Woodbury, St Cloud, Training, Meeting, Rosemount 2/20-2/21

On Thursday night I received the "Oh crap, can you help me out call" from Eric for the 16's this weekend.  The 16's are playing in our MTA College Showcase that is held in St Cloud.  Eric is taking his doctorate/phd/whatever degree you receive for taking more classes than anyone on earth, and his weekend class had been moved up to this weekend and he was not going to be able to make the first game of the showcase.  

The game was against Mequon from Wisconsin and it was slated as the match of the Showcase that would have the most college coaches in attendance.  In short, it would be good to have someone who knows the team coaching them.  Also, last year in this event we lost 0-4 to Mequon and it would be good for us to see how much we have improved.

Normally this would not be a big deal since I have coaches for all the Academy teams and I have Evan with the 13's.  But this weekend it was going to be tough because I had planned on being at the 13's training on Saturday since I missed last weekend.  

I also had a meeting planned with the parents of our U10 Boys team to go over our club philosophies.  It is still a work in progress to get everyone to buy into the fact that we create our Academy teams with the goal of individual development as our first priority and the Academy teams are not built in hopes of world domination and victory at all cost.  

While I say that a little in jest, it is important for us to communicate clearly as a club what our goals are so our players and parents can decide if this is what is best with them so I really wanted to be at this meeting.  

To go with this I had to be in Rosemount for the U12 Whites game at 1:30.  The 12's had participated in the Dakota Rev President's Day tournament and they had went 1-1-1 against some good teams while I was gone and I was happy to hear this.  However, with their last results being the draw and the loss if I missed this game and I had to have someone fill in to cover for me who was not named Mark or Carlie, things would not be well in the U12 world.  

Mark had his team playing on the field next to us and offered to coach both teams but if one of the teams won and the other did not, lord help us.  I would have to deal with that from some of the parents even though almost all of the parents on that team really understand what we are trying to accomplish.  

With these things weighing on my mind I began to make some phone calls to see if I would be able to get up to St Cloud to coach the 16's.  I talked with a number of the U10 parents between Thursday and Friday, as well as their coach, Matt Holmes, and I ended up writing out answers to a bunch of questions and putting together our philosophies and Matt said they would be good to have the meeting without me and I would plan on meeting with anyone who had any further questions on the following Saturday.

I talked with Evan about the 13's and he was set to run their training.  Due to a giant snow storm up north the team from Red River was not going to be able to make the first game of the Showcase so Cook was able to move the 16's game up 30 minutes so that would allow me enough time to make the 100 minute trek to Rosemount and arrive right at 1:30.  

Everything was set as I left to go and coach our U9's down in Woodbury in their final winter league game.  At this game I was able to forget about all the other things for an hour as the girls on this team have such a fun time playing the game.  Mini Alberts, one of the 16's younger sisters, decided to try slide tackling today and she was quite proud of herself after she slid twice in the game and could care less that the ball wasn't within 5 yards of her.  I truly recommend coaching this age group if you are in need of entertainment.

After that entertainment ended I made my way through the blizzard up to St Cloud so I could crash at my parents house for the night.  I would not see them though because my dad was in Madison and my mom was in Florida.  I think one of them got the raw end of the deal on that one.  Despite this, I still wanted to get up there on Friday night because I would rather drive late on Friday instead of waking up early tomorrow and driving.  

As I was driving up to St Clould I'm not sure if I ever actually saw the road as it was completely covered with snow.  I just kept hoping that the tail lights in front of me knew what they were doing.  I wondered how many people were doing the same thing.  It was a good thing whomever was leading us had a clue of where to turn.

Whew!  Saturday morning finally came.  I woke up early for the 9:40 game to make copies of the 16's player profiles and went to the Carribu Kinkos combo store at 8:15.  I ordered my Caramel High Rise and went next door to make copies and found that the Kinkos in St Cloud do not open until 9:00am on the weekends.  I asked in my head "What kind of town allows a business center to be closed early in the morning on weekends!" and then I remembered that people shouldn't be doing business early in the morning on weekends because sleep is good.

