U17 - First game of the season

Last night, the U17 boys had their season opener at home.  The game was interesting even before the first player showed up to the field.

With a 17 player roster, the team had 11 players the entire match.  Very dangerous considering it was hot and humid and most of the players had a school practice at 2:30pm.  2 players were suspended from last season, 2 players are injured and 2 players were sick.  The U16 team was still at a tournament in Erie, PA, so there was no chance of using their boys as call-ups.

Playing with 11 players leaves your team so vulnerable: tactically, emotionally and physically.  Our opponent was Oakville SC.

I was unable to be there for the first half due to a family function.  Upon arrival, we were down 1-0.  Watching the boys, I saw that one striker was running out of steam and one of our central defenders was in discomfort (limping).  Trouble was brewing.

I was happy to see they were staying organized and playing intelligently.  The team was adapting to their partially healthy teammates and picking their punches.

We drew even off a set play.  A long ball was played wide and over the defenders.  A player hit the ball out of the air back in front of goal, where it was redirected in by our striker.

After a change in tactics and formation to further compensate for our fatigue and suffering players, one of our guys was brought down in the penalty area.  He converted the PK to go up 2-1 with a few minutes left.  The team shuffled the deck again to hold their lead and finish out the match.

There were a few times where I was worried about 17 year-old tempers hurting our team, but those incidents were quickly diffused by calmer teammates.

There are things a coach can observe and comment on after every game.  In this case, you celebrate the incredible effort and teamwork, take your 3 points and go home.  I am hoping the team uses this effort and result as a springboard to an enjoyable season.  

Congratulations AGAIN Sabrina! Senior WNT call-up

Welland's Sabrina D'Angelo continues her exciting journey in our national program by getting called to be a backup goalkeeper for our women's national team, this Wednesday vs China in Moncton, NB.

Link to pregame story
Link to Sabrina's profile

When do we start specializing positions?

Determining the age of when to start slotting players in fixed positions is a never ending debate for every sport. 

Slowly, we are moving our team towards 1, 2 or 3 possible positions for each player.  We will always tinker and experiment, but there will be an underlying consistency to our line-up.

So when is a good time to specialize young players in certain positions?  We have players who have had tremendous success in certain positions but are reluctant to try other spots. 

How about when a parent is trying to interfere with where you are paying their child?  I say “try” because if a parent is influencing your line-up, your team needs another coach.

I like to try players in different spots to see if we can determine the best spot for them.   But I try to ease those changes in while keeping the rest of the line-up stable. 

Here are my thoughts.  If you have players who can succeed in more than one position:

• They develop a more complete set of skills, mentally, tactically and technically.
• It gives you more flexibility in putting other players on the field.
• You have more options tactically, for different situations.
• You prepare them to win spots in other programs, away from your team (school, academy, college, etc).

There are things you need to consider.

• If a player is trying a new position with limited (but increasing) success, you can move them back and forth so they continue to experience success.
• If a player is failing at a position that you thought would work for them, you should consider the possibility that you were wrong.  Let them go back for a while, then try somewhere else when you feel they are ready.
• Make sure you put each player’s needs before the entire teams.  When all of your players are confident and succeeding, the team’s needs will be met.
• All players deserve the opportunity to periodically play a full match. Sometimes players don’t “let it all out “ if they know they are your first choice to be replaced during games.

One last consideration is that each position has desirable physical characteristics for the players who play there.  As the players age and pass through puberty, their physical characteristics will also change.  The more technical work and situations they are exposed to as younger players, the better prepared they will be for the challenges their future coaches hand to them.

We will see how things develop with each boy as the season moves forward.  It’s a challenge for youth coaches to not get caught up in the score and situation, forgetting to serve their players.

U17 - Transition - Intro to Counter Attack

After my U13 practice last night we had a U17 session.  The start time was 7:15 because we had team photos immediately after.

Some of the boys had track and school soccer earlier that day, but everybody was in a good mood.  I was feeling pretty groovy after a good session with our U13 boys.

We started out with a dribbling warm-up and introduced them to some 1v1 attacking ideas.  I am not sure what the sequence is called, but it's a change of pace, double tap on an angle with the outside of your foot, and making a move.  The three moves we did were 1) turn back 2) chop across to the other foot 3) push it forward and go.

We progressed from this to a 1v1 drill to the net.  Players were encouraged to experiment with their new moves.  Coaching points were:

• Keep ball close and under control
• Attack defender, then change of pace to double tap
• See man, ball and space and time move properly
• After the decided move is executed, explode and go

We saw some good creativity by the attacker and some good attempts  at finishing.

