While driving to a Fusion game this past Saturday I heard a great phrase used to describe the style of play of my favorite English Premier League team, Arsenal. One of the London teams, Arsenal under head coach Arsene Wenger play the kind of creative, flowing style of attacking football that can be immensely entertaining...even when they don't score. Scoring wasn't a particular problem in the game I was listening to as Arsenal defeated Sunderland 4-1 but one of the radio commentators noted that as beautifully as they play it can still seem sometimes that Arsenal wait too long to take the shot. "Sometimes" he said "they just keep passing it around, searching for the killer ball."
That is a fair description of how Arsenal play. They pass and dribble and pass again, overlapping and interweaving, until finally the last pass puts the ball in a position where the goal is undeniable. The first goal of the game, a header for Alexis Sanchez, came at the end of a run that included more than twenty-five completed passes. That's something like 20 seconds of continuous possession!
Here is a nice compilation video of Arsenal highlights showing their signature style of "possession football"
But while it's true that Arsenal do play to find the killer ball I don't think that it's much of a criticism of a team to say that they are too patient. My own feeling watching most games, whatever teams are playing and at whatever level, is that far too often the players aren't patient enough. Teams and individual players try to play too directly rather than taking the time to find an opening or even create one by drawing the defense out. I want my players to have that patience, that confidence in their individual skills and their teammates' skills to know that they can take time and a longer path to find the goal.
Girl Power played the final two games of their season this Sunday and the girls were brilliant in both games with the first match bringing a flurry of goals. The second game was a hard fought 1-1 draw against a very tough FC Kentucky side. In both games I was particularly impressed by the new level of competence the team is achieving in playing "positionally". Specifically, we're seeing more of our players understanding how to be patient in their particular role and let the game opportunities come to them rather than getting drawn into chasing the ball. The result of that is that you see many more opportunities created where a player is in just the right position to receive that final pass. I think this achievement is for them a combination of having the experience to read the flow of the game better and of having confidence in each other, knowing that they are working together.
There was one run of play in the second game that particularly stands out for me. I think the players involved were Olivia and Eileen with Liv being in the #2 fullback position and Beanie being ahead of her in the #8. Liv brought the ball up after recovering it in our half and made a quick pass up to Eileen. Eileen found her path blocked by two defenders so she quickly turned back and dropped the ball to Liv who then immediately sent it right back up past those defenders so Beanie could run around them and back onto the ball. It was brilliant but the best part was that they executed it with a kind of casualness, like it was the easiest thing in the world to take a moment out of the soccer game to play a little "monkey in the middle".
Girl Power displayed a lot of that sort of play in that game and it was beautiful but late in the second half their style changed a bit. FC Kentucky had managed a goal finally on one of their rare shooting opportunities and in response our squad seemed to become a little more desperate. We saw less quality passing and more efforts by individual players to dribble-penetrate through the FC line. The girls seemed to be taking turns picking the ball up in midfield and dribbling straight into the heart of the defense, usually with good success until they got to that last defender. No one seemed to be able to break through.
Obviously it can often seem like the girls have more success when they pass the ball around, when they break through a defense as a team rather than as individuals. The truth is though that as both their game coach and their trainer I have to have two different views on the games. As a coach working within the games to teach the players a tactical perspective I naturally want every player to recognize the passing opportunities. I want them to see how they can exploit the openings in a defense by cooperating. But as their trainer I also want to see everyone putting their 1v1 skills to the test. As the trainer I still want them to be fearlessly, even selfishly, pushing forward with the ball. So when I see a player dribble into traffic rather than releasing the ball I see two things. I see that they missed a tactical opportunity that I'd want them to be aware of but I also see a technical deficiency that could be addressed. If a player chooses to dribble into a crowd in an effort to get to goal on their own and they lose the ball does that mean that getting through the crowd was impossible, a bad decision? Or does it mean that they didn't execute technically? As the trainer it's the later that I see. I see players who actually might have gotten through if they'd just used that one move we've worked on so many times...if they'd tried a fake shot...or shielded the ball. So even as the other players and even the parents might be thinking "she should have passed the ball" I might be thinking "yes, maybe...but maybe she could have gotten past that last defender if she'd tried something else."
