3/22 4v4 With Targets To 4 Goals

Certainly, for all of us who are involved in youth soccer there are times when you say that it's true.  That a younger player who is smaller has got to develop his other qualities, so it's a plus. It can work that way. But I don't think it's an automatic.

-Bob Bradley

0-10 Juggling Challenges

10-20 Partner Receiving Technique

20-50 4v4 With Targets to 4 Goals
We played this game a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to revisit it to see how we have improved.  I found that we lost the ball a lot less with our first touch and we really started to mix in the short quick passes with the longer balls to the targets.

50-75 Scrimmage

Training 3/8 Juggling Challenge And 3 Team Keep Away

Prepare and train on your own.  Play for each other.  Compete with intensity, respect, and guts.  Train and play on the edge.  "Anson's mantra was always, 'We set the standard for women's soccer in the world and I don't care what people think about us, we're going to get out there and battle.'"

0-10 Ball Skills

10-20 Receiving Technique

20-55 Juggling Challenges and 3 Team Keep Away
For today's session I wanted to continue to build on the focus point of keeping your head up and be aware of your surroundings.  We've done the 3 team keep away a couple of times but I have always said which team was in the middle and we've gone for a certain amount of time.  Today we stepped it up to the point where one team started in the middle, but when they win the ball they are out of the middle and the team who lost the ball to them is now in the middle.

I was not sure if this would work at this age group since there is so much to process.  To keep it as simple as possible we only had 4 players from each color in play at a time.  So on offense it was 8v4. 

After 15 minutes of struggling with the concept and the confusion that comes with not knowing who is in the middle, things really started to improve.  The kids started to employ the ideas of switching the field, receiving the ball under you, communicating and keeping their heads up that I was looking for.

Since I had 3 teams of 6 players there were two extra players for each team that were not in play.  Carly was injured so I had her take the players who were not playing and she came up with different partner juggling challenges that the players competed in while they were not involved in the keep away.  It is very important to try and keep players who are injured involved in training sessions as coaches.  The kids really learn a lot when they are in that position and it still makes them feel like a part of the team.

Scrimmage vs U11 Boys
All winter the boys and girls had been wanting to scrimmage against each other but the numbers had not worked out or I had wanted them to be divided.  Today we let them scrimmage.  Lots of fun for both teams and it was a very close game.

2/23 Field Training: Keep Your Head Up

Apparent disorder is a product of control.
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

0-10 Tennis Ball Work
QB and Receiver against a Corner Back.  Working on the Corner Back being able to track the receiver and still make a play on the ball.  At the same time we are working on the timing of the pass between the QB and the receiver.

10-20 Footskills Routine

20-30 Receiving Technique

30-55 3 Color Keep Away
For today's session we continued to work on keeping our head up while we play.  The big point I'm trying to get across to the girls is to talk to the people around you before they get the ball.  Keep looking and talking so everyone has the full picture in their head.

-We had 18 players so we divided into three teams of 6 players each.
-Orange and Yellow were on offense first against the Pink team. 
-The offense scored a point for making 4 passes in a row.
-The defense scored a point if they could intercept the ball and put their foot on top of the ball to control it.
-For the first couple of games the teams on offense could pass to either the people with the same color pinney as them or the other color. 
-As we became better I put in the restriction that you could not pass the ball to someone wearing the same color as you.  So Orange had to pass to yellow.

The idea of the game is simple but the execution becomes tough when players are trying to look around before they get the ball and still take a good first touch. 

Most players were did one of two things.  1) They kept their head down and only worried about the ball as it came to them so they controlled their first touch well, but they did not know where to go with the ball so they lost it or held onto it for way too long.  2) They kept looking around for who to pass to next and they did not concentrate on their first touch because they were thinking about the next play so they would take a poor first touch.  It was like the saying in football that "You've got to catch the ball before you can run with it."

This game was a really good reminder to all of the kids that we still need to keep concentrating on making our first touch better.  It should become good enough where you don't have to think about your technique.

