Ball Striking 2/19 Receive, Relax, and Shoot

One thing I know is that I don't have all the answers.  That's why I'm always asking questions, and why I tell my team that smart people need tutors.
-Roy Williams

Today I wanted to work on having the girls be able to run onto a pass, take a good first touch, relax and take a long shot.  During our game against Dakota Rev we were in this situation a lot and we seemed to rush a little bit.  We shot hard, but not as accurate as we could have because we were to excited to get our shot off.  So today we were going to stress taking a good first touch followed by a look up and relaxing before you unload the shot.

I set up a simple exercise where one player would dribble diagonal and play the runner the ball.  The runner would take a touch, look up, relax, and shoot.  I wanted the dribbler to be going at full speed and the runner to go at full speed until she received the ball to make the situation game like and work on us playing at speed. 

Things did not go well.  We were slow and our passes lacked accuracy.  The girls were messing around in line and could not remember where to run after they played the ball.  Part way through the exercise I called the girls in and we talked about whether or not we could do a little better and hold ourselves to a higher standard.  The girls agreed we could and went back and picked it up a little bit, but not much.

I called the ball striking early and told the girls to get a drink, leave the last 20 minutes behind and be ready to play well in the scrimmage.  The scrimmage started and we continued our poor play.  By the end of the session I had put on the restriction that they had to complete a back heel pass before they could go to goal.  I figured that if we were going to mess around and not look sharp we could at least start to look for the pass to the player who is behind us.  This seemed to work well and there was lots of laughing as they attempted various types of back heels.

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One of the reasons why I enjoy writing this journal is because it forces me to reflect on our sessions and games thus making me a better coach.  While writing I can determine what worked well and what I can change to make things better.  As I reflect about tonight's session I was upset with myself.  I had not designed a good session.  While the ideas were good, the timing of the session was not right.  This was the fourth day of soccer in a row for the girls and today was the start of their third phase of SPAT training which involved a lot of quick sprinting and agility work that they were not used to so they were a bit tired.  Looking back I should have done a fun shooting competition session or some different types of volleys.

There are times when I get frustrated when a drill is not working how I had imagined it and I ask myself, "How are they not getting this?  It is so simple."  When I am doing a good job of coaching this question never pops into my head because I have already seen how to adjust the drill or talked to the players to make it run smoother.  Today I was not doing a great job since the question came up and I could not make the drill work as well as I wanted it. 

Then we got to the scrimmage and the girls were messing around for the most part and I was getting more frustrated because I knew they could play better.  But then things turned around when I stopped thinking about how the shooting drill had not gone well and how I was upset that they were not going 100% in our Street Soccer game because I kept hearing the girls laugh.   

The session turned on it's head when I realized that almost all of them were consistently laughing, smiling and having a good time.  I felt pretty dumb when I thought about how much more important it was, after 3 days of hard games and a hard SPAT workout, that they were still having fun and enjoying the game rather than grudgingly going through the motions.  This reminded me of something that our U15 and U18 coach Eric Singer always makes sure he emphasizes with his teams.  Having fun.  He tells his teams that;  "If you are ever not having fun let me know and I will do a better job of coaching."  Great advice.