Region II Championships - Friday, June 22

Out my front door in Woodbury around 8:30AM on Friday morning, on the road to Iowa for the Region II Championships.  The plan for today was to hold a light training session with the girls down in Des Moines at 1PM.  We would then check in at the sure-to-be-luxurious Holiday Inn Airport hotel to get ready to head to the Opening Ceremonies at around 4:30PM.

I made a short detour 70 miles into the trip at Medford to stop by the Nike Factory Store, but lucky for my AmEx card the store didn’t open until 10AM.  Bummer, I needed more socks.

Between my iPod, cell phone conversations, and Sirius stations Foxxhole 106 (Jamie Foxx's new station) and SPA 73 (spa/jazz station), the trip flew by.  When I traded in my 2002 I-feel-really-cool-driving-it BMW for my new 2008 wife-says-we-need-a-more-practical-vehicle-with-a-new-baby-girl-and-a-115lb-Italian-Mastiff-pup-Bella-and-there-is-no-way-on-God’s-green-earth-that-I’m-purchasing-a-mini-van Ford Escape Hybrid SUV, it came with a six month free trial of the Sirius Satellite service.  I wasn’t big on satellite radio until this point, but it is really a cool thing.  A ton of choices, though I’ve gravitated to the aforementioned two.  106 has me laughing out loud constantly, and 73 (though I can’t believe I’m admitting to choosing to listen to spa/new age music), is a good station to think and unwind to on the way home from the sometimes stressful U13 girls sessions.

I thought the training field was perfect.  A mile or two from our hotel with very thick, not-recently-mowed grass. We’ve been down to the Hidden Valley Soccer Complex the last two Aprils and the grass is always thick and lush.  I didn’t expect them to be any different this week so our ability to get a little run around on a longer-grass field today was perfect.

I. Name Tag

Set Up

• 2 groups of 8 players in different colored vests in roughly a 40x60 playing area (from midfield to the top of the penalty box)

Procedure

• Coach yells the name of one girl on the field and that girl is now “it”
• Teams get a point by having their “it” player run over the endline
• If opposing players tag the girl that is “it”, the tagger now becomes “it” and “possession” is switched to the other team

Make It Competitive

• +1 point for a team if their “it” player can run over the endline

Coaching Points

• The idea here is to work on field vision, anticipation, moving to open space when your team is in possession of “it”, and defensive awareness (marking up dangerous players)
• The game moves much faster than a soccer game because there is no ball involve
• The players must still think quickly though and make good decisions when to pass “it” by yelling out another teammates name or when to run with “it” on their own

II. Name Tag Possession

Same as above, this time with no direction involved.  Teams look to keep possession by passing "it" around without letting the opposing team tag the "it" player.  Upon a successful tag, possession switches over to the team that was defending. 

III. Sequence Passing

Set Up

• 2 groups of 8 players in different colored vests in roughly a 40x60 playing area (from midfield to the top of the penalty box)
• Players in each group numbered 1 to 8
• Two soccer balls for each team, one with player #1 and the other with player #4

Procedure

• Players pass to the player with the next higher number (1 to 2, 2 to 3… 8 to 1)
• All players must be moving at all times

Coaching Points

• “Ping” the pass (hit it firm) in the long grass
• Anticipate when you will be receiving the ball, know what you are going to do with it (who you are going to pass to) before you get it

Switch Variation

• When the coach yells “Switch!”, players reverse the order they are passing in (3 now plays to 2, 2 to 1, etc)

Pass to Space Variation

• Same concept but now passes are made into space or teammate to run onto

Three Ball Variation

• Three soccer balls, beginning with 1, 3, and 6

IV. Corner Kick Attack/Defense

Same as our last training session, again focusing on prepping to try and take advantage of our attacking corner kicks, while trying to minimize the threat of these set pieces against us.

I had our 4 corner kick takers working on their services, two from each side of the field.  We had a GK and 6 defenders in the box with the remaining 6 girls trying to finish.

The focus was emphasizing attacking the ball aggressively, believing that teammates/defenders will miss the ball when they try and head or clear the ball just in front of you, and sprinting out of the box to remain onsides when the defending team clears and pushes up field.

My new catch phrase with the team in recent weeks has been “believe she’s going to miss it”.  This means that I want the girls to believe that a teammate or defender challenging for the ball just in front them is going to miss the ball.  In this way, our girls are ready and the missed ball, when it does occur, is not a surprise.  I would rather see one of our girls take a swing or follow through with a header on goal and shoot/head the air that a ball would have been in if it had not been played by a defender or teammate, rather than have the girl mistakenly think the ball will not get through to them and be caught not ready when it does.

V. 11v6 Attacking and Defending Set Pieces

The team of 11 defended the big goal and attacked two 4 yard counter goals at midfield. The team of 6 (and me) attacked the goal and I whistled for indirect and direct free kicks at random to work on attacking and defending ideas.

Attacking Free Kicks

• From long distance center of the field kicks, look to play the ball wide for a wide back to serve in at a better angle
• From wide set pieces within 20 yards of the endline, look to set up like a corner kick
• Around the box, simple set up for indirect kicks, hit the target on direct kicks

Defending Free Kicks From Distance

• When defending free kicks from distance, center backs organize the holding line - sort your marks out quickly
• As the kick taker approaches the ball, turn your body and be ready to beat any attacker to the space behind you by getting a few steps head start

Defending Free Kicks Around the Box

• GK announces how many in the wall
• Mids in the wall, first one on the scene is the "post" player and raises their hand - this is the player who one of the forwards lines up with the near post
• Know the ref signals, indirect and direct
• All other players stay tuned in and mark up
• Step up the field but stay organized when the ball is cleared

After about an hour we headed over to the shaded pavilion for a Subway lunch. It was a fun and very productive afternoon. The girls look sharp and ready for the weekend’s competition.

On our way back to the hotel, some ominous storms started forming on the western horizon.  The plan was still to head out to the Opening Ceremonies at around 4PM and I was looking forward to the experience.

I got to the baseball stadium around 4PM, but by 4:15PM officials had made the decision to cancel the event due to severe weather in the area.  I headed back to the hotel (about 4 miles away) and snapped this photo looking south.

There was some serious rotation in this front and the sky was a scary green behind it.  This cloud ended up forming into a tornado that hit about 5 miles south of us.

Due to the severe weather in the area, the girls gathered with other teams and hotel guests in one of the ball rooms to wait out the storm.

About 20 minutes into the wait, the power went out in the building. 

It would not come back on until sometime in the middle of the night. 5:30PM, a whole night ahead of us, and no power in the hotel.

It ended up being a fairly fun night though.  Good bonding time for the kids and the parents, and fun for the players as there were plenty of soccer boys around to make things interesting for the girls.

There was a huge astro-turfed area pool side, so I cleared an area, set up a bunch of chairs, and got a couple fields of 2v2 soccer tennis going.  The girls played for hours and other Bangu and non-Bangu teams came down to try their luck.  The pool area was domed with a huge skylight, so there was plenty of light even without the power working.

Eventful day… looking forward to the morning though!