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.

3/5 Tourny Prep Sessions

Everyone knows that champions are made in the off season. The training and sacrifice of what you do when no one is looking paves the way for success when the lights are the brightest.

I don't like to spend very much time on conditioning with young kids because it is more important for the players to be working on their technical skills and playing than getting in top condition.  Besides, if you can keep the players motivated they should be working hard during your session so they can get their conditioning in while they are playing.

However, if I completely neglect the conditioning aspect as we move towards our first tournament of the year, not only will the kids not be as prepared as they should be for the tournament, I would be putting them into a situation where the possibility for injuries will be increased.

Our lack of games during the winter is great from a training and development aspect, but as everyone who has played the game knows, there is a huge difference between being in shape for training and being in game shape.  We are about to go from having two 11v11 games in the last 5 months to playing in hopefully 4 games in two days.  So each Wednesday we will have our Tourny Prep Sessions where we that will be designed for the girls to work hard and get into top level shape before we go to West Des Moines.

As I was writing up all the plans for each Wednesday session I wanted to be sure that the girls would work hard and get in better shape, but at the same time I want them working with a ball and having fun.  Conditioning is not nearly as hard if you can make it competitive and fun.  So my goal is for the girls to focus more on the competition aspect of what we are doing and the conditioning will be a by-product.

We started out with a bunch of relay races

The encouragement relay is a good way to build team unity because your teammates are helping you through a difficult time by showing you that they support you.

After we finished our relays I moved to 1v1 battles.  There is not better conditioning than 1v1 games with intensity.  We played 1v1 stop it on the line.

We finished with playing.  We had 3 teams of 6 players and rotated with every goal.  It's always important to end with a game.

I was very happy with how hard all the girls worked today.

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.)

3/2 Futbol Sala- Recovery Defending

A leader's job is to develop committed followers.  Great leaders inspire their teams to believe so deeply in their mission that they become immersed in what they're doing.
-Dean Smith

0-10 Tennis Ball Work

10-30 Recovery Defending From An Angle
Today's focus was on how to take a good angle to cut off a girl who has gotten the ball on the outside of the field and is cutting in towards goal.

The big point that I wanted to get across to the girls was to hustle back and cut off the shot to the far post.  Our goalies should be able to take away any shot to the near post.  If you can get your body in the way of the far post shot and not get cut back, we should be ok.

30-50 3v4 Games
We had one team play short handed to work on playing defense a man down.  The key point was to make the play predictable.  I also wanted the girls to be competitive and play to win even though they were a player short.  At the same time I wanted the team with a man advantage to show a killer mentality and win with the extra player.

50-75 4v4
Just Play