U13 - Something I sent to our parents

I sent this to our parents today.  Not only do I want parents being more involved this year, I also want to share what we are doing with the boys so they understand what they might hear during matches.  They are a good bunch and they've been supportive since I took over the team at U11.

Hi there parents,

I told you I would keep you up-to-date this year in our dealings with the boys.  Thanks for your time in reading this and helping with our message.

The boys continue to delight with their personalities, sharing their pre-teen thoughts with the group and experimenting with their new vocabulary.  I really do love this age.

I see us moving toward a final vision of our on field product.  Coach Paul and I see good ideas happening all the time, as well as things that need to be fixed.  Coach Paul had a good idea for me, but my head wouldn’t fit in the toilet.

Shin pads are required at training. If you don’t have shin pads, you risk injury.  If you worry about getting hurt and you have no shin pads, you will not tackle hard and challenge at training, meaning you are also cheating your opponent of his game-like situation.

We’ve been doing more positional work this year and giving the kids more tactical information, in various forms to suit whatever learning style works for them.  That series of sheets was sent out last week.  I have one almost ready that describes every position and their main functions when we have the ball and when we are defending.  Some will read it, other will not.  Some parents may never show it to them.  For all I know you may not even have read this far in this message.  We can’t control that, we can only prepare and deliver.

I just wanted to share with you what we say to the boys on a regular basis. 

1. If you head the ball, you must attack the ball, not let the ball hit your head.  Eyes open, body strong, through the ball.  Failing to apply the proper technique is not only poor soccer, it’s dangerous and can cause shoulder, neck and head injuries.  Bending down and heading a ball with the top of your head is a sure-fire trip to the chiropractor.  The incoming balls being headed are hit harder and are now size 5 instead of 4.  The problem is this .. Either head the ball correctly, or don’t head it .  But if you want to play U13 soccer and beyond, you need to head the ball, so we work to do it correctly.  We are sincerely afraid every time a player doesn’t go into a head ball with full intentions.  
2. When you step in for a tackle: full tackle, body strong, with force.  Not to hurt the other player, but to prevent injury to you.  Failing to tackle hard not only causes you to look silly and is poor defending, it’s very dangerous.  Tackle correctly or don’t tackle.  The only problem is if you want to play U13 soccer, you need to tackle and play to win the ball.
3. First to the ball.  Go in to win the ball.  Strong.  Going in weak is not only poor soccer, it’s dangerous.  If you’ve played any sport you see people getting hurt by going in “second” and trying to recover.
4. Going in strong forces you to be ready for impact (which doesn’t hurt) and requires balance, minimizing injuries.  Poor-balance Injuries can occur on impact or when moving your body into the next movement.
5. Kick the ball or don’t kick the ball, but don’t just swing your foot in it’s general vicinity.  Striking a ball with intention and purpose forces balance and strength and prepares you for your next movement.
6. A lot of injuries at impact are technique related and we don’t want any of our boys getting hurt.  That’s why hockey coaches work so hard in teaching how to deliver and take a body check.
7. There is no being “tired”.  Even if you are tired :) You feel some fatigue, work through it and find your second wind.  You play or don’t play.  If you are on the field, you want to play and you don’t want to come off.  
8. Inspire each other with your own hard work.  If you work hard, your teammate will work hard.  If you don’t, neither will your teammate.
   

Items 1-8 are the coaches job to fix, not a knock on any player.  We will continue find ways for players to experience game like situations at training so they are more prepared, and less fearful, for the confrontations in a game.  If a boy is scared of a certain situation, it’s our job to find ways to expose him to it and subside those anxieties.  The nice thing is if you work past any reservations you have with all situations, you are not only safer, you also become one hell of a soccer player.

The game is not dangerous, but I know it’s scary living this physical reality for the first time.  A Connor/Noah type physically competing 1v1 with a Haris/Spencer type is a reality with the U13/U14 age group.    Strength and balance are key components to durability.

Our other message is that in U13/U14 competitive sports, players who were successful before are being pressured for jobs by boys who are blooming later.  Don’t assume your spot is your spot.  There is more turnover on teams and what starts to separate players are their level of work/grit, their durability and their competitiveness in all situations.  This applies to all sports.  Coaches also like to see who the players are that push others to compete.  We want to prepare the boys for this and make sure they are mentally and physically ready to challenge at the next soccer, basketball, hockey or lacrosse tryouts.