My feeling is that we still have to let players at this age have the option of dribbling. I don't want players who are merely competent dribblers in 1v1 situations, players who can dribble but who prefer to pass. I want players who are excellent in 1v1, who can reliably dribble-penetrate with confidence and who can then choose their options calmly and with patience, exploiting whatever weaknesses they can discover. A team full of players like that can then find many paths to the goal. They can work together patiently relying on the combined quality of their individual skills as they search for the killer ball.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
End-of-season High Note for the Ninjas
Over the course of their first season together I've seen each player on the Ninjas squad have moments of real individual brilliance. I've seen them all play hard against physically bigger, more aggressive teams. I've seen them deal with the knocks and cheap fouls with grit and the indignities of their roster situation with grace. On Saturday, in their final match of the season, they showed all of that again and more. It was without a doubt the team's best performance of the season and, I think, a real indication of the high quality team they can become.
The first half of that game was, for most of the girls individually, their best half of play. Not only were they displaying a great combination of skillful play and raw athleticism but they were playing with a very high energy level and intensity. There was a wonderful amount of communication going on and most of it was in the limited vocabulary we work on in training: "Square, Drop, Through". Kylee has certainly been the leader in that aspect of the team's play but in this game she was combining that willingness to communicate with a great vision for the flow of the game. Not only was she calling for "square" or "through" passes, she was really getting into the ideal position for them. It seemed to me that she was always in an advantageous position, always "in" the play even when off the ball. This made for an exemplary display of how to actually play a "position", in this case the #10 and #6, which is where I put Kylee in the first half. Something I've been talking with the team about lately is that the key to playing your position well is to understand your responsibilities and how those intertwine with those of your teammates and then, most importantly, to be patient and let the game opportunities come to you. Don't chase...not the ball, not your teammates. Rather, be patient and strike when the time is right.
Annabelle also played her first position very well in that first half. I'd started her in as the #9 or "striker" as she has the speed and the physical toughness to play that role in a "hold up" style. That means she's a player who is able to receive the ball with her back to the goal, shield off the defenders and then turn into her run for a shot. In past games she's had a tendency to start in that #9 role and then run out of position chasing the ball back into our own half. My advice to her and all of our players when they take the strikers position is that you now get to be "the big whinny baby" who says to her teammates "your job is to get me the ball...and by the way...I don't play defense." Annabelle was perfect in that role Saturday and just by successfully holding the ball up in the other team's half for long periods of time she contributed to our defense the way a good striker does: don't let the other team have the ball.
Ashley was brilliant in midfield (the #10, #8 or #6) most of the game and it was a kind of brilliance that might be easily missed. She's the artist of the quick trap-and-pass, receiving the ball cleanly with one touch then after one dribble step at most she's passing it off right to a teammate's feet. As a result you could easily get the impression that she didn't get involved in the run of play very much but that's not the case. She plays the role of #10 perfectly, acting as a conduit to move the ball quickly up the field or side to side. It's subtle but indispensable.
Juliana has from the start of our training season shown that her greatest gifts are her speed, balance and courage. She runs full tilt straight into crowds of players who tower over her and like a spinning top she impossibly maintains her feet while being tripped and pushed. I've thought since the beginning that if she could develop a good touch on the ball she'd become a tremendously effective penetrating player. If you ever get the chance, watch some video of Leo Messi the FC Barcelona star. Jumping over tackles, stumbling on after being hacked, driving relentlessly to goal...that's his signature. In this last game I think Juliana was finally showing that she is developing that soft touch on the ball that will allow her to turn her speed into a real advantage on the attack and she had some lovely long runs with the ball where it seemed that nothing could knock her off her balance.
