Alright, I'm posting this on behalf of a friend of mine who is in his 2nd season coaching his daughter's U12 team. His soccer knowledge very limited... basically he took the F license course last season when he found out he needed to coach (because no one else would do it). Coach is ultra competive (but a nice guy) Background of the team. The soccer "club" has an "A" and "B" team. This is the "B" squad, but some of the "b-team" girls are very good and (IMO) better than "a-team"ers. They started the season with 4 wins and went 2-2ll in a tourney playing up a level. Last weekend, they played a good and very well coached team apparently (I wasn't there) with some big girls. The other team scored in the first half, then brought their 3 bigger/skillful players back to defend and kept midfield tight. Now put aside your opinions of pulling back to try and secure a 1-0 win in an U12 rec league... how would some of you have attacked this? My friends team has a couple quick girls, including one little scrapper who can almost knock me off the ball. Most of the girls are pretty good with the ball, though I've noticed they tend to bunch and compete for the ball amongst themselves too much (more on that maybe in another post). If you need more info, I can give it. I already gave him suggestions, but wanted to see if some of you had other thoughts. My friend is competitive like I said, and he's blaming himself for the teams first league defeat. Thanks in advance.
Well, offhand I can think of two obvious methods at this age; First you could take advantage of speed and try to put the ball behind the defense. I hate this approach, because I think the girls/womens game is poisoned with an overreliance on physical ability over skill. And most of the teams I coach against depend on their best athletes carring the team by scoring and playing sweeper and having 8 other field players basically serving as their domestiques. Also, if they're really packed in there won't be much room behind the defense. Second, and I would encourage this, though it will take some repetition to implement is to try and break the team down through combination play. At this age, defenders watch the ball. A couple of wall passes, maybe a double give-and-go, or a short-short-long combination where you have a forward in front of defender 1, who receives the ball, draws the defender, plays it back to the midfielder, who then passes into space where defender 1 was, to meet the run of a third attacking player...and this is skill stuff that will take there game to another level. Also, coaching 101, if you have a player who's really good on the ball, encourage her to attack on the dribble. Let her test her limits. And if she beats a couple defenders and can play with her head up, there's likely to be an open teammate close by. But a typical (or even above average) 11 year old player is not likely to be able to operationalize this without lots of trying and failing.
First --- thanks for the response. From his description, this wouldn't have worked because he told me they kept the three players pretty deep and they had speed. Apparently there wouldn't have been space to dump behind the defenders. This is what I told him might be needed against such a team. Actual passing and teamplay. I also told him to use a certain player (the scrappy one) run at defenders but passing and teamplay was going to be essential. I've been tellign him he needs to ingrain this in the kids from the start of the season, but he's been "happy" with the wins against lesser competition. Now he'd be getting to it late in the game, but better late than never. His team has a bit of a problem with teamplay, and part of it is due to the parents. Apparently they will fight each other for the ball in the attacking end because many of the parents have offered financial rewards for each goal scored by their kids. I just rolled my eyes on this one. He has one (maybe two) girls that are capable of this. The problem is stopping her from continuing to dribble and take on defenders when a pass would be more effective. Then again, that happens when her head stays down... if this was my team.... well.... I won't go there
Well, problems with teamplay are inevitable at this age. In 2 or 3 years though, teams will be doing it to them and it takes YEARS to make it a natural part of their game (not quite as long if they play basketball too). How about rewards for assists too? And do the parents realize they're actions in this regard hamper the team's efforts to win? And not by a little, probably by a lot. The coach needs to tell this to parents. again, this take a loooooong time to learn - the simpler way is to teach them to look for a pass first and to pass quickly...et voila, we have a national team with nobody that can threaten to take defenders off the dribble.
Agreed - that's why I tried to stress trying to work on it at the beginning of the season. His answer was... they don't seem to get it and do fine without it. I tried to convince him that it was the right thing to do.... now he understands. Again --- agreed. He just learned about this over the weekend and is going to talk to the parents. I told him that if a goalscorer gets $5 for a goal, then he should make that goalscorer give $2 (of the $5) to the person that gave the assist Yes he understands how this will hurt the team (in both wins and overall progression). However, like I said, the team was doing better than expected, so parents were starting to look at stats rather than how the team plays. (sadly) again, I agree
Perhaps he can combat it with soccer ball patches? They aren't worth as much, but sometimes pride matters more than money. I use them with my U6es - scoring is the easiest way to get one, but they all want the assist one as well. I wasn't using this with my U10 boys - but I had last season. These kids are more motivated to play than the ones I had last season, but they've started asking me about how they can get patches like on my son's shorts. I guess I'll start getting together a list of awards for good teamwork, assists, etc. For me, I'd like a stat that shows eyes are up.
I would not have changed anything. This is a very common situation. At that level, I use the 433 and move players through the positions to gain experience in defense and attack. I don't change my goal of player development in order to gain some temporary advantage matching up against particular players. Moreover, that is not the way to build team confidence and creativity. I certainly would not try to change the system. What I would expect would happen by the opponents pulling all their talent to the back line is that we would spend the entire game in our offensive end. Our defensive line would be able to easily deal with the clearances and distribute the ball back to the midfielders or forwards. In the short run, my way may not win, but in the long run it builds a stronger team.
I gotta say I cannot agree more. I also have to say, if this is your philosophy (and it had been mine for years) you will lose a lot of players who don't like losing - and it's gonna be 1) the players who don't show up to practice and 2) the physically dominant players who feel they're beyond the rest of the team. That last group is a tough one when 2 or 3 players can make all the difference. My U13's are 1-2, and will probably finish 2-6 or 1-5-1, my U16's are 3-0 have yet to give up a goal (playing attacking soccer) and are laughing their way through games because it's too easy for them.
They are playing 8v8 here at this age, and basically my friend tried to just keep attacking. The majority of the 2nd half was (apparently) indeed played in their defensive half, but they couldn't manage good shots with 4-5 players held around the goal. They also had a good keeper so shots from outside (which were weak) didn't have a chance. My opinion is that he needed to have the players passing more from the beginning of the season, but it's also good to realize that sometimes you just come up against a better team. There isn't any disgrace in losing if you play fair and hard. This team finished 2-5-3 last year... so starting off 4-0 gave the parents and coach rediculous expectations if you ask me. When I coach young kids, I tell the parents that we will be learning this year as well as playing. Some of them look at me funny when I tell them it's possible we'll lose some games as we learn the "right" way to play... but it will give better rewards later in the year or in years to come. I always tell them that we'll have fun one way or the other.
They can be tough to lose off of your team, except when they are also the kids telling the other team they are losers at the postgame handshake. Or they spend all of practice telling their teammates that they suck. Etc. I lost from last season: 1) Your #1 type player, with the attitude I described. 2) Your #2 type player who missed every Thursday practice, 1/2 of the attitude. 3) Your #2 type player, with the attitude I described. Guess what, I have a nicer set of kids, they gel as a team, and the skills of the kids who had been coming to practice has increased. We still lose games, but we keep our heads up high. Now, if we could keep our eyes up when we have the ball, we might win some of the close games.