55-75 Scrimmage

2/9 Training- Keep It

Sometimes he tries too much.  But when I coach, I try to do too much.  I'd rather have a guy who's an attacker rather than a guy who's not sure of himself.
-Jack O'Brien from The Assist

0-10 Tennis Ball Work
Today's work with the tennis balls consisted of the girls being in groups of three.  There was one quarterback, a wide receiver, and a corner back.  Over the next couple of weeks I want to really focus on the corner back play in this exercise.  We are going to work on the footwork and how the corner back can cover the receiver while still knowing when the ball is being delivered.

10-20 Footskills Routine
New routine today.  We showed them four basic movements with the ball and they do each movement for two minutes and switch to the next movement.  At the end they combine the moves.  We are going to be giving the girls sheets that their parents can sign every time they work on this footskills routine for 10 minutes at home.
#1:  Outside Touch-Inside Cut-Switch feet- Outside Touch-Inside Cut- Switch Feet and repeat. 
#2:  Same as above but instead of inside cut, cap the ball with the bottom of your toes
#3: U Cuts: Inside foot pass, pull back, inside of your foot across to your other foot and do the same touches.
#4: Inside pass, pull back, snake (outside inside with one touch) step on with other foot.

20-30 Receiving Technique
Step forward with one foot, receive the ball with the other foot as far away from the passer as possible.  Follow that with 3 quick outside of the foot cuts and pass back.

30-60 6v6 In 3 Grids With A Target And A Support Player

The two big focuses for us were to find the target as early as possible but realize when you should keep the ball if you can't go forward.  I wanted to keep hammering home the importance of keeping your head on a swivel and taking in the entire field.  We took that to the next level today by seeing if we could look up and tell if we were going into a situation with a lot of defenders.  If we were I wanted the people off the ball to yell "Keep It" which would mean that the person on the ball should look square or support and our next pass or two will be to simply keep possession or switch the fields.

This is a pretty advanced concept for 11 and 12 year olds and we are still at the level where putting 4-5 passes together is possessing the ball for a long time, but if we put in the work on the recognition of which team has more players in a certain area on the field, I am confident that our skill on the ball will allow us to start doing some great things.

60-75 Scrimmage

When we finished I told the group that I was very impressed with how well we did with this exercise and the concepts.  It was a good session.

Field Training 2/2 Play The Way You Face

Respect is not inherited.  It must be earned every day.
-Roy Williams

0-10 Tennis Ball Work
Today I asked them to make diving catches with the ball.  It amazes me how many young female athletes don't know how to dive for a ball.  We might have to revisit this activity and work on our form, but it was funny to watch today.

10-20 Footskills Routine

20-35 Receiving Technique
a) As your partner passes you the ball you take one step towards the ball, turn sideways and receive the ball with your other foot as far away from the passer as possible.
b) Same technique but after the pass the passer tries to steal the ball and the receiver has to shield the ball for 4 seconds.  Make sure the passer puts immediate pressure on the receiver so she has to take a good touch or she will lose the ball.
c) Same thing, but after shielding for 2 or 3 seconds can you turn the defender and beat her up field?

35-55 3v3 Plus Targets To Four Goals
This is the same thing we did last week, but I wanted to revisit the exercise because I did not feel that we grasped the concepts or executed very well during this drill. 

Today I had 15 players so I divided them into 3 teams.  I had 2 teams playing and one team on the side doing group juggling.  We had a side competition to see which group could get the most juggles in a row with each time the ball got juggled by a different player it counted as one.

In the 3v3 game today we really focussed on playing the way you are facing.  Last week we kept trying to turn the ball up field every time we received the pass and as a result, we lost the ball a lot.  Today we hammered home the idea of keeping the passing simple so we could keep possession of the ball.

I told them that I trust each of them to be able to dribble by any defender if they are facing up and attacking the goal, but when you are dribbling at your own goal the success rate of beating the defender becomes much lower and the play moves slower.  So pass the ball with one or two touches and move again.

The better we became at this we had to talk about making sure all 3 players were not in a straight line because then our passing options decrease and it becomes much easier for the defenders to steal the ball and counter.

By the end of the drill we were looking very good and I felt much better about our progress this week than I did after last Saturday.

55-75 Scrimmage
The ideas from the session came out in the scrimmage and we had far fewer turnovers.  The players saw how the concepts worked in the game and they were happy with the progress also.  This was our best session of the new year.