Match Week Two: Teachable Moments Missed.

     Coach Eric's U8 boys were playing immediately after Girl Power on Saturday morning so he was able to stand on the sidelines with me for the girl's game.  Hanging out on the sideline with another Legends coach, observing our players at work and discussing what we're seeing...I really enjoy that opportunity.  In this case it was fun because while Eric knows all the girls, he hadn't seen most of them play in a while.  His surprise at how dramatically they were improving was very gratifying and confirms what I've been thinking as I watch them play.  They're at a stage right now where they are building on their skills and experience very rapidly, leaping forward every game. 
     This week they found themselves facing a BSS team that had thirteen players on the squad.  Ridiculous.  We had only one sub with Zoe being out and it was hot and humid but our girls showed that in addition to having a lot of skill they're also very fit and so they handled this game easily.  They dominated possession of the ball as always and rose to the challenges that I set for them to keep trying their moves and winning their one-v-ones.  There was still too much ball chasing but I'm just accepting that it will take a while for them to work through that. 
     There were two highlights I want to mention.  One was the second of Hailey's goals that was a simply beautiful little chip shot.  She had dribbled past a couple of defenders and still had one in front of her slightly to her right about seven yards out from goal.  Eric and I were both watching and when she got to that one-v-one with the last defender I'm quite sure she looked up, saw where the defender and the goalie were and very intentionally hit a delicate chip just to the defender's right and out of the keeper's reach.  She looked as cool as could be, a real killer.  I believe Eric's comment was "whoa".
     The other highlight of note was a run that Abby made where she wove in and out of the entire BSS team to get to goal, literally beating every one of them one-v-one.  Great stuff obviously and something you'd want any player to have the confidence and skill to do, right?  Even if your player was on the other team you'd want them to see that and learn from it, be excited by it and want to emulate it, right?  So if you're the coach of the other team that's got to be a great teachable moment, right?  Well, what we heard the BSS coach say was "girls, she just beat all five of you at once" in a tone of voice that was unmistakably demeaning.  If you ever hear me talking to this team that way fire me immediately. 

More on this in my next post.
     

Soccer-Palooza!

     The Legends fall season kicked-off Saturday with games for Girl Power and the U10 Boys, both great games.  The Girl Power squad found themselves facing a much younger team who were clearly in the wrong division.  It was a very lopsided game with our girls scoring easily from the start.  I took a moment as I was leaving to stop and talk to some of the parents on the other team to be sure they understood that our two teams meeting was clearly a schedule mistake.  The other coach was doing a great job of maintaining the proper attitude and her team played fairly energetically throughout but you could see that a few of them were very inexperienced.  Well, you've got to start somewhere.  Our girls did very well in taking the game as an opportunity to sharpen their skills by attempting all of the dribbling moves.  They were generally very gracious too.
     The U10 Boys had a great game in their opener even though they took a loss.  Afterwards I described the game to a parent as a typical Legends team loss: we possess the ball more than the other team but get beat on counter attacks.  Given the way we are training our players that is to be expected.  We insist on ball control and stubborn ball possession and all of our coaches try to discourage players from defending by wildly kicking the ball.  We don't call for clearing kicks or teach our players to boot the ball out of bounds.  Everyone on the field has the same job wherever they are: have a soft touch on the ball, use your moves to get into space and head toward the goal.  The expert practitioner of that philosophy in this game was Oliver who played brilliantly from start to finish.  I think the other team had five goals but they'd have had at least three more if not for Oliver's determined work in our half of the field.  Most impressive was Ollie's ability to carry the ball backwards toward our own goal and then make a smart turn, leaving the pursuing opposition behind.  He easily put in the most yards run by any player in that game.
   
     We capped off the day by heading up to Columbus for a Crew game and our players got to take the field before kick-off.  It was excellent!  The kids all began commenting right away about how perfect the field was and they couldn't wait to play.  There was another club using the other half of the field and their kids looked a bit tentative about actually kicking a ball around and playing in such a big, unfamiliar space.  Not our Legends!  They knew exactly what to do: put the ball on the ground and play.  We only had the field for about 15 minutes but I think they all worked up a good sweat and showed off some fabulous skill!  What a blast!

First Touch Drill.

Below is video of a drill that we'll be teaching the select level players and that we'll probably be using as a pregame warm-up too.  It's called the Hot Corners Passing Drill but we aren't using it in order to teach passing skills.  That's just an incidental benefit.  What we really like about this is that it forces the players to have a good first touch on the ball and to be able to anticipate, to think ahead and know what your next move is even as you focus on the ball.  For our purposes we'll also ask the center player to execute some sort of skill before distributing the ball again.  Check it out.

Coach Mark finds Ronaldinho video that defines "first touch".

One concept I'll be trying to help the players understand this season is "first touch".  What we mean by that term is a player's ability to take control of the ball easily even when it arrives to her/him with some pace on it.  The analogy I use when talking with my teams is an obvious one:  you've got to catch the ball with your feet as easily as you'd catch it with your hands.  Follow the link below to Coach Mark's blog to see a short bit of video he put together that shows the legendary Ronaldinho taking a ball out of the air with unbelievably effortless finesse.  In the video you see that a defender has popped the ball straight up, at least 30 yards into the air, and as it comes down Ronaldinho is calmly waiting for it.  With a simple flick of his foot he gets the ball to land at his feet like a sack of flour.  Amazing.

Coach Mark's Legen- (wait for it) dary Blog.: First touch.: The game is much easier if you don't have to chase down the ball after your first touch.  Watch Ronaldinho show us how to do that.