I apologize to everyone for becoming so lax in my efforts here at the blog. The combination of my coaching schedules and administrator duties this session have made it near impossible for me to even take a moment to reflect on how the kids are progressing let alone write anything about it. But the session is over and my schedule is less hectic so now I can take a moment to look back on the work we did this Summer/Fall and think about where our various Sharks are. And I promise that from here on out I'll get back to regularly reporting on what I'm seeing in practices and games.
Hopefully you noticed during the course of the Fall session that the focus in practice was always on individual ball control skills. I occasionally threw in a passing/shooting drill, mostly for the aerobic aspect of it, but the bulk of our time was spent working on ball control. With the younger kids the idea was always to just keep them focused on having the ball at their feet and getting a feel for moving around and taking the ball with them. For the older kids I was trying to introduce them to some more complex deceptive moves while always emphasizing to them that the most important thing is to develop a soft touch on the ball and learn to be confident with the ball at your own feet. Kicking it away is rarely the best first option.
What I saw by the end of the session was a lot of very good progress with many players showing remarkable improvement and growing confidence. During the indoor sessions we'll continue in that direction, always focusing on developing those individual skills that make it possible for a player to feel comfortable on the field, even in a crowd. The indoor sessions give us a great opportunity to work on really sharpening those close-in technical skills, the pull-backs and play-behinds and all the other great moves you can use to deceive your opponent. The turf conditions outdoor can be unforgiving but indoor it's all smooth so you have the chance to really work on that fine ball control you need to win in one-on-one situations. I'm really looking forward to it. And, as I've said before, I'm not looking for wins. I'm looking for constant improvement and growth. I'm looking for the kids to be fearless and feel that they're free to try anything. When we see them doing that, when we see them trying to throw a step-over or scissors or Cruyf turn or whatever in to a game situation, we need to celebrate that as much as we would a goal. To succeed you can't be afraid to fail. Check out the video below. It shows a professional team in pre-game warm ups. When one of the players, Juan Mata, executes a move that just looks impossible his teammates celebrate with him like he'd scored a goal in competition. That's how I'd like my teams to be...all the players pulling for each other and pushing each other to try harder and go farther.
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