For the Coach Who is also the Dad

Coaching your own child is a challenge. They seem to take things much more personally than the other kids. They seem to see a coaching tip as a personal insult when it comes from their dad. As a rule, I don't coach at home except on very rare occasions. Well this week, I mentioned a tip to my 10 year old daughter and got the expected response. Let's just say it wasn't "positive". So in a moment of serendipity, I asked her, "How would you have preferred I say that?" She thought about the question and then gave me some verbiage. So I asked her, "Can I try again?" She looked at me hard and then said I could. I walked out of the room and walked back in again just like I did the first time and this time I used her words instead of mine. Low and behold, she got her ball and went out in the backyard and tried out the idea! Enthusiastically, no less. I suggested she get the video camera out so she could see how she was doing. I helped her set it up and walked away. From inside the house, I could see her trying some things out, then talking to the camera. Then watching the video back. I think she really did improve her game a bit. That's not the point. The real gain is even better: I found a way to communicate with her on the touchy subject of coaching. We'll see if it works again next time...

Words Not Spoken To You (the adult)

We video our kids' soccer games and make highlight DVDs for the end of year party. Well, last week my videographer (alias: wife), left the camera turned off for the 2nd half of the game and turned it on as she put the camera away in the bag thinking she was turning it off. So we had an hour's worth of video of the inside of the camera bag. However, it did capture some interesting sounds.

The bag was in the back of the van with our boys (twin 6 year olds) and you can hear their conversation. One says, "I love soccer games; they're [one of] the funnest things in the world." His brother answers, "Me too." Then they both say bye to their team. Then one says, "I like our team. It's good...our team. I like the people that we choosed on our soccer team." Yes, he said "choo-said".

We may have missed half the game, but we got a gold nugget of audio.

Ye Ole Sharks and Minnows

Yes, this week, my U6 boys spent most of the practice playing a slightly modified version of Sharks and Minnows. This is the game where most of the kids (minnows) try to dribble across the square (in our case, about a 15' x 15' box) with a player or two (sharks) on the inside trying to kick a minnow's ball out of the box. Our modification was simple.

1. The game never stopped. Once you got to the other side, try to get back immediately.
2. If your ball gets kicked out, go get it and try again.
3. The coach would switch out the sharks from time to time.

What you get is a ton of apparently chaotic movement with lots of laughing. You get a little taunting as some minnows attempt to attract the sharks. Best of all, the boys really learn to take care of the ball. It looked like so much fun, I may try it with the U10 girls.

-Bill

A Player's Transformation

My daughter is on our U10 girls team. I've coached her team since she was 4 years old. When they're little, they play because you ask them to and because it's fun. Some kids seem to love having the ball at their feet when they're little. My daughter was not one of those kids. She'd play with me (being the first born, she didn't have too much choice on who to play with most of the time). I wouldn't "coach" her at home. We'd just kick it around and play different games whenever I had the time. My 6 year old boys aren't that type of kid either. They'd much rather swing or play LittleBigPlanet than kick around the soccer ball at home. (Though they do love practice and the games.)

However, in recent weeks, my daughter's enthusiasm for the game seems to have had a step-function increase. She actually wants to spend extra time at practice and tries to listen when I have something to coach her about. (Coaching your own kids is a whole other story...) It's great to see. She plays harder than ever and seems to savor the challenge of a tough opponent. How long will this last? Weeks? Months? Years? I don't know. She may even want to watch some World Cup matches with me? That'll would certainly make my World Cup experience the best it could be. I will be savoring my time with her.

-Bill

Aggressively Gaining Possession of the Ball

(Below is a message I sent to my assistant coach for a practice plan when I was out of town.)

As for cones and such, I've just been using the cones and letting them play line soccer. I haven't set up real goals yet this year. Line soccer forces them to work on keeping it close while dribbling fast. I think this is a more important skill than shooting at this time. I'll leave my cones out on our porch by the front door.

