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.

3/18 Ball Striking- Settle And Volley

He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that he's all right.

-George Best talking about David Beckham

After watching our teams out in Las Vegas this last weekend I noticed that we had difficulty with being able to settle the ball and strike it under pressure.  So today I wanted to focus on us being able to settle the ball and hit a solid volley. 

I) Throw The Ball Up To Yourself and Volley
I had the girls throw the ball above their heads, trap it with their thigh and volley the ball before it hit the ground.
We struggled with the footwork and how to trap the ball and hit the volley before the ball hit the ground.  I didn't want the girls to hit the ball back up very high on their trap, but instead I wanted them to be able to move their feet quickly and step into the ball as it came to the ground.
After a while the girls started to realize that all the work they have been doing with the SPAT program was very useful in this motion.  As they started to get the pattern down, the volleys started flying.

II) Partner Throw and Volley

Now we had a partner throw the ball up for the girls and they had to trap the ball and volley it before it hit the ground.  Even though the I wanted the girls to hit the ball before the ball hit the ground, I told them that no matter where they trapped the ball I wanted them to volley it.  That meant if they trapped the ball behind them, I still wanted the girls to hit the volley.  Not everything is going to be perfect in games and while we will train to be perfect we have to be ready for the inevitability of the ball bouncing the wrong way.  We should have the mind set that we can deal with any kind of ball.

Make It Competitive:
1pt for a good trap
2pts for a good trap and a volley before the ball hit the ground
3pts for a good trap and a volley on target
5pts for doing everything properly and putting the ball in the back of the net

Our Street Soccer today was fantastic.  The girls played extremely hard and put in the type of effort I would like to see all the time.

3/11 Ball Striking- Half Volleys Into The Ground

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them?  Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? Why Seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you.

The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.  This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.

-Carol Dweck

Today we worked on hitting half volleys into the ground.  We found this to be very difficult for almost every girl.  The thing that I enjoyed the most was that, even though they struggled with the shot, they worked hard at it and took great pleasure when they did hit a good one. 

The main reason for the difficulty was that most of the girls are used to having their foot come from the ground and directly go to the ball to strike it.  In order for them to hit the volley into the ground, we needed the girls to bring their leg up, about hip high, first and then go forward for the volley.  This little change in motion was new and it made the timing and other aspects hard.

Key Points:
-Start facing sideways so you can get your whole body into the shot
-Bring your foot up first, not forward
-Coil your upper body like a top by bringing your arms back, like you're going to hit a baseball and then snap them down first, letting your leg and body follow them
-Snap your leg down
-Keep your toe pointed and ankle locked

3/9 Futsol: Repetition=Competition

I have never known a manager prepare his training sessions so thoroughly.  Like Zidane with a ball at his feet, Mourinho has this thing that cannot be taught.  He is the Zidane of managers.
-Porto Scout Gil Rui Barros

It was a bit of a long weekend for me since right after our session yesterday morning I hopped in my car and drove up to St Cloud where we were holding the friendlies for our U13, U14 and U15 teams.  These friendlies have become a very good event for our club and it was a great tune up for our U15's who I am heading out to Las Vegas with next weekend.  Today we finished our last game at 2:30pm and I made a bee line right to Woodbury to make the futsol session this evening.

I get asked a lot if I like working with the younger age groups and I tell people how enjoyable it is because they always bring energy even when, as a coach, you don't have any.  I was a bit low on energy when I arrived at the futsol session but after a couple of minutes of working with them my energy level was back up and I was ready to go.

0-10 Tennis Ball Work

10-30 Receiving Technique- Repetition=Competition
Proper technique only comes from repetition, but repetition can get old and boring.  So today we introduced the concept that "Repetition=Competition."  Today I was showing them how to make the exercise competitive but I challenged them that every time we are working on our technique make it into a competition.  Whether it is competing against yourself or against someone else, if you are competing you will be more focused. 

For our work today we played my favorite receiving game.  Each player has a partner.  Your partner stands 8-10 yards away from you and you pass the ball as hard as you can into her feet and she has to control the ball under her.  If she does not control it well enough she gets a point.  If your pass is not accurate then you receive a point.  Just like golf, points are bad in this game.  We rotated partners every couple of minutes.

We did a couple of variations:
-Players start farther away and the person receiving the ball must check hard to the ball and receive it
-Players check to the ball and play a one touch pass

30-75 Futsol

3/4 Ball Striking

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.

-Dan Stanford

When the girls arrived at ball striking today, I asked them if any of them had seen how Cesc Fabergas, of Arsenal, scored the winning goal over AC Milan in the Champions League game earlier today and to my surprise a handful of the girls said they had.  The goal was scored on a long distance shot just like we have been working on all winter long.

I gave the girls the option today of whether they wanted to continue to work on long distance shooting or half volleys.  I wanted to give them the choice because I want them to feel that they are a part of the decision making process and I realize that the winter training can get long so I want them to really enjoy the training. 

The girls said they wanted to work on long distance shooting for the majority of the time, but they wanted the last part to be volleys.

After 15 minutes of long distance shooting from the dribble we added in a long distance wall pass to work on hitting long distance shots with one touch.

After that we worked a little bit on half volleys and we will continue with volleys next week.

Our Street Soccer today was fantastic.  I had to stop the play two times to allow the girls to take a moment to appreciate good soccer.  (Eric Singer does this with the U15's and it is a fun little way to acknowledge when the team is playing at a very high level.  This usually comes after a couple of combination plays that lead to a goal or a great opportunity.)