Futbol Sala- Evaluations- 11/4

Confronted with the hard puzzles, one ten-year-old boy pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips, and cried out, "I love a challenge!"  Another, sweating away on these puzzles, looked up with a pleased expression and said with authority, "You know, I was hoping this would be informative!"

What's wrong with them?  I wondered.  I always thought you coped with failure or you didn't cope with failure.  I never thought anyone loved failure.  Were these alien children or were they on to something?

I was determined to understand the kind of mindset that could turn a failure into a gift. 

What did they know?  They knew that human qualities, such as intellectual skills, could be cultivated through effort.  And that's what they were doing- getting smarter.  Not only weren't they discouraged by failure, they didn't even think they were failing.  They thought they were learning.
-Carol S Dweck: Mindset The New Psychology of Success

Futbol Sala, formerly known as futsol, is probably my favorite type of training session.  We get to work with the kids for 30 minutes on skills and ideas, then they play futsol, whoops I mean futbol sala, for 45 minutes.  The sessions are fast paced and the emphasis is on quick foot work and combination play.  My two favorite topics. 

This year Mark will be leading the girls through most of the futbol sala training.  It is great for the girls to get two different coaches to work with.  We encourage the girls to go to camps, do ODP, get extra training because even though I may have been telling them something one way, it may not be clicking for them.  Then they work with another trainer who says it a little differently and they have an Aha! moment.

One of the tricks of being a good coach is being able to explain the same idea in a variety of ways to reach all your players.

Today while Mark was leading the futbol sala I was going to be having 1 on 1 evaluations with the girls. 

"Why would you have evaluations with U12 players?  Just let them play!"  I have heard that before and the reason is because; even though we are giving the girls feedback constantly, (during training, games, and afterwards) sitting down with the players and communicating to them specifically about where they are at now will help them to get to where they want to be.

Notice that I said Where they are at now.  That is the most important thing that I can stress.  As coaches we can tell you what we see now, but the players determine where they will be in the future.  It is all up to the girls how good of a player they want to be.  It is true that most of the time we have a pretty good idea of where players will end up because most of the players will put in about the same amount of effort into their training with us and at home.  But for those few who make soccer their passion and enjoy the challenge of learning, we have no way of telling how far their drive/passion will take them. 

A few weeks ago I asked each girl to send me the answer to the following questions to help me with the evaluations:
1)  What are your ambitions for this year?
2)  What are your goals for next year?
3)  Where do you see yourself in five years?
4)  What are any ideas and suggestions that you have?

The questions were for two reasons.  First the answers help me to see where each girl is coming from in regards to how she views soccer.  Some want to play for fun and some want to play at the top D1 schools in the future.  Second, I want the girls to think about the future.  Goal setting is huge.  If you set goals for yourself you will get more enjoyment out of what you are doing and have a better idea of what you are doing it for.

The evaluations are very detailed and divided into four categories: Technical, Tactical, Psychological, and Physical.  At the bottom we write comments about what we like about their game and how they can improve. 

I wrestled with how I was going to do the evaluations for quite a while.  Should I go over each section in detail?  For the kids who want to play at the top level should I be very honest with them about where they are at right now?  Should I tell them where I think they should be?  Then I had one of those Aha! moments.  But then I realized that it was more of a Well Duh! moment.  It was so simple.  Don't spend the meeting telling the kids all the things they need to work on and leave them feeling like they have sooo much to work on.  Spend the meeting highlighting what I like about them and what makes them stand out.  Then challenge them to continue to work hard and enjoy improving.

While I would like to write that this idea came to me right away and it was obvious I can't.  I almost fell into the trap that a lot of coaches fall into.  "I want my players to be the best they can so I've got to tell them all the time what they need to work on."  It is true that you need to tell your players what they need to improve because if you never correct them and allow them to have bad habits they will not improve.  But where a lot of coaches can go wrong is by focusing on these flaws.  This can leave most players thinking that they are not good.  Of course there are the exceptions to the rules who always want to hear what they need to work on and enjoy that challenge, but even they like to hear what they are doing well.  

In the end I hope that these evaluations will strike a balance between the two ideas.  The evaluation on paper will give them an idea of where I see them in different areas right now, and the meeting will let them know what I like about them and how great they can be.  The goal at the end of the day is to inspire them to be excited to meet the challenge of improving every day.