On a side note, I always appreciate the GK on this team.  He works hard all the time, even when he's not being directly coached.

We used a Game-Activity-Game (GAG) approach to the last part of practice.  Our last session, we worked on maintaining focus during transition.   The progression was to introduce/review the counter-attack.  Counter-attacking is a mentality.  To me, it's a celebration of winning the ball back and trying to make the opponent sorry for losing the ball.

To start, we let them play for  5 minutes and get in game mode.  I then stopped and quickly went over ideas for what can happen when the team wins the ball back:
For the player with the ball:

• Long first touch forward if possible
• Pass/run forward into space
• Move with urgency
• Catch other team before they re-organize

For the players supporting:

• Look to get ahead of the ball for a forward pass
• Look to create a target/space behind defenders
• Look to support man with ball in case counter-attack is not there and he needs support

This break in action and ideas changed the game.  The boys gave our ideas and philosophy an honest shot and executed it with a fair amount of success.  At times we corrected a few situations but for the most part, they understood.

We only had 11 players and one of the coaches played.  It would have been more effective if the entire team was here, but they weren't.  We played with offside to make it more realistic.

This was about counter-attacking, so it was transition  from defending to attacking.  Another time we will do transition again, from attacking to defending.

This group has their first game Monday night.  I am not sure what to expect as we've had very little time together and very few sessions with a full squad.  They come to work and I always feel good about our progress when the sessions are over.

U13 - Challenging for the ball

I feel closer to my team than ever after our session last night. Last night we had our training on a mini field at our club.

Environment:

• 14 players 
• 60x40 mini-field with 2 goals
• 20 balls, 12 agility poles, cones, blue and yellow pinnies 

I was tired and emotionally drained yesterday, so I made sure the practice plan kept the boys busy and productive and not let my fatigue set me up to ruin training. My goal for the end of the night was to have more “challenges” 1v1 and playing the ball out of the air.

I did not do any running. It was VERY hot, and I wanted them with full energy for the subsequent drills.

We started with a dribbling warm-up that included dribbling through 6 agility poles and then running with the ball for 20 yds. Going through the poles we circled each one with the inside and outside of the feet then right and left foot only. Running with the ball is always a challenge for some boys and it requires more practice than some people think.

We then set up a 1v1 sequence that we always use. Simple serve and play setup. I didn’t coach it because I was going to over-coach the next drill.

We then set up a 10x20 grid. 7 yellow, 7 greys. Each team lined up on their own end, holding hands across as if to form a wall across the end of the grid. Each player was assigned a number. I would serve a ball in the middle, call a number and each corresponding number from each end entered the “battle area” to win the ball. To score the ball had to be played on the ground past the wall of players holding hands. I was looking for hard challenges and we were starting to get them.

Our progression was that I would call 2 numbers. The first number had the challenge. If a player was beat, then his teammate (the second number) stepped in to cover.

Coaching points:

• CHALLENGE!
• Don’t let us at the moment of impact, to avoid injury
• Full body into the challenge
• If you win the ball, lift your head and make the next play a smart one.

I have to say I was happy with how this ended. I work hard to stay patient as I know each player needs that moment when they have a collision and realize it doesn’t hurt. The guys were whooping it up when there was a good challenge and I saw guys helping each other up after collisions.

Getting your players to challenge is more mental than it is technical.  It's not like teaching how to cross or defend as there is fear to overcome. When it's happening, one player at a time, the entire team senses a new level of intensity.

When we got into our game I was looking for challenges for each ball. I was also encouraging the keepers to put the ball in the air as I also wanted to get them in the mindset for playing balls out of the air (and challenging for balls in the air)

As a coach, I am happy with our progress heading the ball, playing the ball out of the air and the appreciation they are developing for strong challenges.

I wouldn’t say it was my best coached session ever, but I wasn’t in the mood to be frustrated and I didn’t want to ruin a 90-minute opportunity to work with my boys... so I will say I am proud of how I planned it. They gave me 100% and showed improvement, so I can't be unhappy. We even took a 10 minute break to cheer on our U9 boys in their first ever game on the next field.

Watching them leave, I felt good that they were feeling good and they know they did a good job.  Reflecting afterwards, I can say we worked together to keep the practice on track and productive.

There is one thing we need to improve on ... chasing balls during the pre-practice goof-around.  The boys were told last night that practice stops when I do not see 20 balls present.