Samantha had a great game too, especially in as keeper. Her hand technique is really good already and while I don't like to move players into specializing in any position at this age I have to say she certainly shows some real aptitude for playing goalie. Out in the field she had a good game too and like Annabelle she seems really suited to playing that "hold-up" style of forward player, someone who likes to body-up to a defender and receive then shield the ball before turning in for a shot. It's especially the quality of Sam's first touch that makes her so effective in that role and I hope all of us, parents and players, as we watch the game more and understand it better will come to understand that "first touch" is probably the single most important skill a player can have and frankly nothing short of perfect first touch will suffice. When it comes to first touch there's an old soccer training adage that really applies: a good player practices until they get it right...an elite player practices until they can't get it wrong. So I always say to my teams "don't waste a single touch...we never know which one will lead to a goal or at least prevent one for them." Sam gets that as well as any player I have.
Charlie also got some quality time in as the #9 in this game. Her natural gifts make her an interesting contrast in style to the way Sam and Annabelle play as strikers. Charlie, because she's reliably two-footed and also has good field vision, plays the position less as a hold-up striker and more as a "runner" who looks to either dribble-penetrate from near the half line or else likes to run through seams in the defense onto through balls from her teammates. Charlie is a surprisingly good dribbler who can move with ease through a crowd of defenders. I say "surprisingly" because I think the grace of her touch on the ball can seem incongruous to someone who is only judging her based on her size. You don't expect such a tall player to have such deft control of the ball in tight spaces. In contrast, Kennedy looks just like the sort of player you'd expect to see dribbling crisply through the scrum. Kennedy has a brilliant ability to control the ball with either side of her right foot and this allows her to move at good pace without ever letting the ball too far away from her. As a result she can step around defenders lightly without needing any dramatic cuts side-to-side.
I describe those two players, Charlie and Kennedy, together there because they combined for the one season-defining highlight from that last game that I want to describe in some detail. In the second half we'd had some very nice long runs of play where our fullbacks (#2 and #3) and central defenders (#4 and #5) were bringing the ball up to one of our midfielders who then made steady headway dribble penetrating into the center of the other team's defense. I think we must have had five or six really good chances generated in this way and there was a fair amount of good passing between the mids and the striker too (Ashley!) but one play really stood out. Late in the game Annabelle, playing in the #3 position, received the ball near the sideline then took a few dribble touches diagonally toward the center of the field before making a beautiful pass to Kennedy. Kennedy then won the 1v1 in front of her and started moving diagonally to her right back across the remaining defenders. Just as Kennedy made that change of direction Charlie, who was in the #9, turned and ran out ahead of her toward the right corner, staying on-side but getting a good five yards out past those nearest defenders. The pass that Kennedy delivered wasn't just good, it was thrilling. The communication between the two players was in this case clear but wordless. Everything in Charlie's posture and body language signaled Kennedy "I'm headed into this space and I need the ball" while Kennedy was herself clearly signaling "here it comes...you'd better get this."
Charlie had a good shot but didn't convert. No matter though. That sort of interplay is as good as it gets and my feeling as a coach is that for many players it's that sort of thing that becomes the real addiction. Everyone likes having the ball and scoring or making any other sort of individual play that makes a difference, but that feeling of being in concert with a teammate, of wordlessly knowing where to be and when, is at once magical and primal. It's like being part of a wolf pack, moving forward, knowing that the prey has no chance. When a team develops that sense of being predators, opportunists and killers then every aspect of the game, even their play in our defensive half becomes part of the attack.
Thanks for the great season Ninjas. Can't wait for the spring!
The first half of that game was, for most of the girls individually, their best half of play. Not only were they displaying a great combination of skillful play and raw athleticism but they were playing with a very high energy level and intensity. There was a wonderful amount of communication going on and most of it was in the limited vocabulary we work on in training: "Square, Drop, Through". Kylee has certainly been the leader in that aspect of the team's play but in this game she was combining that willingness to communicate with a great vision for the flow of the game. Not only was she calling for "square" or "through" passes, she was really getting into the ideal position for them. It seemed to me that she was always in an advantageous position, always "in" the play even when off the ball. This made for an exemplary display of how to actually play a "position", in this case the #10 and #6, which is where I put Kylee in the first half. Something I've been talking with the team about lately is that the key to playing your position well is to understand your responsibilities and how those intertwine with those of your teammates and then, most importantly, to be patient and let the game opportunities come to you. Don't chase...not the ball, not your teammates. Rather, be patient and strike when the time is right.
