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