I just wanted to share that with you.

Thanks for your support to this point.  We’ll stay in touch.

Coaches Frank and Paul

U13 - West Niagara Tournament

Today we had our first "competition".  The West Niagara Invitational Soccer Tournament is held during the pre-season every year.  It's hosted by the Lincoln Soccer Club, but is held all over Niagara.  They do a  great job!

To summarize the 3 games and our day quickly:

We won our first game 2-0 and lost our next two games 3-0 each.  In both 3-0 losses, our boys were playing well but allowed themselves to stop pressuring and challenging for short periods of time.  The last two teams were stronger than us. It was a great example of how you CAN play with them if you get in their face on every pass and how you get flattened when you stop running.

We were playing with only two reserves all day long (illness, vacations, etc) and that helped everybody play a lot.

Every player on our team had some personal success moments and we saw an improvement in one aspect or another of each boy.

Our heading was the most notable team improvement and changed our overall effectiveness in a game.

We had many good examples of 2/3/4 players pressuring an area and winning the ball.

Our goalkeeper was struggling to hit the ball in recent weeks but today he had a great day.

We held our shape fairly well.  We play an attacking 4-3-3 and we still have to master where our holding midfielder should be at all times.  When he gets lost it puts extra pressure on our central defenders.   This will improve with more practice.

Our passing was hot and cold.  But continues to get warmer with each game.

Our main weakness is still getting to the ball first and the strength of our tackling.  That is something we will continue working on.  There are some other weaknesses or course, this this is the most glaring.

Our focus at training this week will be winning the ball in a 1v1 and getting to the ball first.

The boys demonstrated today that, for Coach Paul and me,  the program has been time well spent.

U13 - Second Friendly

Tonight we played our second friendly.  The quantitative result was 2-0 in our favour.  The team we played are much improved over last season and we are very appreciative of them inviting us to work together with them.

Our 2 goals were very sweet soccer goals.    Both sequences were started as a switch in the play by our holding midfielder at the time.  They saw it works... great.

The good:

• Nice goals
• We kept our shape much better
• We were quicker getting out and coming back, keeping our shape compact up/down the field.
• They had some great ideas as the game progressed
• We had good organization on both sides of goal kicks and corner kicks
• More players recognizing when to turn 
• More attempts at switching the play 
• Lots of crosses
• The boys worked hard to get the balls down the wings, behind the defenders

The bad:

• Strength and technique when heading the ball
• Distances on throw-ins
• Some wild kicks to nobody/nowhere

The ugly:

• Not getting to the ball first.  Almost every time.

These are the coaches' problems to fix and our sessions will focus around them.

This Saturday we have our first tournament.  I wouldn't say we are 100% ready to play but I would say we want to play, which is good.  Tonight I had a to-do list for the boys and they did it for the most part.  I will work with Coach Paul to put together wish lists for each game Saturday.

I always say I don't like playing two matches in a row because there are things to fix.

Toronto FC - Youth Soccer Night

Last night Toronto FC held a Youth Soccer Night before their ACC game vs Montreal Impact.  The schedule was some finger foods and drinks at Gossip Restaurant, guest speakers were to be Paul Mariner (Player Development Director) and Thomas Rongen (TFC Academy Director).  After the festivities everybody was to head over to BMO Field to watch the game.

There were some familiar faces in the restaurant and it was nice to catch up with some old friends.  I was hoping the two speakers would leave us with some technical/tactical/organizational thoughts to digest.  Paul Mariner's words were of a salutory natue and Thomas Rongen ended up not being able to make it.  So from that viewpoint, it was disappointing.  He did make it late and was around chatting up the room.

We did have a good time with the people we met at our table and the friends we already knew.  It's always fun to network and share information.  My cousin Nino won a pair of tickets to TFC vs NY Red Bulls so that spiced up our evening. 

Even though the original schedule did not happen, I am still glad we attended the pre-game portion of the evening.  Toronto FC were gracious hosts and they've proven to be good corporate citizens.

The game was a lot of fun.  The soccer was very decent and Toronto won so that made the crowd a more positive experience.  Here is the game report.  I still find a lot of MLS players seem to play with their heads down and keep running into guys or trying to pass/cross balls "through" defenders, hitting their shins, etc.  The top players are nice to watch and slowly the league continues to get better and better. 

The win was good for TFC, as they are 0-8 in league play so far. 

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.