We finally had our first practice of the spring season. I couldn't wait, because for the first time, I planned on coaching offense. Until this season, I emphasized skills and defense (pressure / cover / balance). As skills progressed, offense seemed to just happen. I liked it that way because I feel like the girls will never get a better chance to learn to move with the ball then when they are young. As they get older, the defenders get substantially better and the social repercussions of loosing the ball become higher.
Last season, we had lost so many experienced players and gained so many brand new players that our offense just wasn't there. That natural chemistry some of the players had always developed in previous seasons was missing. Also, it occurred to me that most of the girls currently on the team had very generous dispositions. They were highly inclined to pass the ball. In fact, they seemed to prefer it. Perhaps expecting them to develop like my offensive players had done in the past was a mistake on my part. Perhaps I needed to leverage their social strengths. With that in mind, I decided it was time to teach these girls to pass the ball.
Now the hard part about passing, is know when and where. How is a challenge too, but that will come later (understanding and experience motivate the desire for skill improvement). So for the first practice, we simplified it down to 3 v coach. This is difficult to explain in words, so I will just say this. When you tell the girl with the ball she can pass either forward-left or forward-right, she can grasp that. Then you tell the player that does not receive the pass to rotate to the forward postion infront of the player that does receive the pass; simple enough. The player that made the pass runs straight up field to the forward position nearest her which was just vacated by the other forward. Now you have the same situation as you started with; a player with the ball and a forward to her forward-left and forward-right. Repeat until you score. It's "give, go, get" or "give, go, rotate". That's it. A player only has to remember 2 sequences with 1 decision (pass left or right). And I'm teaching them to pass it to the space, not the player. The player will get there about the same time as the ball. Now this will become more complex as we move to 3 v 1; a live player can be much more disrupting than the helpful coach. After that we'll go to 3 v 1 + a keeper. I have a feeling we'll spend a lot of time at this stage. This will be a good opportunity for some keeper training as well. Eventually, we'll go to 3 v 2 + a keeper. Then we'll have to add in the 2 backs and go 5 v something.
Now adding the backs works just like the front 3. If a ball is passed backwards or won by the other team and passed behind the front 3, the first defender becomes the fulcrum of two V's. One V facing the opponent's goal and the other V facing our own goal. The 2nd back will move into a "cover" position. The closest forward player to the back runs back into a back position just like she would run into a forward position after making a forward pass; she'll also be in the "balance" position. Should the first defender win the ball, it's just like the 3 v game. Should she get beat, the cover position becomes the first defender and another rotation occurs. It sounds complicated when I write it, but the girls seem to be getting it.
We just have a few weeks until the first game. I'll keep you up to date.
-Bill