Annabelle also played her first position very well in that first half. I'd started her in as the #9 or "striker" as she has the speed and the physical toughness to play that role in a "hold up" style. That means she's a player who is able to receive the ball with her back to the goal, shield off the defenders and then turn into her run for a shot. In past games she's had a tendency to start in that #9 role and then run out of position chasing the ball back into our own half. My advice to her and all of our players when they take the strikers position is that you now get to be "the big whinny baby" who says to her teammates "your job is to get me the ball...and by the way...I don't play defense." Annabelle was perfect in that role Saturday and just by successfully holding the ball up in the other team's half for long periods of time she contributed to our defense the way a good striker does: don't let the other team have the ball.
Ashley was brilliant in midfield (the #10, #8 or #6) most of the game and it was a kind of brilliance that might be easily missed. She's the artist of the quick trap-and-pass, receiving the ball cleanly with one touch then after one dribble step at most she's passing it off right to a teammate's feet. As a result you could easily get the impression that she didn't get involved in the run of play very much but that's not the case. She plays the role of #10 perfectly, acting as a conduit to move the ball quickly up the field or side to side. It's subtle but indispensable.
Juliana has from the start of our training season shown that her greatest gifts are her speed, balance and courage. She runs full tilt straight into crowds of players who tower over her and like a spinning top she impossibly maintains her feet while being tripped and pushed. I've thought since the beginning that if she could develop a good touch on the ball she'd become a tremendously effective penetrating player. If you ever get the chance, watch some video of Leo Messi the FC Barcelona star. Jumping over tackles, stumbling on after being hacked, driving relentlessly to goal...that's his signature. In this last game I think Juliana was finally showing that she is developing that soft touch on the ball that will allow her to turn her speed into a real advantage on the attack and she had some lovely long runs with the ball where it seemed that nothing could knock her off her balance.
Samantha had a great game too, especially in as keeper. Her hand technique is really good already and while I don't like to move players into specializing in any position at this age I have to say she certainly shows some real aptitude for playing goalie. Out in the field she had a good game too and like Annabelle she seems really suited to playing that "hold-up" style of forward player, someone who likes to body-up to a defender and receive then shield the ball before turning in for a shot. It's especially the quality of Sam's first touch that makes her so effective in that role and I hope all of us, parents and players, as we watch the game more and understand it better will come to understand that "first touch" is probably the single most important skill a player can have and frankly nothing short of perfect first touch will suffice. When it comes to first touch there's an old soccer training adage that really applies: a good player practices until they get it right...an elite player practices until they can't get it wrong. So I always say to my teams "don't waste a single touch...we never know which one will lead to a goal or at least prevent one for them." Sam gets that as well as any player I have.
Charlie also got some quality time in as the #9 in this game. Her natural gifts make her an interesting contrast in style to the way Sam and Annabelle play as strikers. Charlie, because she's reliably two-footed and also has good field vision, plays the position less as a hold-up striker and more as a "runner" who looks to either dribble-penetrate from near the half line or else likes to run through seams in the defense onto through balls from her teammates. Charlie is a surprisingly good dribbler who can move with ease through a crowd of defenders. I say "surprisingly" because I think the grace of her touch on the ball can seem incongruous to someone who is only judging her based on her size. You don't expect such a tall player to have such deft control of the ball in tight spaces. In contrast, Kennedy looks just like the sort of player you'd expect to see dribbling crisply through the scrum. Kennedy has a brilliant ability to control the ball with either side of her right foot and this allows her to move at good pace without ever letting the ball too far away from her. As a result she can step around defenders lightly without needing any dramatic cuts side-to-side.
