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.