Training - Tuesday, Sept 4

On the heels of a busy weekend of soccer, the plan for today was to have the entire pool group meet over at Woodbury HS to watch the Woodbury vs Mounds View varsity game at 7PM.  I was looking forward to going on to support the local HS as the majority of our East Academy players live in the Woodbury area.  I also knew it would be a good opportunity to educate the players in a controlled setting as we sat together and watched what was sure to be a competitive HS game.   

It was not meant to be though as we found out this morning that the game had been moved to Mounds View.  Bummer. 

So I sent out an email letting people know about the change in plans and offered to show up at Potowatomi Park in Woodbury (our home training field this fall) to work with any of the girls who wanted to show up.  This was a completely optional session.  If there was one, she'd get a private lesson.  If there were a handful, we'd work as a small group.

24 of the 32 showed up.  Nice.  Gotta love it.  By the way, we have 32 with the 28 player pool group and including 4 US Club Soccer guest players.

The game plan for the day was simple.  My major focus with this group is to continually work on building all the players' self confidence and composure in game settings.  How can I do this?  First and foremost, it is technical skills development.  Comfortable with the ball at your feet = more composed play with better field vision (as players are able to lift their head up from focusing on the ball to see the field).

Soccer games can be broken down into a many 1v1 battles, so my goal will be to use 1v1 drills and exercises to simulate the smallest part of the big game.  Get the girls comfortable with the ball at their and under pressure in 1v1 situations in training and in games, and this will lay an extremely solid foundation from which tactical instruction can be build off of in later years. 

In order to simulate game pressure, I need to make the activities we do in training competitive while challenging defending players to work hard to simulate game opposition.  The saying I use a lot is "You're not your friend's friend if you don't make them work/put them under pressure".  Meaning, that you're not helping your teammate/friend if you take it easy on them in training. 

Soccer Golf Warm Up

I divided the girls into 4 teams of 6.  These teams stayed in teams for the entire session.

As I set up the fields for the 1v1s, I had the groups occupy themselves with some Soccer Golf

Set Up

• Teams of 3 - 6 players
• Ball per player

Procedure

• Shortest to tallest would be the order for picking "holes"
• Shortest girl in the group picks a distant target for the groups first "hole"
• The players take turns kicking the ball towards the target and count the number of strokes taken to hit the target
• After the first hole is complete, the next shortest girl in the group picks the next hole

Make It Competitive

• Player with the least amount of strokes at the end of the time limit is the winner

Coaching Points

• Ball striking for distance
• Accurate passing when close to target

Comments

• Get the girls to be creative - hit the right goal post of the far goal, but you have to go around that little tree, or can't hit pavement or sidewalk, else it's a penalty stroke
• The girls LOVE this game!

1v1 to Back to Back Goals

5v5 No Tackling

5v5 Free Play