I describe those two players, Charlie and Kennedy, together there because they combined for the one season-defining highlight from that last game that I want to describe in some detail. In the second half we'd had some very nice long runs of play where our fullbacks (#2 and #3) and central defenders (#4 and #5) were bringing the ball up to one of our midfielders who then made steady headway dribble penetrating into the center of the other team's defense. I think we must have had five or six really good chances generated in this way and there was a fair amount of good passing between the mids and the striker too (Ashley!) but one play really stood out. Late in the game Annabelle, playing in the #3 position, received the ball near the sideline then took a few dribble touches diagonally toward the center of the field before making a beautiful pass to Kennedy. Kennedy then won the 1v1 in front of her and started moving diagonally to her right back across the remaining defenders. Just as Kennedy made that change of direction Charlie, who was in the #9, turned and ran out ahead of her toward the right corner, staying on-side but getting a good five yards out past those nearest defenders. The pass that Kennedy delivered wasn't just good, it was thrilling. The communication between the two players was in this case clear but wordless. Everything in Charlie's posture and body language signaled Kennedy "I'm headed into this space and I need the ball" while Kennedy was herself clearly signaling "here it comes...you'd better get this."
Charlie had a good shot but didn't convert. No matter though. That sort of interplay is as good as it gets and my feeling as a coach is that for many players it's that sort of thing that becomes the real addiction. Everyone likes having the ball and scoring or making any other sort of individual play that makes a difference, but that feeling of being in concert with a teammate, of wordlessly knowing where to be and when, is at once magical and primal. It's like being part of a wolf pack, moving forward, knowing that the prey has no chance. When a team develops that sense of being predators, opportunists and killers then every aspect of the game, even their play in our defensive half becomes part of the attack.
Thanks for the great season Ninjas. Can't wait for the spring!
Thursday, October 20, 2016
"I have failed over and over again...and that is why I will succeed."
The Haunted Classic event in Beavercreek this past weekend was unequivocally a great experience for Girl Power even though the team's run there ended in heartbreaking fashion. Despite dire advance reports the fields were in good enough condition, the weather was perfect and the referee crews we got were consistently competent. And of course the girls played beautifully throughout the weekend, not only playing as skillfully as always but also taking some noticeable steps forward in their development as individuals and as a team.
After their third game and before we learned one way or the other of our chances for advancing to the final I met with them to get my two coaching points in (that's a limit they make me stick to). The girls were a little giddy, still high from the quality of their performance in the game, and a couple of players had to try to calm the rest down. "Be quiet" someone said, "he's got to do that talking thing." I surprised them by saying simply "I've only got one coaching point for you...I'm as proud of you as I could be." Their reaction, silence followed by a group "awwww" showed me that they knew they really had played well, that they'd set a new standard for themselves. They had gone into that game knowing they needed a shutout to have any chance of advancing and they delivered, playing their best, most organized defense of the whole season while still maintaining a vigorous attack that netted four goal. What better feeling is there than knowing that you have to put everything you've been working on in training on the line and be perfect for 50 minutes and then going out and actually executing!? They earned that post game moment of elation.
Everyone knows how things went after that. We ended up in a PK shootout with another team to get into the final and we lost. Their keeper was amazing and all of their shooters were cool and efficient. My girls hadn't been in that situation before but they handled it well. Natalie bravely volunteered to be the keeper and she did all she could although not a single shot taken was really in range for her to realistically make a stop. The shooters I chose, based simply on my estimation of which of them has the most consistent technique on deadball kicks, all struck the ball solidly but only one of them could find the net.
So when the referee blew his whistle to end it the girls were shocked at first and then after the hand shakes and "good games" there were some bitter and bitterly earned tears. They'd given each other everything they had and earned their chance but in this weird tie-breaker situation, which an enraged Beanie described as "not even soccer", their chance was over in what seemed like an instant. They'd earned the right to be devestated so I didn't try to talk them out of that. I'm sure everyone else had the same experience Eileen and I did. As angry as she was right then, by the time we'd had some lunch and were half way home it was all in the past, just another competition, another chapter in the story.
