Training Friday 10-5

If you find yourself being stimulated, being challenged, being driven, being pushed, inspired, influenced, and also encouraged-when anybody is in a position that any of those things can happen to them or to a group, then that is success.

When you reach the stage where you feel complete, where you feel as though you have accomplished as much as you were given an opportunity to accomplish.  If you can reach that stage where you feel every morning, every day, that you've given your best.

I always say to my guys, "The most important day of your life is today.  This very minute is the most important minute of your life.  You must win this minute.  You must win this day.  And tomorrow will take care of itself."

-John Chaney

The goal of training today was to continue to work on our first touch and passing techniques.

I.  Footskills

-Movement with the sole of the foot

-Pull Cruyff's

-Pull Cruyff followed by a step over

II.  20 Yard Passing and First Touch Exercise

Most kids think they are pretty good at basic inside of the foot passing.  They figure that, because they do it all the time and they appear to complete most of their passes, they are good at it.  Think again.  The girls on this team are some of the best in Minnesota and they are very good players, but when I ask them to complete a 20 yard pass to their teammate with no pressure on them, they are lucky to complete 1 out of every 5 passes.  We had passes going wide right.   Wide left.  Passes in the air.  Passes barely making it.  And the occasional good pass. 

It is good for the girls to realize that they have a ways to go on their passing technique.  Putting the distance at 20 yards may be too much to ask from U12 players, but I wanted to challenge the girls.  If we can make 20 yard passes instead of 10-15 yard passes we will be able to move the ball around the field quicker and stay more spread out.  Being 20 yards apart also forced our girls to continue to work on passing the ball harder.

Key Point:  Take A Moving First Touch.  Not A Touch And Move

-When receiving the ball I want the girls to move with their touch.  Too many players take the touch, stand straight up, then follow the touch.  This causes players to "chase" their touch and the result is that the player on the ball has less time.  I want the girls to lean forward and move as they are taking the touch.  This keeps the ball close to your foot and allows you to be in control of the ball. 

III.  7v3 Keep Away-Split The Defenders

Same type of game we played last week but we added in a extra defender and 2 more attackers.  I wanted to see how the girls could deal with the third defender and how they would react to playing in more space than we did last week.

The one issue we kept running into was that the girls would constantly be moving in closer and closer, thus eliminating their time and space when they received the ball.

I want the girls to hold their space so they have more time and space when they receive the ball.

In order to keep your space and stay spread out, we need to be able to pass the ball firmly.  This is one of the main reasons I want to continue working on passing the ball with pace.  It allows us to stay spread out and it gives us more time on the ball.

IV.  5v5 Scrimmage

It has been fun to see the girls creativity and passing combinations progress through the fall.  The training sessions that we have been doing have not been complicated.  We work on form and then we play.  We play a lot.  The constant themes that I continue encourage the girls to do while we play are:

*Can we keep the ball and look to be dangerous. 

*Don't play at 100mph going forward.  Relax on the ball.

*Change directions.  Both dribbling and passing.

*Unbalance defenders by using multiple moves. 

*Turn out of trouble.

It takes a lot of time and patience to implement a new style of play.  Especially when you are asking the kids to play in a style that does not encourage booting the ball when they are under pressure.  But the more you encourage the kids the more they surprise you with their creativity.