We can probably ID them, but can their parents afford it in the pay-to-play model? When I coached rec I'd see some promising kids with really good skill and technique. I'd ask their parents if they'd thought about playing club and they'd say they couldn't afford it. That's the elephant in the room in this country as far as development. When those four you mentioned were identified, their parents didn't have to pay thousands a year to play in a club academy like we do in the US.
Yep. That is the elephant in the room for sure. I've written too many posts over last few years addressing that as the primarily obstacle (high cost/time commitment that parents/players aren't on board with which is required to get the top flite training).
To me these are ball skill training, tactical training, SAQ training and strength training. Just different aspects of soccer training. Everyone is going to have weaknesses and strengths. Players need to work on both weaknesses and strengths.
With the new F license course I finally see some tie-in to the USSF Curriculum. When you receive your F license you receive access to six progressive lesson plans each for U6 and U8 players. The plans are quite good, although some aspects surprised me. They also provide you access to the Curriculum and Best Practices documents as well as a short street soccer document, which they refer to as backyard games. What surprised me though, was a lack of emphasis on dribbling. They cover dribbling only in the first (of six) lesson plan, and devote most of the time to passing and first touch skills. At U6! I suspect that this was unintentionial as each lesson plan covers a separate topic. As far as dribbling technique, the suggested technical instructions are "use your laces" or "use your pinky toe." The one lesson on dribbling covered running with the ball, starting, stopping, turning, as well as penetrating and shielding under pressure. I find this particularly disturbing, but, never having played on a youth team, I don't know if this is conventional. The only time I use the "laces" to dribble is when running to keep the ball close using the shovel technique (pushing the ball into the ground). Toddlers use laces. Myself, I taught dribbling by setting progressively more difficult tasks (I called them "drills" but now to be PC they are "exercises")-- but I started by explaining that dribblers could use any part of the foot. I think that is important to set a creative stage for exploring moves. I don't think I ever labeled any move or required them to use any particular move (like inside cuts for instance).
It was a free download from ussoccer.com I cannot find it there today. That is news to me. I can steer you to other sites that have it or I can send you to USYSA to the current materials that they have. Are you still interested in the USSF curriculum?
USYSA downloads are at the top of this page. I recommend you download all 4 to review. http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/coaches/Recommended_Reading/ The skills school technical manual gives recommended coaching points for various technical skills. Those 4 downloads are a lot of information to read. If you want more, let me know. The first USSF license is the F license. It is an on line course, costs $25 and takes approximately 2 hours to complete. Found at ussoccer.com NSCAA has several on line coaching courses available too as well as a listing of local courses. Found at nscaa.com Welcome to coaching. Bob.
Well at least you had some playing days. You know what a player has to deal with in a game. You think like a player thinks. Those who never played have no idea what a player has to do before the ball ever gets to them. May I ask how old you are and what level you played at? Why do you want to coach at the youth level? I wanted to do it so I could help a player with his game as my first coach helped me with my game.
Hey Nick...I am 42 now and my body has changed...I am not a pro but played senior soccer in various competitive leagues. My son is now 11 and has some talent...There is precious little coaching where I am and while I have coached ice hockey for many years, I would like to try my hand at coaching soccer. Did you play pro?
I guess you could call it semi pro. We got paid per game peanuts even then in the 1960s. I was money hungry then. I knew their was no money in our football back then. So I did other things to make money. Played in Cosmopolitan soccer league and coach adult football there and in the north east super division which was modeled after the champions league. I am in my mid 70s now. I find dealing with players even now keeps me thinking young instead of older. I met my wife of over 50 years at one of my games. We got married within a year after we met. Best move I ever made. Was it the best move she ever made I am not sure about that one.
Hi, as I read some of the latest comments, it seems like the problem for a coach to find a good curriculum targeted by age and ability hasn't been solved. Pieces of it exist out there (if you can find it) but not a complete solution. I say this because I've been looking at creating a new solution for coaches. I've been a tech entrepreneur, passionate soccer fan and have coached my kids for a few years. I felt the pain and dread as I had to plan training sessions twice a week for each kid and their teammates. If you are a coach and wouldn't mind giving me your feedback on the idea, I'd love it. I've created a pretty quick survey here: https://goo.gl/forms/ThWYIwRCgoNMc1qK2
Tech for me the fun of coaching is making the practice plan. I took notes during the game and started the new practice plan right after the game ended. Then I would further refine it before the start of the next practice. Then at practice I took more notes and changed the practice plan for that practice right on the field. Then after that practice I started to make the next practice plan. That was part of the fun of coaching to try and make the perfect practice plan. I took into account player weakness that I saw and game weakness that I saw. It's not only by their age that you make a practice plan. It had more to do with the players past experience and their coaching. So it is not the same according to age or ability.
