Training Sessions 3/24-3/29

You'll find that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort.

-The Phantom Tollbooth

 It's a busy part of the season and I have not managed my time well enough to put all the sessions from the past week into their normal format with thoughts and diagrams.  Here is what we did for each session as we prepare to head out to the Premier Games.

Ball Striking 3/25
It was our last Tuesday of the winter today so I divided the girls into two different teams and we had a variety of shooting competitions between the two squads.

*Side Note- I also did this with the younger age groups earlier in the day and some of the players had tears come to their eyes during the competition because they claimed the other team was cheating.  It was great to see how much they cared about doing well and how seriously they can take things.  Of course they had forgotten about within ten minutes.  If I could bottle that passion and the ability to move on I'd be much smarter than I currently am.

Tourny Prep Session 3/26
We did a lot of passing and moving activities and parlayed them into competitions between the groups.
For the last little bit we scrimmaged the U11 Blue team.  I gave the girls the instruction to try and play super high pressure and always have someone going to the ball. 

For these sessions we are on one of the small fields at Corner Kick and the ball can be played from your goal to the goal you are attacking with one pass.  The best way to defend on these fields is to be sure to have people back in your half, cut off the shooting lanes, and not dive in. 

We have started working on defending lately and I wanted to show the girls that it does not matter how hard you work individually.  It is all about how hard we work as a team. 

From the moment the game started until the end we continually had one or two players working incredibly hard to get to the ball and put pressure on them.  The issue was that the two other girls on the field would be standing and watching them.  Every time the 11's beat the first pressure they had lots of time, space and numbers and they are very good so they would score on many of these chances. 

After the mini game I told the girls that I thought the U11's would score a bunch on us because of my instruction to play high pressure on the ball and I asked them why I had thought that way before the game and why it happened during the game. 

The first words out of their mouths were "What?  You wanted us to lose?"  I told them that I didn't but I thought that they would struggle and I wanted them to realize why.  Then they thought about the high pressure and what had happened.  I asked them how many of them had worked hard during the game and all of their hands went up.  I agreed with them that all of them had worked hard individually.  Then they realized that that is why they had struggled.  They had worked hard individually but not as a team.

I hope that today will serve as a reminder as we go forward that we always need to work hard as a team to be successful.

Team Training 1v1 Defending 3/29
For the last couple of session before we go to Des Moines I wanted to concentrate on our defending.  Today we worked on 1v1 defending.  We did a simple 1v1 exercise that focussed on delaying the attacker and forcing her to go one way.

Team Training 1v1 Defending 4/1
Today was more work on the 1v1 defending.  We focussed on not "opening the door" when you are defending.  The girls really started to understand how the concept worked and I am excited to build on the concept and cement the idea in their heads.