players back to midfield? Or "not my problem"?
Time to work on a lower line of confrontation and possession-style buildup play into the opponent's half. Even though it may not be the appropriate time in your season schedule, the team will get more development value from the match that way. I am speaking from my past mistakes, not from my good decisions. Some time dominating is good positive reinforcement and team building, but too much is inefficient.