Curriculum as it is used by USSF is just a very broad set of goals for each year of development. It is something more relevant to a Director of Coaching position who deals with training in the abstract rather than a trainer of a specific group of players. For the trainer, the curriculum would just establish broad goals for use when establishing the largest cycle for a particular group of players. I agree with Nick. As a coach of a specific group of U-Little players, planning training sessions was easy. Regardless of how well U-Littles do, you still focus on getting them better at the fundamentals. The more coaching experience I gained the more I realized that what matters most is how you coach an exercise. I remember an article years ago about some very successful U10 coaches who used 3v3 to teach everything. I couldn't do that efficiently, but they did. I am always looking for new ideas, but my days of buying books of soccer drills were over in my first season of coaching. What interests me now is session plans--how a coach puts together a session plan for a particular coaching objective, and how similar plans differ for different age groups. In my view coaches who have not played soccer at the high school or college level are going to have problems visualizing the adult game. That I am ignoring for now. In my view coaches who have the soccer experience are more likely going to need help in these areas: the practical side of how to coach ball skills; how to train the physical aspect (it is not about running laps or lifting weights); understanding child development; and understanding how to teach. A curriculum is not their concern.
Nick- No doubt you took the craft of coaching seriously and I bet your practices are well thought out and tailored. I talked to a friend of mine who coaches basketball (previously a head coach, now as an assistant at a major D-1 program) and he'd agree that practice planning is incredibly important. What I've found in my experience, which up for debate for sure, is there are a few major types of AYSO-type volunteer coaches: the super involved parent with little soccer experience, the person who has played the game but hasn't coached much (I fit here), and the soccer knowledgeable who has multiple years of coach experience. The last one has a good handle on what to do, but the other two could use assistance that manuals and google isn't helping them with. On the club side, where both my kids play, I've seen a huge variety of coaches. At one of our popular area clubs, they have 20 coaches across 60 teams. Some coaches have 4 teams and another job too. Their ability to plan effectively is limited. Others have played the game at a fairly high level, but they haven't been a 12-year old bronze-level boy player or 9-year gold girl player in a long time (or ever!). Are they equipped with the right tools to help player development? Btw, I think you are right on that the coach must be empowered and I don't want to give them a static curriculum. What I hear, talking to coaches, is they want to adjust their sessions based on what happened over the weekend. Just as an example, let's say my boys are struggling working out of the back... and when they do get it to the midfielders, those players are having trouble receiving it cleanly. I want to know the right drills to work on both those things in the coming week. That's just a sample of what I'm envisioning. And if there are any coaches that would love to chat off-line, I'd be excited!
This is great, but you have to keep the age in mind so the exercises and coaching objectives are age appropriate. (The curriculum is relevant to this point.) In your example you have identified the moment of the game (attacking) and the location on the field (the back), but you haven't identified a strength or weakness. "Why" is the team struggling to play out of the back? The problems you are looking for with U-Littles should be an individual technical or tactical problem or a weakness in a principle of play. If the reason a U-Little team struggled was that they were facing heavy pressure from a superior opponent, that is not a problem at this age level. By the way in the modern game, players are not taught to "receive" the ball. They are taught to play the ball toward their next movement with their "first touch." So in your example, the problem might be that the players were settling the ball instead of knowing what they wanted to do with the ball before their first touch. First touch is a fundamental.
When I mentored guys who wanted to coach their kids parents who never played. The first thing I told them was join some kind of amature league and play. It is the only way you will see what it is like to play in a real game. Then work on your skills can't teach skills if you can't do them. I made my own studies of anything that I thought could help a players game. Like Span of perception called chunking. There is tests you can take. peripheral' Vision lesson. Putting your skill on your passes to give the ball eyes so it looks like the ball can see where you want it to go. The "flow state" where it looks like your seeing something in slow motion, but your actually seeing it in real time. Imagine if you can see things in slow motion but react to what you see in real time speed. I am not smart enough to figure it all out. But I have mastered some of it.