So I drank my Caramel High Rise while relaxing and waiting for the store to open to make the all important player profiles.  I relaxed even more when I didn't receive a call a little after 8:00 asking where Evan was and what was going on.  Even though Evan is never late and is great with the girls, there was still a little fear that something would happen and I'd get a phone call.

With the player profiles made it was off to the 16's game to see how we compared with Mequon 1 year later.  It turned out to be a non contest as we completely dominated them.  We spent a majority of the game in their half and scored 2 goals in the opening 30 minutes and cruised to a 2-0 victory.  It was great to see the improvement in one year with this group.

On my way down to Rosemount it turned out that I was one session off with my bad feeling premonition when I found out that Carlie had been in a minor car accident a couple of miles from Holy Angels and was unable to make it to the 12's training.  Luckily Mark was able to mix both the 12 groups together and run the session.  Since I had plenty of time in the car I also found out that the 10's meeting went very well and no follow up meeting would be necessary.  

I also talked with Evan about the 13's session.  Although unplanned, it was good for Evan and the girls that he was able to run the Saturday session for the 2nd week in a row so the girls continue to get used to his coaching style.  Evan built off of his session from last week and things went well.

I pulled into the Rosemount Dome parking lot at 1:28 and the 12's played well in their game.  Then I remembered that I had forgotten to eat all day.  It was time to go enjoy a nice steak and hang out with some friends after the long day.

What Is Creativity

On Monday night after I was done training the U16's Eric and I had a great conversation with Greg Wheaton about what creativity really is.  Greg hails from Brazil and is the best dribbler of the ball I have seen and he was my favorite coach growing up.

Greg mentioned that he was going to be taking his U15 boys team to Brazil this year and how he was excited at how much they are going to learn about the game from the trip.  They are going to play against players who are a year or two younger than them who will be able to dribble the ball just as well, if not better, than they will.  But the key that the Brazilians will possess is that they will pick their time to dribble.

Too many players here, in the US, mistake creativity with being able to do a ton of moves.  Just doing moves for the sake of doing moves isn't creative.  It is stupid.  

Think about the difference between Cristiano Ronaldo in his first two years at Manchester Utd.  He just dribbled around aimlessly and rarely created anything.  Sure it looked cool, but it wasn't creative and a majority of the time Utd ended up losing the ball.  

Now every time Ronaldo touches the ball there is the threat of a goal being scored.  That is creativity because now there is an end result to what he does.  Creativity can be as simple as an inside of the foot pass that puts someone in on goal with a through ball or it can be 3 step overs, a maradona, and a fake shot to beat a 3 defenders before scoring.  They are both creative because the end result is there.

It is important for us as coaches to start teaching the kids at a young age what creativity really is and show them all the different ways that it can be achieved. 

The Las Vegas Showcase With The U15's

This weekend Tim was running all the training for us since both Mark and I were out in Las Vegas with the U14's and U15's.  I am Eric Singer's assistant on the U15's.  It is fantastic having someone like Tim who is energetic and loves coaching so much involved in the Academy.  As we expand we will need to find more Coaches like him.

 During the U15's first game of the tournament vs La Roca Premier we were really flat.  La Roca beat us to every loose ball, won every header, and tackled harder than us.  La Roca was a skilled team but we helped them by never pressuring them on defense.  We gave them lots of time and we never stepped close to them because we were afraid to get beat.  All of these things were not good because one of Singer's main messages to the girls that; no matter what is going on in soccer and in life you should always compete hard.

After the final whistle blew Eric Singer and I discussed what kind of message we should send to the team about what just happened.  Eric has never yelled at the girls in the five months that I have been around so maybe this was a time for that approach.  We discussed the circumstances surrounding the game:
-We got to our hotel after 11pm the night before and did not get into our rooms until midnight
-We were up at 6am to get to the game
-It was our first game on grass since Disney
-We hadn't dealt with wind in a while

While we were discussing all these factors we kept looking at the factors as excuses because all we wanted was for the girls to play as hard as they could and none of those factors should have deterred us from that goal.

As Eric walked over to where the girls were sitting I wondered what he would do and what he did next was exactly why I wanted to work with him.