The previous tournament the team had played in, as a U9 squad in Columbus in the spring, was a dramatically different experience. Not only did the team play poorly that weekend but their anger and disappointment at the overall result was, to my perception, more drama than genuinely earned anguish. I wrote about my thoughts on that at the time but then felt uncomfortable sharing what I had written. Reading it back to myself then, the tone of anger and disappointment was unmistakable so I shelved it. Keep in mind that we were in the middle of a dominating league performance and I was very anxious to see the girls perform well in the Columbus tournament. At that time though I was also feeling that our training sessions weren't going as well as they could and I was feeling that the work rate, the seriousness, of our training sessions was falling off.
Anyway, here's a bit of what I wrote after that Columbus weekend:
This season has been a different story. Generally the team's effort in training has been excellent and I do see very real and remarkable improvement in many areas of their fundamental skills. Ball striking is a great example and I'm really pleased with the general quality of the team in that regard. I'm really happy with the consistent level of their dribbling technique, even in games and under pressure. Their communication skills have improved dramatically and they are just in general playing ever more cohesively as a team. And most importantly they are playing with a very high level of commitment to each other. I see many instances in games or training where they are talking with each other about how they are performing, even demanding more of each other. And of course that has led to their new pre-match rallying cry: "Who do you play for?...I play for you!"
So in contrast to that Columbus performance I felt that at the Haunted they played with much more heart, with much more commitment to play through fouls and to play to the whistle. There was virtually no complaining about the officiating and the complaints about fouls from opponents that I did hear were usually framed in the context of a boast like "did you see what she was doing to me?...and I dribbled around her anyway!?" Every player showed at some point during the weekend their hard earned skill with the ball and as a team they played in a beautiful free flowing and creative style, demonstrating once again that they are Proper Footballers. When that PK shootout on Sunday ended and we were headed home I felt that our girls had earned their tears, their anger and disappointment. I also knew that the next time they stood, toes on the circle waiting for the whistle to blow, their minds and hearts would be fully occupied with the game at hand.
After their third game and before we learned one way or the other of our chances for advancing to the final I met with them to get my two coaching points in (that's a limit they make me stick to). The girls were a little giddy, still high from the quality of their performance in the game, and a couple of players had to try to calm the rest down. "Be quiet" someone said, "he's got to do that talking thing." I surprised them by saying simply "I've only got one coaching point for you...I'm as proud of you as I could be." Their reaction, silence followed by a group "awwww" showed me that they knew they really had played well, that they'd set a new standard for themselves. They had gone into that game knowing they needed a shutout to have any chance of advancing and they delivered, playing their best, most organized defense of the whole season while still maintaining a vigorous attack that netted four goal. What better feeling is there than knowing that you have to put everything you've been working on in training on the line and be perfect for 50 minutes and then going out and actually executing!? They earned that post game moment of elation.
Everyone knows how things went after that. We ended up in a PK shootout with another team to get into the final and we lost. Their keeper was amazing and all of their shooters were cool and efficient. My girls hadn't been in that situation before but they handled it well. Natalie bravely volunteered to be the keeper and she did all she could although not a single shot taken was really in range for her to realistically make a stop. The shooters I chose, based simply on my estimation of which of them has the most consistent technique on deadball kicks, all struck the ball solidly but only one of them could find the net.
So when the referee blew his whistle to end it the girls were shocked at first and then after the hand shakes and "good games" there were some bitter and bitterly earned tears. They'd given each other everything they had and earned their chance but in this weird tie-breaker situation, which an enraged Beanie described as "not even soccer", their chance was over in what seemed like an instant. They'd earned the right to be devestated so I didn't try to talk them out of that. I'm sure everyone else had the same experience Eileen and I did. As angry as she was right then, by the time we'd had some lunch and were half way home it was all in the past, just another competition, another chapter in the story.
The previous tournament the team had played in, as a U9 squad in Columbus in the spring, was a dramatically different experience. Not only did the team play poorly that weekend but their anger and disappointment at the overall result was, to my perception, more drama than genuinely earned anguish. I wrote about my thoughts on that at the time but then felt uncomfortable sharing what I had written. Reading it back to myself then, the tone of anger and disappointment was unmistakable so I shelved it. Keep in mind that we were in the middle of a dominating league performance and I was very anxious to see the girls perform well in the Columbus tournament. At that time though I was also feeling that our training sessions weren't going as well as they could and I was feeling that the work rate, the seriousness, of our training sessions was falling off.
