A Pre-season Message to the Team

(While I can't wait to see the new uniforms and will add an entry as soon as I see them (after all, this is a blog affiliated with Breakaway Fashions), the message below is one I send to the team at least once a year. Hopefully it gets better every year...)

You've heard it from me before and you'll hear it again, but it's really important. We coach the girls to learn the game in practice. What I mean by "learn" is understanding the goals, rules, and tactics of the game. The match is a chance for the girls to test their skills and see what we need to practice. In order for the girls to gain real understanding, they must:

• Experience soccer situations,
• Incorporate that experience into their personal model of the world,
• Figure out which new experiences can be used to make the model better,
• Try something new and build upon that model with another round of experience. (They're motivation to improve technical skills comes from this; they see the tactical need for a skill and realize they must practice that skill.)

Honestly, no amount of "directing" (i.e. words) from adults will do much to help them gain true understanding. Even more importantly, direction from adults almost always has the "feeling" of disapproval ("You weren't doing what you should have been doing.") This hurts their confidence and subsequently makes them less likely to try knew things because they want to avoid disapproval; this translates to a fear of failure. They should not fear failure because every mistake they make is a step closer to success. Success is not in the opposite direction as failure; success is on the other side of failure. We need to embrace their failures as long as it was their best effort (no excuses for quitting). You have to go through failure to reach success. Let these girls fail. Cheer them on for their great effort. Have fun and the kids will too. Let their tactical and technical blunders go unnoticed or if it was a brave effort, give them a congratulations for trying. So if your daughter seems out of position, that's ok; in her mind, it's the best place she could be. If there is a glaring weakness, we'll work on it in practice with a well designed game. If your daughter is dribbling instead of passing, congratulate her for her courage; the risks of dribbling the ball are far greater than passing it. (I found an interesting quote on this topic (see below) from arguably the best current player on the U.S. National Team.)

So before the game, during the game, and after the game, focus 3 things. They need to do only these 3 things to succeed on this team:

1. Try their hardest all the time.
2. Play with a smile.
3. Take care of their teammates (good sportsmanship).

From us, no criticism & no coaching. Just enjoy seeing them put forth their best effort.

"As a kid you need to touch the ball as much as you can. You should always be with the ball. You should have a feeling that wherever the ball is, you can do anything with it. No matter where it is, where it is on your body, how it's spinning, how it's coming at you, the speed it's coming at you, anything. You can learn the tactical side of the game later. It's amazing to me that people put so much emphasis on trying to be tactical and worry about winning when it doesn't matter when you're 12 years old. We're going to have big, strong, fast players. We're Americans, we're athletes. But if we never learn at an early age to be good on the ball, then it's just useless."
- Landon Donovan, USA World Cup hero, in Soccer America, July 2002

The Jerseys are Arriving

The solid jerseys are arriving at Breakaway Fashion's office (the prints aren't far behind). The first teams to get their uniforms (jerseys, skorts, and socks) will be in Frisco since their games start this Saturday. (Maybe not looking at the forecast...). Our team's uniforms should be right behind them, but I still need to get sizes! I guess we'll have to make some phone calls; the email replys are not pouring in.

As for the coaching update, I'm simplifying the 2 v 2 game even more...way more...and it's working. I setup a wide field (30 yards, but in hindsight I'll go to 40 yards next time) with a wide goal (4 - 5 yards). I told the girls the only rule is that they start with their ball in the corner (like a corner kick). The girls raced (one from each corner) to get their ball in the goal.

It was good dribbling practice, but that wasn't really my intention. I told them to think about the objective and rules of the game. One girl figured out she could do a pass to herself rather than dribbling to the goal, but with the dead grass on the field this time of year, that was a difficult strategy to execute.

Eventually one girl hesitantly asked me if she could get a teammate to help her. I said yes, that it was not against the rules. So pretty soon she and a teammate were easily the fastest to score because they would put one girl in front of the goal and the other would kick it to her from the corner instead of dribbling. They reinvented the corner kick!

