Great article on "Free Play"

I read a great article by Rick Fenoglio, Senior Lecturer in Exercise and Sports Science, Manchester Metropolitian University, Cheshire.

He is the co-founder of an organization called Give Us Back Our Game. 

Good luck Simon

It's always good to hear news about former players.

Simon Gatti has made us all proud.  Montreal has invited him to their MLS camp in Mexico in January.

My friend Rino and I coached Simon when he was U9, U10 and U11.  We called him "The King".

Did I have the right attitude?

We had preliminary tryouts in October and will continue in January.  This week a parent of a prospective player told me they had an offer for a spot on another team and asked what they should  do.

I told him I would not say but did remind him who the son was up against and basically told him to take the job or take his chances.  If he had a 0.00% chance of making one of our two teams I would have told him so.

I've had parents present that situation to me in the past.  I never say they are going to make our team, but I have told some parents it might be wise to take the other spot.  That's the extent of my possible answers.  If they are stuck in the middle I remind them that I am not going to make a decision for them.

It's a problem when every team is running tryouts over different time frames.  I could easily say this type of parental dilemma is not my problem, but that's not a statement I am comfortable with.  But I have to protect our process and be fair to the group in tryouts.

I hope parents have a "plan b" in their pocket when they are attending multiple tryouts.

This goes hand-in-hand with my lack of comfort in recruiting when it comes to youth soccer.

Book: A Beautiful Game

For my birthday, my sister Maria gave me a book called A Beautiful Game: The World's Greatest Players and How Soccer Changed Their Lives .

The book is full of fantastic photos and great stories.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much we gave this to our boys team as their year end gift this past fall.  I think some of the dads liked it more than the boys.

Thursday Clinic 7 of 8

Last night we delivered session 7 of 8 of our clinic.  I have to say it was the most productive and successful session we've had so far.

The main theme was to look for the penetrating pass. 

• We started with a basic keep-away warm-up.  You can never play too much keep-away. 
• We followed it with a flowing 2-touch passing drill that demanded quicker passes, good first touch and lots of movement to be successful. 
• That was followed by a 4v2 game that required quick-early-accurate passes to score. 
• We then played a larger 10v10 version of the game where the field is broken into 4 zones, field width.  The players are organized 5 per zone with the opposition between you and your teammates.  So 5 yellow/5 red/5 yellow/5 red.  You score by moving the ball into the other zone where your teammates are. 

We ended with a 5v5+GK game (with offside) with the focus being on the pentrating pass.  If a forward pass is not available then turn and keep possession using support.

The question of the night was "Can I go forward?"  Yes?  Go (Dribble/Pass/Shoot)  No?  Turn and use support.

Coaching points were:

• First look/touch forward
• Putting the ball between and behind defenders
• Quick-early-accurate passes
• Support players ahead of the ball looking to get between and behind defenders
• Support players behind the ball have enough room to make a forward first touch

During the 10v10 version (4 zones) of the game a player on the opposing team could come into your zone to pressure the ball.  This is where we saw the players were getting the idea of working to keep possession if they had no forward play.

Next week we wrap up.