First Dome Training

Tuesday we began our winter training at the StarDome at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield.  This will be our winter training home as our club books nearly $150K of dome space each year.  It is a decent dome in a great central location.  It's going to be interesting to get the feedback from the Woodbury families as to what they think of the commute to Richfield twice per week.  They have been used to training in Woodbury under the East Academy banner for two years and I'm sure many of them would have preferred to have all the training continue to be located in the East.  I hope they understand (and I think that they do) that this central location is important as we are starting to draw players from all around the metro area.  Also, the Woodbury-based players have the ability to carpool - a luxury that many others on the team do not have.

I walked in the dome at 6:45PM for a 7:15PM training session.  Two other U13 teams in our club, our White team (second team) and our Green team (third team) were on half the dome using a quarter each, and the other half of the dome was filled with young Edina Soccer Club players.  It looked like a madhouse on the Edina half as there had to be 75+ kids.  Simon Whitehead of Coerver Coaching fame was leading the training and it looked to be managed chaos.  I have known Simon for a long time and have a lot of respect for what he has done for Minnesota soccer.  Through his Educational Sports Programs (ESP) he has brought in many quality trainers from the UK, many of whom now hold Coaching Director positions with different clubs in the area. 

I believe the Coerver method is a fantastic technical development program for young kids, and I use many of the training drills and ideas in our Academy training programs.  Earlier this year I had actually approached Simon (and Charlie Cook, head of Coerver USA) in the hopes of somehow looking to develop a relationship between Coerver Coaching and our Academy programs.   I wanted to try and help develop our Academy coaches and somehow tyr and "certify" them as Coerver trainers, arming all our staff with proven training ideas for their young teams.  I thought it would be a no-brainer on Coerver's end as I was sure they would jump on the opportunity to get involved with top athletes who have made a commitment to year-round development and who, in general, have good success on the fields; both here in Minnesota and across the region at events.  What a perfect fit! 

However, Charlie said everything in MN had to go through Simon, and Simon felt that an affiliation with Bangu would alienate Coerver in the Community Clubs and negatively impact the Coerver Camp business.  I was stunned.  For an organization that touts player development, it all comes down to making money at camps.  Amazing. 

Anyway, I'm sure I'll approach the subject with them again as I still see the potential.  In the meantime, we will continue to use some of their training methods to help build more skillful players.

Where was I? 

My girls started showing up a little before 7PM.  We had 16 of 17 players attend tonight.  With 3 U13 teams and 2 x 75-minute dome slots, we've come up with a rotation.  Week 1, White and Green come in at the earlier time slot and split half a field, the Blue team comes in later and has the entire 1/2 dome to work on.  The next week, White comes in later to utilize the 1/2 dome while the Blue and Green teams share the 1/2 at the earlier time slot, the third week Green gets the 1/2 dome.  The cycle then repeats itself. 

My plan on Tuesdays is to have the girls show up 30 minutes prior the time when we get on the field.  This time will be used to focus strictly on individual technical development, or the Ball Masters Program as I call it.  When we have 1/2 the dome to use, I will look to focus on larger field tactical development.  The weeks in which we have the 1/4 field, it will be all about individual and small group defending and shooting/finishing. 

Today for the 30 minutes prior to taking the field, I ran the girls through a Coerver setup.

• Set Up Touches
• Outside Inside (one foot)
• Outside Inside (two feet)
• Stop & Go
• Sole Stutter
• Stop Toe

I wanted to work on playing into target players today, so we began by playing 3v3 to Targets.

We then moved to pattern play involving crossing and finishing as well as target play, then finished with 8v8, again with the focus on finding our forwards' feet.

The girls worked hard and looked to be having a lot of fun.

Kicking Off The Winter With Fusal

I was very excited to start the winter training season on Sunday.  I had given the girls a much needed two week break from soccer to rest, recuperate, and rejuvenate.  This break is just as, if not more important to the parent group who have been carting their kids around to training/games, given up entire weekends to travel and tournaments, etc.

I started the day by working with 4 Academy groups prior to seeing my U13 girls.  We had the U9 girls at noon, the U12s at 1:15PM, the U10s and 2:30PM, and the U11s at 3:45PM.  My girls were to come in from 5PM to 6:15PM.  At 5PM, I wrapped up the U11 session and made my way to the hallway waiting area, fully expecting to see a 17 smiling and eager faces waiting to get into the gym.  I saw 5... and they weren't smiling.  "Where is everybody?!?", I thought.  "Where is everybody?!?!" they said. 

Apparently, I had mistakenly put down 5:30PM - 7:00PM on our online calendar, though had emailed out earlier in the week reminders about training stating the correct time, 5:00PM - 6:15PM.  Great.  Total buzz kill and perfect way to begin the winter.

Eventually, other players started strolling in and we ended up with 18 (16 of the rostered players and two guests).  I felt bad catching parents as they dropped off their girls to let them know that I had made a mistake and training would only run for 45 minutes.  Some of the families drove 45 minutes to get here.  Oh well.  I think people were pretty understanding overall, though the girls were disappointed to only get to play for 45 minutes.

We made the most of it.  All I wanted to do is have the girls play today anyway.  None had played the game since last February, some had never been exposed to soccer in a gym.  I divided the girls into three teams of 6 players.  Two teams would play (5v5 with one sub), winner stays.  It was the first team to two goals or four minutes, whichever came first.  In the event of a tie, the team who had been on the field longest would lose (and leave the field).

It was fun, fast paced, and intense session.  The majority of the girls picked up the game well.  There was a huge difference from last winter as the ball was kept in play more (due to the higher skill level of the girls) and teams were creative on the attack. 

All in all, even with the time snafu, it was a great way to start the long winter training.  The girls had a GREAT time and wanted to do this every week.  I think that next year I will look to decrease the amount of dome time we have and augment the number of Futsal sessions.  Not only is it more cost effective to use the gyms, but also the girls would for sure benefit from more touches in these tight spaces.