More complete information Span of perception/ chunking" What this really means. See the field and the opponents and team mates. Then instantly do something from the picture you saw. Without having to waste time thinking about what you saw. So it is see the picture and do an action. The action being making a good decision pass or taking on the defender or defenders or making a good shot. This is what Dan found out. "Teaching it scientifically in a non sport context was done in the 1950's. "The Perceptional Speed Test was developed in the 1950's by LL Thurstonand TD Jeffrey of the University of North Carolinaand is still used to test for checking the span of perception. It contains a 140 mini test search consisting of a picture in the farthest left column and five more figures to the right You must write down the column number of one figure to the right that is identical to the one in the farthest left column. It is now published by the Human Resources Center at the University of Chicago."Span of Perception; Ability to visually process a sequence of information instantly." I kept this because I thought it was very interesting, and can be applied to our game. I like to get my hands on this test, and actually test my players. To see how they do. Maybe by taking this test at different times during the season maybe they can get better at it, and use it in games. I talked to Tab Ramos and he said for him beating the first defender 1 v 1 is not a big problem, but beating the second defender if he is spaced well in support is a problem he could not focus on the second defender instantly. Especially at the beginning of the season. He improved on beating the second defender later in the season. He would get injured by the second defender and not the first defender especially playing at a wing mid position. He loved the wing mid position. I thought chunking could help him focus on the second defender faster, but did not know how to teach that. I just said maybe move to the inside mid, so the second defender could not take a big run at you. Or he could move inside the field after beating the first defender on the flank so you can lose that second defender. I tell all my wing mids to use the inside of the field after beat the first defender when you see a second defender close on that flank. he opted to play an inside mid in his last years of MLS play. He was hurt less then before after doing that. Plus both sides of the field benefited from his passes instead of just one side. I think some players are born with this ability like Valderrama. -------------------------------- Now can we use chunking in our game? Even if you could, before you could you have to be confident skillful player with the ball to make it actually useful in a game. -------------------------- You still have to be able to hold off pressure, you still have to think ahead before the first touch, have to be able to dribble, and you have to be able to pass accurately, and you have to be able to shoot. You have to be able to get your head up confidently and take that picture. Then you can immediately see and do without taking the time to think. I think peripheral vision exercises is part of this. Ever play handball the one where you can pass the ball with the hands and find open players. Do that but try not to make a pass directly in front of you. Don't worry about making a mistake take a risk to be great. Put some skill on your pass to make it go where you want it to go. Like passing with the right foot on the inside of the ball with the outside of the foot to give it a right swerve for example. So you have to have an abundance of skill to do instantly when you see something, and do it accurately. it might be the only way you can get the ball to the receiver \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ This description of "seeing in slow motion" is one of the common characteristics of someone who is in a "Flow" state. Simplistically speaking, there are certain conditions which need to be met in order to achieve this state. IIRC, one condition is that the challenge being presented to the individual must be at (or slightly higher) than his current ability to handle it. Too high (for too long), and it can cause anxiety/frustration . Too low, and it can cause boredom. For a fascinating read regarding this, I would recommend a book entitled: "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
i have a pdf of the ussf curriculum. it too large to attach. here's a link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2VCAyxPRAopVGJrUjN6eXZuc1U/view?usp=sharing
Am I reading the course intended outcomes right, that in order to certify at the high school level I'm coaching now I'd have to get to a National C license? I haven't coached 5-8 year olds and haven't played at that level in, well, decades, and that's the target for the initial F license The E license targets the 9-12 year old range, also considerably different from where I'm coaching. I get the feeling this curriculum is only designed for someone who wants to make a career out of coaching and can dedicate years to working up the proverbial ladder. Am I just wasting my time even looking at it at this point?
@Peter Rival, it depends what your goal is. indiana is mandating licenses to coach travel beginning next fall so you'd need an F license to coach your kid's 10U team even with your experience. 11-14U need an E, and 15-19U need a D. if you're just after education, as an experienced coach, there will be things you learn even from the basic F. people on this board have said that USC courses are more educational than USSF courses. the analogy used was USC courses are like driver's training. USSF are like the licensing test. also, USSF are changing their license pathway january 1 to be aligned similar to USC's. i'm not sure exactly how it's going to work so you might contact your state association and see if they can give you any insight.
Thanks @stphnsn. I guess part of what I'm going to have to figure out is just how much time I can dedicate to this. Since last season I've switched jobs which now includes an hour drive each way so my free time is much more limited than before. I want to be the best coach I can be, both for the kids and for myself, but at some point I do still need sleep. I'm not as young as I used to be.