2/2 Rosemount League vs U13 Mixed Team

I was excited for today's game because we got to play the U13 mixed team.  It is a team made up of players from our U13 Blue team and our former U13 White team.  I coached a lot of these girls last year and I have been happy watching them play very well in this league.  They have been passing the ball very well and been playing attractive soccer and dominating the first four weeks of the league.

Before the game we talked about how important it would be for us to call out who goes ball and who has help because of the U13's ball movement.  If we didn't do that well today we were probably going to get killed.  We also talked about how well the session went this morning and how we needed to bring those ideas into a real game situation.  The last thing we talked about was being confident in our ability to shoot from distance.  Everyone can see the improvement in the shots each week and now we need to believe in ourselves and look to score any time we are within 25 yards of goal.

The U13's started off strong and they were moving the ball well in the opening minutes.  5 minutes in we finally broke the pressure, moved down field and won a throw in deep in their end.  Instead of throwing the ball to the endline to win a corner or get a cross off, we threw the ball backwards.  As the ball went backwards we headed the ball to a runner on the endline and we were offsides.  The U13's took the kick immediately and played a great ball to the forward on the far side of the field.  She made a pass and they finished it off to go up 1-0.  It took about 10 seconds from us having a throw in deep in their end to them having a goal.

We have talked about where we want to throw the ball when we are deep in their end.  We want someone to post up down on the endline and work to win a corner.  Normally throw ins are crowded and it is tough to play out of them down in that area of the field because so many people will get back on defense for these throw-ins.  If we can win a corner it will be more dangerous than trying to play through all the defenders.  The worst thing that can happen if we throw the ball to the endline is that we will lose the ball out for a goal kick or they will win in very deep in their end and we can put lots of pressure on them.

We don't want to throw the ball backwards in this area of the field because when your team has a throw in there is a false sense of security that your team will keep possession of the ball.  If you can keep possession of the ball on 60% of your throw ins you are doing well.  In this area of the field players will push up in anticipation of a cross and it leaves us vulnerable to a counter attack.  If we throw it backwards and lose the ball the other team will typically have lots of space to dribble into and they will be off to our goal with us chasing behind them.

With this particular throw in the idea was good in that they were trying to do a quick combination.  The result of it was us being just offsides and they got a free kick deep in their end.  Nothing that really concerns me.  But because they were able to score so quickly off of this I saw an opportunity for me to solidify where we should throw the ball in from now on.

I immediately started talking to all the girls on the bench about where we want to throw the ball when we are in that area of the field.  When I made subs I talked with the girls from the field about the situation.  We talked about it again at half time and every time we had another throw-in in that area we talked about it again.  We must have talked about that throw in 10 different times during the game.  It probably seemed like overload to the girls and by the 7th time I had brought up the point they were doing the "We know.  We know.  Throw it to the end line." voice.

Back to the game.  As I was talking with the girls about the throw in Carly came down the wing, passed the ball into Jordy and she put the ball low into the far corner of the net to tie the game at 1-1.  A great response.

After that goal we started to play very well and the ideas from the training session were carrying through to the game.  We were able to keep the ball when we won it and playing the way were facing helped our movement off the ball.

15 minutes in the ball came out to Gaffer, who was about 25 yards out from goal, and everyone on the bench and on the field was encouraging her to shoot.  She obliged and laced the ball into the far upper corner to take the lead at 2-1.

At half time we talked about the throw in, the great response we had to their goal, defending corners, they were very dangerous on corners, and continuing to shoot from distance.

The second half started and we played very well from the opening whistle.  We did a great job of moving the ball and we started to get creative with some of our passes including a backheel from LP that beat a couple of defenders.

Despite our good play, 8 minutes into the half the U13's scored two quick goals and jumped to a 3-2 advantage.  I was curious to see how the girls would respond to leading the game and playing well to losing in a span of 2 minutes.  It took us a couple minutes to make the flow of play even again but we battled back and the last 15 minutes of the game were fun back and forth action by both teams. 

7 minutes from time Jordy rocketed a shot from 20 yards out into the upper corner to tie the game.  After the goal both teams had chances and both goalies came up big.

As you could have guessed before the game started the score ended tied.  Our fourth tie in 5 games.  I feel like Liverpool in the EPL this year.  This was the last week of the regular season and I believe our record will put us in 2nd or 3rd place.  If we are second we get to face the U13's again next week in a friendly, if we are third we will play Farmington in the first round of the play-offs.

MVP's:
AJ- For her communication and organization from goal along with some good saves.
Erika- This was the hardest we had seen her play and the girls rewarded her effort.
Gaffer- For her feistiness and drive to win.

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.

1/29 Ball Striking- The Shots Are Getting Harder

From the practice point of view every hour doesn't have 60 minutes: an hour only consists of so many minutes you are able to profit from.
-Horst Wein

Today I gave the girls the choice of how they wanted to start the session.  They could choose to either start shooting at goal from the start or work on their own against the wall.  It made me happy when they chose to work on their own at the start.  They are starting to really understand the different components that they need to work on to create a powerful shot and it is fun to see them work on different things individually.

After they finished working on their own we did one touch and shoot for a little bit.  Then we backed them up and had them sprint with the ball before they took their shot.  I would guess that almost 50% of all the shots taken either had no spin or forward spin on the shots.  It is a great improvement from when we started focussing on this 4 weeks ago.  Back then we were lucky to finish have a couple of shots go correctly.

After watching the improvements and the enjoyment that the girls are taking in seeing the results by working on the same thing week after week it reminds me that being disciplined in my coaching progression is very important.

Now if we can start shooting from outside in our games we will be very dangerous.