Lots of Progress - Still so much more Potential

Our last U9 girls soccer practice went very well. We were actually missing quite a few players for various reasons, so with 6 girls and 2 coaches, we had a really good ratio.

We started off by breaking the girls into 2 teams. Each coach took 3 players. A team would start with a goal kick and the coach would defend against them. The girls understand the give / go / rotate movements, so emphasis was more on execution such as taking the first touch away from the defender and passing to the space before the pressure arrives. If the coach won the ball away from the girls, his team would leave the field and the other team would give it a try against their coach. The team that was off the field would work on some of those execution items such as keeping the ball on the ground and making a good first touch. Since each round would only last a couple of minutes, the girls didn't get bored with the game or the drills. I saw excellent progress too.

We ended with a 4 v 4 scrimmage with the coaches playing the back positions. Improvement was significant. We still have significant issues with players ball watching rather than moving to the needed position, but the degree of this problem has been significantly reduced.

Our first match is a couple of weeks away. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this goes.

-Bill

Oh those U5 Kiddos

My U9 girls are coming along.  But my U5 boys present quite a different challenge.  It probably doesn't help that 1/3 of the team consists of my own twin boys.  It is always difficult to coach your own children.  I think people assume I do a lot of coaching at home as well.  It couldn't be farther from the truth.  Sometimes I struggle to get them to participate in the activity we have at practice.  At home, (if I tried), it would be 100x harder.  Anyway, enough about frustration.

I have noticed something in the boys that is very obvious at this age.  Its an observation pertinent to the argument about coaching the skill with a drill and then trying to apply it in the game or learning the skill while playing the game.  I catch myself using both methods.  I certainly think that for recreational soccer, learning while playing is much more fun compared to drills, so this is where I put my emphasis.  However, opportunities to use a certain skill can be few and far between during small sided games.  Even if the opportunities are frequent, at these young ages, they seem to go purely on instinct.  

The example I have in mind with my U5 boys is dribbling under pressure.  I want them to dribble the ball, but instead they just kick the living daylights out of it.  In a drill environment, they'll dribble all day long, but put them in a match and legs and cleats are flying all over the place in an effort to put a permanent dent in the ball with their toe.  If they dribble even once, I drown them in at-a-boys.  Every time they boot it into the adjacent team's area, I point out that they need to "keep it close".  But in the heat of play, all coaching seems lost.  I'm told by a 3rd grade teacher, that you just have to expect to repeat yourself a thousand times and it will eventually sink in.  Once it does, they've got it.   I prefer to think that if I can create the "right" game, the realization will come around much more quickly and with more of a true understanding.  

I'm half way to 1000 and still trying to think of the "right" game.  I may get to 1000 first.

-Bill

Soccer season starting?

(An entry in the blog by Mari!  I didn't know she even knew we had this thing...)

Yes, it's upon us.  Order your jersey's early to avoid having to wear last year's or even worse having to buy those cheap t-shits and writing the player number on the back with a sharpie!  It takes us a maximum of 5 business days to ship out an order once it's placed so order now! 

If you're having trouble convincing your parents to purchase our uniforms, refer them to our website.  Besides being the cutest soccer uniforms on the planet (and we've looked), they fit great, keep our girls safe with the wicking and SPF and we won't discontinue a jersey EVER!  When you factor in the fact that we put your team name and player number on every jersey at a cost saving of $10-$18 per jersey, why would you buy a cheap one for $15 or even an expensive one?  So here it is, we're a one stop shop.  You get your jerseys in the mail and they are ready to wear to the game that day!  What could be easier?  No need to trek around town looking for someone who will put your players' number on the back (and hope they don't ruin the jersey in the process). If you want your team name, oh yeah, "they" charge you extra.  No wonder there's a whole bunch of nameless teams out there that we have to refer to as, "the green team" or "that team that didn't have a name but had a real good little player"). 

Barring any unexpected technical mishaps, we will be posting our new prints on the shopping cart this weekend!  We're always looking for your input so tell us what would make for a cool looking jersey.  Some have suggested tie-die, flowers and bugs (for all the Lady bugs, Bumble Bees, Yellow Jackets, Dragonflies etc.).  We will start with 4 new ones!