As far as ideas, if I was there, this is what we'd do:

1. Start with the game (they've done this drill once already this season) where you pair up the girls with one ball per pair. They just leave the ball on the ground. One girls stands next to the ball and uses her body to shield the ball from the other player. She needs to stay low, good balance, keep her feet moving. The "shielded" player shouldn't even be allowed (by the "shielding" player) to get close enough to the ball to even touch it. You probably know the tricks better than me.
2. Progress to letting the girl shielding the ball throw it up in the air first and shield the ball just like before. However, now the ball is bouncing around a bit. The higher the throw, the better.
   
3. Progress to separating the pairs by some distance (10 yards or so) and letting the coach throw the ball up so it lands between them. They should use their shielding skills to gain "possession" of the ball.
4. Finally, you can separate the girls by the length of your field (~ 30 yards) and let them really charge the ball with a full sprint and try to score a line soccer goal.
5. You might want to end practice with monkey in the middle and they can ONLY pass the ball to the player that is farthest from them but still on the field. (30 x 25 yards). This should help them with maintaining separation in the game.
   

-Bill

Performance vs. Effort - What do we want from our little soccer players?

My wife had a couple of questions for me after Saturday's game. The first is simple. The second is very interesting:

1 - Q: When is the ball out of bounds?

A: When the ball is completely over the line; this is true for the goal/end line as well as the touch/side line. See page 29 in the FIFA Laws of the game (click on the pdf link toward the bottom of this page: FIFA Laws of the Game) If the ball is mostly out, but still touching the line, it is still in.


2 - Q: Why weren't our players (U6) marking-up the other team on their goal kicks? The other team positioned their players on each sideline for their goal kicks while our players tended to be more in the middle leaving their players unmarked.


A: This question seems straight forward, but it is actually a complicated question. The complicated answer is below. The simple answer is: our kids haven't figured out what to do in that situation...yet.

I could have told our players to mark up the other team. Problem solved. Instead I was asking them, "Where's he going to kick the ball?" The other question they need to ask themselves is, "Where are my teammates?" As a coach, my job is to make sure our kids learn and love soccer. We do this by rewarding their effort. If they are giving it their best effort, I'm happy. When the other team was doing their goal kicks, some of our players were really paying attention to what the other players were doing and trying to figure out what to do. The trying is success! Whether they thought they should mark-up, or wait until the ball is kicked, or whatever, is beside the point; the game itself will teach them which method works best. Our job is to make sure they're trying their best.

Telling them exactly what to do would certainly give us an immediate tactical advantage; it would make me look like a better coach. "Look how well trained these boys are," they'd say. "They look like a real soccer team." However, telling the boys where to stand is not the best thing for the boys. If we can guide them down the path of figuring out for themselves the "right" thing to do, then we've really accomplished something. We want the boys to:

1. try their own solutions,
   
2. evaluate the solution's effectiveness, and
   
3. then try a new self-developed, solution.

For them to use this process effectively is not easy, but it is the process that will make them successful in soccer and many other things. It requires the self-confidence of knowing that they are allowed to "fail". It requires the training to say to themselves, "I can figure it out if I just keep trying." They say to become an expert, you must fail at that thing 10,000 times. If you're afraid of failure, you'll never reach your potential. Failure is the path to growth. In other words, growth is through failure, not avoiding failure. If I told the kids the "right" thing to do in each circumstance during the match, we'd probably win and our children wouldn't learn a thing. I want our kids to grow and that requires that we let them make mistakes.

Praise our children for their good effort! Don't worry if the result wasn't "right".


This is good article discussing an emphasis on performance vs. an emphasis on effort:
The Effort Effect


-Bill

1 v 2 Line Soccer - Changing it up a Bit

I liked what I saw in the game Saturday. The girls were playing some good soccer. Maybe I should say "better" soccer. We're not good yet. However, one of the dads that played as a kid and still plays as an adult noticed they're willingness to hold the ball and make better decisions. He hadn't seen us practice this season, so I take that as a sign we are making progress. I would certainly agree. I saw more good ball possession and head's up play than I think I've ever seen from the girls.

If there is one huge area of opportunity, it is maintaining width. To encourage this, I'm going to widen the field when we play 1 v 2 and widen the goal, a lot. We'll still play with goals for every steal the 1 player side makes and anytime the two player side kicks it out of bounds. However, the wider goal and wider field should make the game a little more even and highlight the benefits of space. We'll see.