U13 - The boys rescued the session

On Tuesday our plan was to do technical work, some work on organization for restarts, a short phase of play then some fun competition.  Mother nature ruined the plan but the boys rescued the 2 hour session.

Upon arrival the field was wet and some sections unplayable.  I guess it rained a lot more than we thought.  I don't like to turn away from field conditions if there are playable sections because the boys have to deal with that in games.

Rearranging the plan was not a big deal, although our options were limited.  But the boys were very enthusiastic and kept moving for the full 2 hours.  It was nice to see and very motivating for coaches.  Had they said "screw it" we would not have had any success tonight.

We started with a 5 minute run where the last player continually runs to the front of the line.  Then we did 6 field length "rugby" runs.

I limited our technical work to dribbling and turning, using agility poles as markers.  We then did 12v4 and 10v6 keep-away.  Our coaching points for tonight's keep away:

• Adjust the weight of the pass for the ground conditions
• First touch must be out from the feet as it's more difficult to dig a ball out from under on a wet field
• Communication, mobility and angles of support
• Keep the ball moving
• Look before AND after you receive the ball
• See where the defenders are and put the ball where they "ain't", now!

They were making proper adjustments to the field conditions.  If the field was any wetter or soggy, it would have eliminated some players from being able to overcome that from a strength point of view.

We then had them play 8v8 across a playable slice of the field.  No keepers, lots of space, each end had a goal in each corner and the team could score in either goal at the other end.  We set the shape of 3-3-2 and played with offsides.  At first we just let them play.  As the game progressed we adjusted the shape more and more and minimized the stoppages for coaching.  After a short break we set them up again, made a few suggestions and set them off again.    We wanted to see the wide mids move the ball back to the defenders when they were in trouble and encouraging the defenders to look forward first.  We have a few defenders who just dish the ball off laterally to another defender.

The game them progressed that it went up to three and the losers did 10 pushups.

We finished by letting the players hit some balls on goal from outside the penalty area.  Inside the penalty area, from 6-10 yards our, was under water.

The boys did enjoy themselves, and they seemed to like being wet and muddy.  There was definite improvement with our defenders looking to play the ball forward as their preferred option.  We moved to players forward from last year and both are starting to look to combine with other players to get the balls behind the defenders.  The boys were able to get in some soccer in a wet field (don't underestimate how valuable that is).

In a perfect world I would have gone to the field during the day to scope it out and make a new plan.  I didn't realize it had rained that much and I didn't know how this field handles water.

Our next session is an 11v11 setup with another team on Thursday.  Then we have a tournament on the weekend.