It wasn’t instant success; they took a few iterations to work out exactly where to stand. They also struggled a little with the timing of kicking a ball moving perpendicular to the line they needed to kick it into the goal. Most surprising to me is how long it took the other girls to start communicating with other and use a similar strategy. Even this game is showing an abundance of opportunities for improvement in some of the most important areas.

They still haven’t figured out that even more girls helping in front of the goal would allow them to do a very hard corner kick and score even faster. Maybe they’ll figure that out next week.

After we play this game for a while, we’ll extrapolate this lesson to let them figure out the best way to score after moving the ball up the sideline and deep into the corner. (Does this sound familiar?) It seems obvious to us adults what needs to be done, but I think the girls really enjoy the challenge and are very proud of themselves for optimizing these situations. It takes leadership and communication to put the plan together and pull it off. That sure beats having the coach tell them what to do. Best of all, they’re gaining true understanding of the game which will allow for more creativity in the matches. Their creativity is what makes it the beautiful game.

-Bill

2 v 2 - It's a Good One

Well, we met half of our new girls at this practice and should meet the rest at the next one. They were real enthusiastic. If the other new girls are equally enthused, we're in for a really fun season. One of the new dads offerred to pay for uniforms, but I told him Breakaway Fashions was sponsoring the team uniforms, so he didn't have to worry about it. I'm sure the new girls will be quite surprised when they see they get to wear a uniform designed for girls.

There is a world of learning opportunity with the 2 v 2 game. I'm thinking, that if I simplify it a bit more, it will generate more successes which will lead to an even better learning experience.

• I like starting with a throw-in. The girls definitely need some reps on where to throw it so it's automatic in the game. (i.e. throw it up the sideline)
• I like the throw going into the corner. Getting the ball in the corner is a situation that comes up a lot in the games. We rarely center it up much less have someone waiting at the top of the box ready to receive it, so this will be a good time to learn that.
• The thrower will move onto the field in a cover position. She should move with the ball as the near-side wing passes it to the center.

Now what's been happening is the pressure arrives too quickly for the offensive player, or she is waiting too long. Admittedly, this is how it will happen in the game, but I think I want to simplify it at this point to get them used to the situation. I'm thinking we'll just have a 4 player rotation:

• A thrower,
• A receiver/passer (near-wing),
• A receiver/shooter (center), and
• A goal keeper.
• No defender for now.

No dribbling, just 2 touch soccer. Give them 3 tries and then rotate. This will give the girls lots of touches on the ball in something that can be extrapolated to game-like conditions. If we have 10 players at the next practice, we'll add the 5th as the far-side wing who will crash the goal when the center player takes her shot. We can have this going on each end of the field. If it gets too easy, we can move the 5th player to play an "easy" defender.

Lots of touches in game like conditions. We'll see how this one goes.

Rosters are Almost Here

I can't wait for the rosters to come out. It's like being a kid at Christmas. I don't know why I anticipate it so much. It's not like we're going to get Ronaldo assigned to our team. I guess it's just my general optimistic attitude that the new girls are going to make things even more fun.

I dug up the picture at the top of this article from many years ago. Cassie was a pre-pre-schooler. I mean, kindergarten wasn't even on the horizon. If her next season would be her U5 season, I guess this season would have been U4. We got on the team because she had a friend from her dance class playing and I thought it would be a good introduction for her. She was probably too little. Particularly since the team was a mix of 4, 5, and 6 year olds. I was a rookie soccer parent and had no idea what I was getting into. She was tiny, but she hung in there. If you look at the picture closely, she's wearing a skort instead of shorts. All the parents on the team thought she looked so cute. She didn't actually do much on the field, but all the team knew her name. Little did we know it was the start of something bigger. We were just trying to get her to playd, but she refused to wear shorts. She wanted a girl's soccer uniform, not one for boys. Despite the too big jersey, she was ok with everything if she could just wear a skort. The skort was the thing.

