8/26 Cristiano Ronaldo Training

We need to become more comfortable on the ball. 

This is the conversation topic that Mark Cook and I had on the way back from Regionals this last year.  Our U18 team had just lost in the closing minutes of the Regional Semi Final and Cook's current U15 team, Mark Abboud's old team, had just lost in overtime in the Region Semi Final game.  (This is the same team who won Regions last year and the team that has really been the model for our Academy system so it was great that they had done "well" again.)

The thing that I loved was that doing "well" was no longer our goal.  The big thing that we had seen  was that our players need to become more comfortable on the ball under pressure.  We are very good at ball striking, heading, and defending, but our composure under pressure is the next area that we would like to add in for all of our teams.

We spend, at the minimum, the first 30 minutes of every training session on these things and a majority of our sessions at this age and the Academy ages are primarily focussed on this topic.  However, despite spending so much time on the dribbling skills, we still do not see our kids enjoying having the ball at their feet with a defender in front of them.  

My hypothesis is that they simply do not know how and when to implement the moves that we show them because they don't watch enough soccer.  They have a lot of trouble transitioning the moves from trainings into games.

To attempt to change that I found this video of Cristiano Ronaldo enjoying having the ball at his feet.

I emailed the clip out to all the girls and had them watch it before training.  I wanted them to see how to use the moves and how effective they are.  

Do I expect our girls to be able to do everything that Ronaldo does?  No.  But I do believe that they can have the same kind of attitude on the ball that he has.  One of pure joy and danger.  

I) Juggling

II) 1st touch and passing technique

III) Ronaldo Moves: We spent about 30 minutes working on a couple of different moves and fast footwork.

IV) 1v1 to End Lines: For this I set up a 1v1 grid for each group of 2 players.  We played 2 minute games.  The thing I wanted the girls to work on was getting the attitude and the skills that are essentially saying to the defender "Haha you can't get the ball from me!"  

V) 7v7 Games

Training Sessions 8/23 and 8/24

Abbreviated training sessions here.  I was going to update them over Labor Day weekend but since we were able to tape our games using the Hi Pod I was way to distracted by learning and working on that stuff.  It is a really cool device.

8/23 Training and Scrimmage

I) Juggling

II) 1st touch and passing technique

III) 1v1 Tag to 1v1 to endlines

I will get the graphics up for this game as it was really cool.  Tim Bunnell showed it to me after he saw it at the High School coaches convention.

IV) 5v5 Games

We were scheduled to go from 1:00-2:30 today and the U14 group had the time after us but they had decided not to use it so I through out an email to the group asking if anyone could stay and play.  We ended up having 22 players for the whole thing.  (1 U12 player, 1 U14 player, LP's dad as super goalie, and myself.)  It was a fun game that ended up 3-3.  LP's dad really heard it from all the fans as we scored 2 goals in the 2nd half to come back from a 3-1 deficit.   

8/24 Training

I am blanking on what we did and I can't find my notes.  I know that the session involved our usual first 30 minutes of juggling, 1st touch and passing technique, 1v1 moves.  Then I know we did 2v1 and 2v2 activities and finished up with small sided games.