Saturday was the season opener for our younger U10 boys team (in my schedule I've been referring to them as "the juniors"). With only one practice together to build on I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of play from the team Saturday evening. Prior to the game I talked with the team just a bit about what I'd be looking for in the game and I'd like to elaborate on that here for the sake of helping our team parents to understand how I work with my teams.
If you haven't already heard, the focus of all Legends training sessions will be the development of each player's ball control skills with a constant emphasis on deceptive dribbling skills or "moves" as we call them. A typical Legends practice will involve only activities that have players getting lots of repeated touches on the ball. We avoid any type of drill that has players standing in line for long periods of time and we will rarely if ever spend time working on passing or other tactical aspects of the game. The reason for this is a simple one: learning how to be an effective dribbler is a time intensive process for most players and so we need to devote as much of our practice time to that as possible. We proceed under the assumption that all of our players can learn to be attacking players capable of penetrating defenses with good dribbling technique. Every practice and every game is an opportunity to work on the set of skills an attacking, goal scoring player needs.
As the season goes on I'm sure I'll have more opportunities to discuss how our Legends approach differs from how other clubs, even at the select level, train their players. For right now let me give you a brief summary of what a typical Legends practice will look like.
First we'll begin with ten to fifteen minutes of warm-up involving some sort of game that has players running a lot, usually with a ball. Some sort of "tag" is our go to for this warm-up period.
Next we'll have fifteen minutes of skill work involving basic ball-touch techniques such as toe-taps and foundations. From there we'll work into some specific sort of dribbling skill or "move" and have the players practice it first in a no pressure situation where they can figure out the details. Then we'll put them in a smaller space and give them a set time period in which to complete that "move" as many times as possible. So, at that point we're adding a little pressure.
Finally we'll end every practice with at least twenty minutes of 1v1 play. If you haven't seen a Legends 1v1 session, be prepared. It's crazy. We play all of the players on the field at the same time, paired up into separate 1v1 matches played simultaneously. It's crowded and chaotic so there's some very game-like pressure put on them. We play games of two or three minute duration then re-pair the players and go again and again until we're out of time. We'll include certain rules in the games to encourage the players to use the moves we've been practicing such as "you can't score until you do your Puskas move". We also play the game as "make-it-take-it" which means that if you score a goal you get the ball back and get to go again. As a defender, the only way to get the ball is to take it. You can't just wait for your opponent to score so that it's then "your turn".
That's about it for a typical session. Then when we get to game days my instruction to the team will also be focused on their use of those "moves". I'll be trying every week to make it clear to them that I'm not concerned at all about the game outcome. Rather, what I'm looking for is to see them using their skills in game situations. That does not mean that I want them to not care if we win or lose. I always want my players to be motivated by a desire to compete hard and win but I need them to feel comfortable with trying new things in games, with attempting to use the skills they are developing in pressure situation. The best way I can do that is to convince them that making mistakes in the games is a good thing, it's part of the process for them of growing into better players. Don't be afraid to fail.
I want to end by noting that I was very impressed by the level of skill and frequency of attempts to play skillfully that I saw Saturday. Obviously the score got lopsided but the boys never got down. Every time the other team scored they just ran to the circle for another kick-off and that's all you can want from them. They play for the fun of it and my job is just to help them have even more fun by playing the game with skill and creativity.
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