2/22 Futsol

At the session today we started off with our individual dribbling.  It was really simple as we just dribbled around the gym keeping our heads up while changing direction and speed.  Then we spent time on each players favorite move and went into the footskills routine.

After that we played "Blob Soccer" The Blob game is one of the fun camp games that I have strayed away from until recently under the misguided belief that this is top level club soccer and those camp games shouldn't be played here.  The Blob game is perfect for working on dribbling with your head up, changing speed, changing direction, and team defending.  Plus it is a ton of fun.

This game is just like Sharks and Minnows where everyone starts on an end line with their ball.  One person starts in the middle as the Blob.  It is the goal of the dribblers to get to the other end line with control of their ball.  The Blob in the middle tries to kick the balls out.  If a dribbler's ball goes out of bounds, the dribbler must join the blob by linking arms with the blob.  To really focus on keeping our heads up I kept splitting the blobs into groups of 2 so there were more blobs for the dribblers to go against.  

After a couple of games of Blob soccer we played a scrimmage with each team attacking 2 small Pugg goals.  The focus of the game was to keep your head up and try to score when you get the ball from far out or to find passes to the far side of the gym.

We ended with playing futsol.

11/24 3v2 With Target Continuous

Today was our day with 1/2 the field so we put it to use right away by going into our 1v0 to 4v4 game.  The key points that we worked on today were
-The target players checking back at angles and combining off of them
-Regrouping and relaxing on the ball if the defenders halt our initial break 

The second point was the main focus because the girls need to recognize when our counter attack is no longer on and we need to keep possession of the ball.  The visual cue that we used for this was when the player on the ball had a defender in front of her and she had lost her momentum.

After talking with Schaefer about the 2v2v2 With Targets Transition Game we decided that there were too many kids standing around in that game at this point of our learning curve.  It was a pretty complex game that the girls were starting to grasp the ideas of but we felt that we could make it better as we learned the principles of transition.  So in order to do that I came up with the following 3v2 Transition game.

-The Blue team starts with the ball in their half and plays the ball into their target player to begin the game.
-As Blue plays the ball into their target player the two blue players from the sideline step on to become the next defenders.

 -The Blue Attackers attempt to score within 5-7 seconds of entering the grid.
Point System 
Getting a shot = 1 point
Shot on goal = 3 points
Goal = 5 points
Bonus points for combinations or criss crossing runs?

-After Blue shoots and a save is made or goal is scored the yellows get a ball from their goalie and play their target player on the other half.
-If the yellows steal the ball they can attack immediately and the Blues cannot defend them
- The Blue who took the shot remains to become the new target player
-The 2 Blues who did not take the shot exit to the half line and wait to become the new Blue defenders
-The 2 yellows who were on the sideline enter on as defenders 

-Yellows not try to score in 5-7 seconds

After they shoot the blues counter the other way and the new blues come on with the yellow who shot staying on as the target and the other 2 yellows leaving to wait and become the new defenders. 

This version of the game worked out very well and the kids were moving non stop with everyone involved and no standing around.

The key points in the game that we focussed on today were:
-When your goalie gets the ball can the 2 defenders get wide immediately to start the counter attack
-Can the 2 transitioning defenders criss cross as they are entering the attacking zone

We finished the day with a 7v7 scrimmage. 

11/15 2v2v2 With Targets To Goal

The girls were fantastic this morning and they jumped right into the street soccer with tons of energy.  I don't know if it was just a one day thing that they were ready to go with no yawns today or if it was because they knew that they would be playing right away so they were awake.  I'm hoping it was the latter.

0-10 Street Soccer

10-20 Footskills

20-50 2v2v2 With Targets Continuous To Goal

This was a really fun game that I did with more numbers with our U16's this past week and it worked very well.  There are so many different things you can work on in this game and it is always moving.  The game takes about 10-15 minutes to work through and get the kids to understand the flow of the game because it never ends and you switch from offense to defense so quickly.  My main goal for today with the game was to just get them to understand how it works because we are going to be doing this game a lot this year with varying numbers.

 When the girls understood the game it went really well.  The good/bad thing with the smaller numbers was that the 3v2 was pretty easy for them on offense.  I'm hoping that we will have enough numbers to move up to 3v3v3 so it is a 4v3 and a little more difficult for the attackers.

50-70 Ball Striking
Lots of reps working on shooting with the laces going for forward spin and no spin from 25 yards out.  We added an option for an outside of the foot shot and a toe poke during the last 10 minutes.

We did not have our agility training after the on field today because Evan's Augsburg team had won their first game of the NCAA tournament and he was in California. 

11/10 Training 1v1-4v4 Numbers Up Game

0-10 Partner Juggling

10-20 Footskills: Lots of rollover moves

20-60 1v1-4v4 Numbers Up Game
This was a game that I had seen Mark do with the U12's last Saturday that I really liked.  It is so nice being surrounded by great coaches that I can pick up lots of really good session ideas.

Set Up: 4 yellows, 4 Blues, 1 gk
To start the first yellow player dribbles at speed and takes a shot from outside the 18 yard box

 After shooting the yellow player now becomes a defender and the first 2 blues step up and go 2v1 against the yellow.
 

After shooting the Blues now become the defenders and the next 2 yellows step on to create a 3v2 with the original yellow who now gets to start in the position of being a target player.  We played with an offsides line at the 18 and I encouraged the new blue defenders to step up quickly after they finished going to force the yellow target player to have to work to get back onside.
 

*To make the exercise more game like I had told the girls that when they were defenders and they won the ball they could score a point by dribbling the ball past the half line.  This meant that the defenders would be starting in different positions throughout the game.  Sometimes they would be straight in front of them but other times there would be a defender or two recovering from behind so it gave them lots of different looks.  The game was great in always presenting something different to the girls and transitioning quickly from offense to defense.

After the yellows went 3v2 the final 2 blues stepped up and created a 4v3.  This part will be great in working on how our forwards should move to create space and combinations as we do this exercise more in the future.
 

The last part is for the 4th and final yellow player to come out and make finish the exercise with a 4v4 to goal.

The girls picked up the game really quickly and it was a lot of fun.  I had originally set up a points system for the game but the girls were so into it that I didn't bother with it because they were competing so hard.  This game was also good for fitness for the first 3 players that went because they stay on the field for so long and are constantly moving.

Today I really just focussed on the dribbler and runners moving diagonally, having the dribbler draw in the defenders, and when to pass the ball.  I want to do this exercise again the next time that we have a half of field to work with so I can start to work on some of the other aspects of the game.

We finished the day with a 7v7 scrimmage that included some of our U16's to give us enough numbers.

9/9 Training- Changing The Point Of Attack While Keeping The Ball

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.- Lyndon B Johnson

Our juggling has continued to improve and the girls are excited about it which makes it even better.  2 weeks ago when we started the partner juggling with feet only we had 3 groups get 6 juggles back and forth and that was our high score.  (Part of this could be because I did not let the top couple of jugglers work together)  At todays training we had 6 groups get into double digits and 2 groups were able to get all the way up to 16 juggles back and forth.  

(Back and forth means that if I start with the ball I am 1, then my partner is 2, and back to me is 3.  It does not matter how many juggles I take, but they all have to be with my feet.  I encourage the girls to take at least 2 juggles each time they get the ball.)

After our technical work we played 5v5 to 2 goals to continue working on keeping possession of the ball while changing the point of attack.

The big challenge is to get the girls not to panic when the way that they are going is closed down.  I kept stressing to the girls to use their footskills and creativity to get themselves out of trouble.

We switched teams a couple of times and played the game for about 30 minutes.

The last 20 minutes we played our 7v7 scrimmages.