In a very calm voice he asked the girls how the game went.  They responded that things did not go well.  He then had them tell us what they thought did not go well.  After they came up with the reasons that I mentioned in the opening paragraph we focused in on the point that we did not play well because we were too afraid to make a mistake.  This fear caused us to play hesitant and back out of the play.

He then brought up the fact that

"In life there are going to be times where you are going to suck.  You are going to suck beyond belief.  I've played soccer for over 20 years and I've had games where I was absolutely awful.  I couldn't pass.  I couldn't dribble.  I couldn't shoot.  But there was one thing that I could do well when all the other things were going wrong.  I could 'Suck With Style.' 
I would not suck because of a lack of effort.  I could always play hard on defense, win tackles, win headers, and then keep trying to get better on offense."

After Eric telling the story about him making mistakes he asked each girl on the team "What did you learn about yourself from that game.  Not what did we learn as a team, but you as an individual.  If each of us learned something then we can move on.  If we did not learn anything then we just wasted our time."

For the first minute everyone was silent.  Then one of the girls spoke up with a great piece of advice when she said; "I learned that if I make a mistake, I need to not be so hard on myself and be able to move on."  That was a great start.

Then two other girls spoke up with good lessons, but then we were met with silence from the other 14 girls on the team.  As we looked at them waiting to hear what they had learned we saw the same thing we had seen in the game.  We saw the same question running through their heads.  "What if I am wrong?  What if what I say is not what they are looking for?"  So we addressed that issue.  We reminded them that all we want is effort.  As long as you say something that you believe in you are making progress.

The girls started saying lots of great things like; "I learned I need to trust myself and not doubt my instincts."  "I learned that I should take risks." 

After each girl had said something Eric wrapped up the talk and reminded the girls that soccer is supposed to be fun and we were going to learn from this and have a great time for the rest of the trip.

I left the game knowing that I had learned a lot in how to deal with a set back on the field from a coaching stand point.  Eric was able to get his point across by letting the girls realize what to do instead of him telling them and he did it in a positive way.  I'm guessing that if he would have yelled at them, the rest of the morning would have been spent feeling bad and there would have been a cloud over our team.  The girls would then have been motivated by the fear of not wanting to get yelled at again and it seems counterintuitive to tell players to play without fear by motivating them with fear.  By talking with them and getting them to realize everything, we were able to move on and enjoy the rest of the trip. 

Later that afternoon all the lessons that were learned from the morning were showcased and the girls played as hard as they could, they had fun, and we played some really good soccer.  The lessons were still resonating on the final day of the tournament when we played So Cal Blues who are one of the very top teams at this age group and the girls battled extremely hard against a very talented team. 

On the flight home I couldn't wait until the 12's started up their tournaments.  We are only 3 weeks away!

There Are So Many Levels Out There

Anyone who says that playing with boards doesn't involve as much skill has never been to Madison United's President's Day tournament.  For the last four years I have played in the tournament and each year I am amazed at the level of skill that the players involved  in the tournament possess. 

The tournament draws teams from all over the midwest.  The top teams are comprised of former Division 1 and professional players.  As far as my play is concerned, I'm just happy I didn't injure myself and I made it back in one piece. 

We lost in the quarter-finals to the team that knocked us out in the same stage last year, the Madison United Dinosaurs, who went on to win the tournament by beating the Bavarians in the final.  The Dinosaurs had 3 players who had played in the MLS.  During the game I kept thinking "Man, these guys are good and they aren't even in the MLS anymore.  How good are the guys in the MLS?  How good are the guys in Europe?" 

It's one thing to watch players on T.V. and say this player is good and this player is not, but when you actually see them play against you and the competition you play against, you are amazed at how good everyone has to be at those levels.  It really opens your eyes.  This is the big reason to take teams to tournaments and try to educate people that the soccer world is much bigger than your state, region, or country.  There are so many different levels of skill out there that you can always find someone who is better than you to challenge you to improve.  Or in my case, wait until you qualify to play in the over 30 bracket:)

Ice Cream Cones and Constantly Embarrassing Your Defender

As the kids arrived to training early today, I noticed a difference between the boys and the girls.  While the girls talked with each other and started their tennis ball routine, (this is before we started training), the first 3 boys that were on the field immediately began playing keep away with the soccer ball.  They played it in a tight space even though there were no cones or boundaries set up. 

