I live in a cold and rainy state. We play at least half our games on rainy, wet, muddy, uneven pitches. I want my team to play a possession passing style like Barca. Am I asking too much of young players? Is this approach out of whack?
wet or dry, you can expect to be playing on shit fields 80% of the time. Still teach it the right way.
thanks, cleansheet. It's just tough to see when the kids struggle with it as the weather gets worse. It's harder to put the ball down, get a clean pass/strike off, etc.
I think on wet fields you need encourage a certain type of passing that is suitable for the field. Unfortunately, passes on the ground are the least effective passes for muddy fields. And since dribbling is difficult it isn't a good weapon. Short passing isn't very good either because the advantage goes to the defender. I think the most effective passing in this environment is mid to long passing in the air. Players need to be spaced out accordingly. It gives the player receiving the ball more space and time to work with the ball.
I have many years of experience playing on bad fields. Teach them to pass just off the ground, about six inches. It is pretty easy to do using the inside of the foot, much harder with the instep. It is a lot to expect of pre-teens, but older kids should have the skill. As for dribbling, my experience is that dribbling is possible as long as there is no standing water. When footing is bad, you can get a lot of advantage from a simple inside or outside cut. And when water is pooling, usually it is only on certain areas of the field, which you pass over and run through.
Quality of the uppers is crucial in bad weather. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to play with cheap shoes in bad conditions. You have to take that into account with pre-teens. Older kids will probably have quality shoes.
I think this gets to the heart of my question. We emphasize quality of passes (on the ground, with pace) but I'm finding it's more idealistic than practical for the conditions we play in the majority of the time. I'm not against teaching it, but it's just two more topics we have to cover: that type of passing and receiving a low, driven pass. Oh well, no one said this coaching thing was easy. Never thought of it, but a great point. The plastic ones will be super-slick when wet.
two other quick things. We always discuss the field conditions before the match is "What did you notice about the field?" They don't always pay attention in warmups, but then we verbalize conditions. 'It's windy' (Which direction? so what will happen on long balls?), 'grass is wet' ( the ball will run faster), grass is long (passes need to be hit harder). Otherwise one or two will pick up on it and not verbalize and the rest will take 15 minutes to acclimate. And if the field is poor, I try to downplay it. Prefer not to hear it as an excuse, similar to the old "the ref cost us the game."