On a different note, we wanted to take the opportunity to THANK all the coaches, parents and soccer associations who have support us these past couple of years.  We love the pictures you send us, the emails and phone calls telling us how much your girls "love" their uniforms.  Just today a coach called to order a uniform for some new players on her team and said that her daughter had definitely gotten her $20 dollars worth out of the skort she bought from us!  That is the biggest compliment we get, when our teams come back season after season because no other uniform WILL DO!

-Mari

Give, Go, Rotate (cont)

The practice plan went really well.  Having the reform your formation race after I call out a series of passes was a great way for the girls to learn this strategy.  After making good progress, we played 4 v 2 with 2 girls off the field.  When the side with 2 allowed a goal or got a goal kick, their other two players came on and the other team lost 2.  This gave them a chance to run their offense with minimal resistance.  In the end, we played 4 v 4.  It is looking good, but we still have a ways to go.  The more assertive players tend to be drawn to the ball still and if our back goes forward, we don't always get someone rotating back to cover.  They're learning to watch each other though, instead of staring at the ball.

-Bill

Coaching Give, Go, Rotate

Another update on the Give, Go, Rotate offense.  I'm seeing glimmers of the method in 5 v 5 scrimmages.  I'm certainly seeing a significant increase in activity from the girls that often held back.  This in and of itself is a big success.  

This week I'm planning on a back to basics approach and let them race to reform the formation after making a pass.  I'll take the team and divide them in 2.  I'll tell each group to make their Vs.  I'll then tell them to make a forward pass and reform the Vs around the player with the ball.  It'll be a race to see who can complete their Vs first (with no direction from me).  After a few rounds here, then we'll go to me calling out a 2nd forward pass after the 1st.  Then to throw them out of sorts, I'll call a forward pass followed by a back pass.  The trick with the back pass is the receiving back becomes a forward and one of the forwards must rotate into a back position.  Then we'll go to 3 consecutive passes.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm thinking it might be very revealing to them why we do the give, go, rotate without me having to tell them anything.  I may just end of getting a good chuckle as they run into each other trying to reform the Vs.  We'll see.

-Bill

Coaching Offense (cont)

We started practice off yesterday by saying it was "Why" day.  I would ask them "Why" a lot and they would ask me the same.  Of course, I did most of the asking.  However, I think it may have worked.  It did seem to get them thinking a bit more on what they were actually doing.  

We're still struggling with a bit of confusion.  We're only playing 3 v coach to try and keep it simple.  I repeatably asked them:

1. What do you do after you pass the ball?   Go
2. Where do you go?  Toward the goal.

That's one situation of three.  The second situation is the girl who receives the ball:

1. What do you do after you receive the ball?  Pass it to the open "V".

Now she's in first situation.  The third situation is the player that didn't pass or receive the ball.

1. What do you do after your teammate passes it to your other teammate?  Rotate.

It's really not that complicated, but in the chaos of the game, if it's not almost automatic, it will get lost.  However, we only have to get it right a few times.  When things go wrong, it won't be any worse than the soccer we played last season.  The key at this point seems to be to get them to pass the ball to the space before their teammate gets there.  They tend to want to pass it to the person which actually puts the ball behind them.  That'll be the next thing we work on.  Pass it to the empty space on your "V".

-Bill

Coaching Offense (cont)

The briefest of updates: My U9 girls are getting the basic concepts of the offense we're putting together (give, go, rotate), but I'm seeing indications of a lack of true understanding. They're following a recipe rather than understanding the situation and the needs created by it. There is knowledge and there is understanding. Knowledge can be delivered quite easily. Understanding is quite another story. I have to help them to build upon what they already understand, but I they have to be willing to attempt to extrapolate on what they already understand and try new ideas. They have to be willing to fail. They have to be able to recognize that the extrapolation didn't work and they have to be willing to try yet again. They have to be willing to think. I'm not sure they're really giving it that much thought. I think they tend to do the easy thing and just stick with the recipe which is really only the "answer" under certain specific conditions. Rather than seeing that recipe as a starting point to build upon, they see it as the end, the final answer.

I have to keep in mind that I must encourage them think and extrapolate. Telling them the "answer" for every situation doesn't work. They'll never show the creativity that makes watching them play so much fun. Helping them learn how to discover the answers for themselves is my job. There just doesn't seem to be enough time...

-Bill