As I watched them play it seemed like they had two objectives for the game.  One objective was to keep the ball away from the person in the middle.  The other, and it seemed to the more important objective, was to try and embarrass the defender or make him look foolish for trying to steal the ball.  To do this, the people with the ball had to see how close they could come to letting the player in the middle get the ball, without giving it to him. 

So instead of them just running around all over the place and making simple passes that would keep the ball.  Sometimes I saw them trying to pass it right next to the defenders leg.  Or they would try to nutmeg the defender.  Other times they would fake the pass and just try to dribble by him. 

As they would try this over and over again, they lost the ball a number of times.  But it didn't matter, they knew they would get the ball back again.  What I really enjoyed was that the attackers received more joy out of making the defender look bad, than actually keeping the ball away from the defender.

While I was watching this, I had a flashback of when I was young and one time I was allowed to get an ice cream cone and my sister was not able to get one.  (Probably because I had been good and she had not:)  I remember taking such joy in the fact that I had the ice cream and she did not.  Who knows if the ice cream was good or bad, it tasted great because my sister could not have it. 

As I was eating it, I kept telling her how good it was.  Then, I would hold it out as close to her as I could, without her being able to hit it out of my hands, and ask her if she wanted some.  But then I would remind her "Oh yeah, that's right you can't have any!" 

Isn't this why parents can go nuts?  What a terrible thing to do, right?  Oh well, I knew at some point she would return the deed to me so I felt I needed to enjoy the moment. 

As I was reliving this childhood memory I realized that this is one of the differences that I see between boys and girls.  Boys enjoy having the ball purely for the reason that they have it and the other team or person does not.  Girls do not seem to derive that joy from simply having the ball.  They want a purpose with the ball. 

If you are playing a game of keep away with a boys team and you say 10 passes equals a point, the boys will try to get the ten passes and win the game.  But at the same time they want to make the defenders look foolish.  They will try to do give and goes around the defenders.  Split passes will be attempted.  Nutmegs will be tried.  Every time something is successful, the person who had just been made to look foolish will be reminded of it in hopes that they will get madder and madder so you can do it again.

If you are playing a game of keep away with a girls team and you say that 10 passes equals a point; you will see a lot of passes around the outside of the grid and a race to see who can get to 10 passes the quickest because that is what the coach wanted.  They take joy in winning the game to please the coach. 

Relating this to the development of a young players game, the way the boys approach the challenge of getting 10 passes in a row is going to grow the young player the most.  This is because in order to "embarrass" the defenders on a consistent basis they have to become very creative.

The boys version of the game is more difficult and you will hear coaches and teammates tell the player who just lost the ball trying to do a crazy flick to play it simple.  But at the young age the more they think about these things, the more it becomes common place in their heads to look for the tricky move.  The game changing move. 

It is much easier to teach a kid who is full of tricks to make the simple pass.  However, it is almost impossible for the player who always looks to play the simple pass to think about game changing moves.  It is the Game Changers that the top coaches and teams are after.  Those players can add something to a squad.  

The goal of trying to Constantly Embarrass Your Defender, or CEYD, is one that demands creativity.  In order to CEYD in our training environment you are going to have to become very creative because you will not be able to embarrass one of our players in the same way over and over again without that defender making adjustments and forcing you to do something different.  Our players are all super competitive and hate to look bad.  So when they look bad on defense, they become more determined to not let it happen again.  The more determined the defender is to not look bad and take the ball from you, the more creative you will have to become in finding a way that the defender was not thinking about to beat her. 

By having our players trying to Consistently Embarrass Your Defender, we are fostering a very creative and competitive environment.  An added benefit of this environment is that it can help players deal with set backs on the field because if a defender does get embarrassed, she has to move on quickly or risk the chance of being embarrassed again and again.  Of course the trick is getting the players to leave this mentality on the field after they are done playing.  But if you can get your players to take joy in having the ball and get them to look to embarrass their defender, you will start to see their creativity flourish.