7:15PM - 9:00PM Field Training
Our final training session prior to heading to Virginia this weekend. Like usual, I tried to pack WAY too much stuff into a final session before heading out of town. It didn't help that I had not read the master dome schedule correctly, so instead of having 1/2 the dome to ourselves we had to split the time with our U13 Green team. It also didn't help that I didn't find this out until just a few minutes before we took the field. My fault. Umut (the Green team coach) was gracious enough to be accommodating, knowing that we had the tournament this weekend. So we ended up with about 35 yards at one end of the dome.
I got to the dome around 6:30PM to do some work with Blondie. I make myself available to do work with interested girls one on one prior to any of our training sessions, and a number of girls have taken advantage of this opportunity. The girls starting arriving around 7PM for the 7:15PM session. We usually do some individual skills work for the first half hour, but today I wanted to sit and talk with the girls about the coming weekend.
I passed out a handout about our attacking free kicks and we discussed it as a group. I then talked to the girls about their Individual Goals for the weekend. I came up with three or four goals for each player that I wanted them to try and reach this weekend. Most goals had to do with technical or tactical challenges, some dealt with team bonding issues. For example, I wanted Macky to try and get a header on goal from a set piece, Soph to not get beat on a fast break 1v1, Millie to play a double give and go with a teammate, etc. As for the team bonding issues, I wanted Grace to not sit by Brownie (her best friend) at our Saturday team meal, Ripper to invite a new girl to hang out at the hotel, etc. This is the first time that I'm trying these Individual Goals, but I think that it could be a good idea.
When we took the field I spent the first 20 minutes on some functional positional training. The forwards and mids worked on attackers rolling defenders in the box, and the defenders worked together on jockeying and delaying attackers on fast break 1v1s.
For the remainder of training, we worked on defending corner kicks and setting up defensive walls around our box.
The girls worked hard during the session, but I think I gave them too much info in too little of a time. At least the core group of the girls who have been with me for a while have a decent idea about what is going on, but some of the new girls to the team I'm sure felt a little swamped with all the info.
At the end of practice, I noticed Scratch was bummed out. I asked her what was wrong as we were leaving and she said she was fine. I got caught talking to someone for a few minutes at the dome exit, and as I was getting ready to go, I overheard Scratch telling Macky that they should both come and talk to me. I encouraged them to tell me what was on their minds and all three of us walked a little bit apart from the others.
Both girls felt that I was getting on them too much about not paying attention in training when I seemed to let other girls get away without reprimand for similar misbehavior. They both said other girls on the team felt the same way (that I got on Macky and Scratch more than others). Both girls were pretty upset, though I do feel the two of them deserve it when I do get on them for distracting behavior during training. I talked to them about what I was seeing from them at training and listened to their issues. They agreed to try and be more considerate when I was leading training and I told them that I would try to be more aware of "picking" on them only.
Saturday, April 28, 2007 at 05:35PM 