While I'm on the topic, as a parent, I observed this team's practice and noticed how much time the kids spent standing around in lines waiting to do a drill. I didn't have to read a book to know there had to be a better way. When we started the Superstars in our home town at U5, I didn't make that mistake; instead, I made many others, but that's another story. However, I did steal one good idea from this coach. At the end of practice, they'd play a game called "Chase the Rabbit". One of the older siblings would be the rabbit and the kids chased him all over the place. I changed it up a bit and made one girl the rabbit. Which ever teammate would catch her became the next rabbit. I kept rotating the rabbit until all the girls had been the rabbit. They loved it and it used up their last bit of energy right at the end of practice. I highly recommend it.

I've got more stories from the pre-K and Kindergarten years, but those will have to wait.

-Bill

1st Practice This Season

Practice was very interesting. I have to admit I was surprised at how hesitant many of the girls were compared to the end of last season. However, I think we're doing the right things in our practice. The 1 v 0 games went from very messy (the balls were all over the place), to actually pretty sharp after only a few rounds. The 2 v 2 game is a good one to continue with for many practices. At first I thought the game was somehow flawed; the girls just seemed a little lost. I think it was the rapid rotation creating some confusion, but learning to deal with a little confusion is good too. I think it is really just highlighting an area where we have huge room for improvement, communication. The one thing I might change would be to let each team play 3 consecutive rounds as either attackers or defenders before we rotate.

For next practice we should have 4 new girls if we hit the target of 10 players for our team.

Below is a message to my assistant coaches on our practice plan for next week:

1. Start with the 1 v 0 races again. I saw some real improvement in all the players over a short period of time here. We may want to "reward" any clear winner of a heat with a water break or something. If it's close, all race again. Encourage them to come up with new ideas on how to kick or turn the ball. Let's not give them any answers, just ask the question from time to time and encourage any idea (good or bad).
   
2. Next we'll do the 2 v 2 game. With 10 players, we can break it out into 2 groups, one at each goal. Since we'll have an odd number of pairings, we may say something like the gold team does one turn on one end and the next turn on the other end. Some comments on this game:
• We didn't see a lot of shots on the goal in practice because our teamwork on offense was really bad. With only 1 defender to stop two attackers, we should be able to make an easy pass leading to an easy shot. The more we play this game in practice, the more that we'll improve naturally. Again, I really want the girls to "discover" the way to improve their offense rather than us telling them. We can ask "guiding" questions to highlight some opportunities. Remember they need to experiment and self-evaluate to see if their answers are any good. Let's not judge them. (Easy for me to say, hard for me to do).
• The backs did not put a lot of early pressure on the ball. We can pause the game and do the experiment where the back tries to stop the goal by standing well back from the ball vs. right in the attackers face. We may have to do this lots of times. I think our backs will show a lot of improvement playing this 2 v 2.
• This game also gives us a good chance to train several goal keepers. I want them:
• kneeling to stop the ball on long shots,
  
• charging the ball when it gets close, and
  
• covering the near post when the ball is in a corner.
  
• I think with 3 of us there, if one of us is coaching the keepers, we can really help them improve.
  
3. Next we'll scrimmage 5 v 5 with no keepers:
• Throw-ins should be very quick and up the side-line. We're going to have to stop the game at some point and run a drill to work on this.
• We'll let the girls decide on the formation and who plays what positions. It'll be interesting to see how this naturally falls out.
• To encourage the girls to keep their width, we'll probably use the split goals we've used before (I've got 8 flags now.)
  

When these girls were U5 and U6, I didn't know a fraction of what I know now. I did know they needed to have the ball at their feet, but "Guided Discovery" and small sided games were not yet part of my knowledge base. At U7, I started doing a lot of things better, but I think I still provided too many answers and was too quick to point out when things went wrong (I still have to fight that). Now at U8, I think I'm really getting the gist of this. Of course, when next year rolls around, I'll probably look back and realize how much I still needed to learn.