U6 Week Three Highlights.

     First I want to thank Hailey, Ava and Maddox of the U6 Bats for helping out one of the other U6 teams that was short a few players Saturday.  Coach Petzelt told me they were a great help to his team.
     Before the Bat's game Saturday I showed them a new move which is a variation on the "pull-back" move they've all mastered so well.  It's called a Puskas after the player who made it famous but I also refer to it as a "fake pull-back".  It's a simple step that you sometimes hear other coaches just referring to as an "L" move.  You pull the ball back with your toe, rolling your toe down the back of the ball, but then instead of letting the ball roll past you and then turning with it as in a "pull-back", the player taps the ball out to their side with the outside of the foot and takes off running with it.  You sort of draw an L with the ball.  If done quickly it's very effective and a great first move in a combination with a second move like a "cut" or feint.
      Everyone got the move pretty quickly in our warm up and then I asked them all to try and use it in the game once we got started.  I was happy to see so many of the kids doing just that.  It can be comical though as from an adult's perspective you see that they aren't always using the move at an appropriate time and so it's not always effective.  The kids may even try their move when they are in open space and not being challenged by an opponent.  That's good though.  By setting them the task of demonstrating their moves in the game and then praising their use of those skills we get them in a situation where they focus on using the skill at game speed without being concerned about when the right time to use it is.  They learn that on their own by being free to experiment with the move, to see how well it works against an opponent.  Last week's Lion's game was a great example of this with all of the kids doing multiple, and mostly superfluous, pull-backs.  Slowly as they do that sort of in-game experimentation they will grasp how the move affects the players around them.  They slowly learn to take control of the situation, make their move first and even trick their opponent.
     Ashley probably made a huge step in this regard in Saturday's game.  In the second half I asked them to each try to use their pull-back in combination with another move.  Maybe a puskas, maybe two pull-backs together.  Whatever they wanted to try.  At one point Ashley was coming up the wall and she stopped the ball with her toe and instead of making her move right away she paused with her toe on the ball.  She was waiting for the defender to move to the ball.   When he did she then executed her pull-back and with the defender now chasing the ball around her she was able to do a second pull-back and then be clear of the defender.  If the memory of that sticks with her Ashley will have taken a big step in her development.  Good attacking players don't wait to respond to what a defender does.  They take control, move first and force the defender to commit.  That's why I don't want the kids thinking about whether or not to use one of their moves in the game.  I want them to keep it simple.  Just get out their, get to the ball and try your move.
     The parent of a player on another of the U6 team and I were talking about this and he was saying that it looks silly sometimes when his kid is out in the open with no one pressuring him and he just does a pull-back or step-over.  But that's exactly what you want to see from them at this age.  They've got to feel free to use those moves like that all the time, in any situation.  You wouldn't teach a basketball player how to dribble and then tell them "but that's a special technique, save it for the right moment".  Right now each of these "moves" we're teaching them looks like some fabulous new dance step but by the time they're playing in U14 these will all be just tools in the bag, commonplace parts of their ball control technique.