Anyway, here's a bit of what I wrote after that Columbus weekend:
It's endlessly fascinating to me how differently a coach's perception of a game can be from the way the players or the parents are seeing it. Our first game in the Columbus tournament was a great example of this. For the players their conversation or rather complaints after the game were all about how rough the other team was and how awful the referee was. They seemed to feel that we had the game in hand but it was snatched away by a combination of "dirty" play and poor officiating. I had seen some physical play, some foul calls missed maybe. I had seen at least two blown off-sides calls. But for all of those, let's say ten incidents total, I probably saw forty instances in the game where one of our players made a technical or mental error. Bad first touch, lazy effort away from the ball, failure to look up and see passing opportunities that were better than your dribbling path. Failures to execute on set plays like goal-kicks and throw-ins. Failures to cooperate and support each other. In short, it was clear to me that the roughness of the other team and the referee's competence had very little to do with the game's result. Our fate was in our hands and we dropped it.
Now I'm not necessarily complaining about how the girls played. They make mistakes and hopefully we learn from those and I have no expectation at this point that they should always play their most glittering soccer. Some days you just don't have it. My concern is that they may fall into a habit of looking for excuses after games when no excuse is necessary. We played poorly--the end--learn then move on. And by "learn" I mean assess your performance honestly, your individual performance and the team's performance. If there was a play where you feel you got fouled and yet the referee didn't call it, as you're licking your wounds ask yourself this: was it a situation where a few moments earlier you might have been able to make a smarter move to get into space? Was it a situation where you might have passed the ball off and avoided that pressure altogether?
All of this got me to thinking about the amount of emotional energy players put into the games, particularly their losses, and how that compares to the amount of energy in the form of focus and effort that they put into training. I'd ask every player this question: Does your emotional commitment in games match your commitment in training? Or are the two out of balance? In other words, what I'd like the players to come to realize is that if they come out on the short side in a game and they're upset they need to ask themselves is that emotional energy balanced by the knowledge that they really gave it their all at training throughout the season? If you aren't a particularly disciplined practice player, like maybe you know how to look disciplined and sort of fake your way through without really zeroing in on your technique, without mindfully struggling to improve, then what gives you the right to be all emotionally crazy on game day? Did you earn that? If you don't train as though winning is really important then how can you complain after a loss as though you think winning is really important? I guess that's the take-away for me, that players must earn the right to feel really disappointed at a loss. If you don't give it everything in practice then it's silly to let yourself get so overwrought after a game.
This season has been a different story. Generally the team's effort in training has been excellent and I do see very real and remarkable improvement in many areas of their fundamental skills. Ball striking is a great example and I'm really pleased with the general quality of the team in that regard. I'm really happy with the consistent level of their dribbling technique, even in games and under pressure. Their communication skills have improved dramatically and they are just in general playing ever more cohesively as a team. And most importantly they are playing with a very high level of commitment to each other. I see many instances in games or training where they are talking with each other about how they are performing, even demanding more of each other. And of course that has led to their new pre-match rallying cry: "Who do you play for?...I play for you!"
So in contrast to that Columbus performance I felt that at the Haunted they played with much more heart, with much more commitment to play through fouls and to play to the whistle. There was virtually no complaining about the officiating and the complaints about fouls from opponents that I did hear were usually framed in the context of a boast like "did you see what she was doing to me?...and I dribbled around her anyway!?" Every player showed at some point during the weekend their hard earned skill with the ball and as a team they played in a beautiful free flowing and creative style, demonstrating once again that they are Proper Footballers. When that PK shootout on Sunday ended and we were headed home I felt that our girls had earned their tears, their anger and disappointment. I also knew that the next time they stood, toes on the circle waiting for the whistle to blow, their minds and hearts would be fully occupied with the game at hand.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
New Posts and Old Posts
Even as I keep posting at the new NKY Fusion FC "Field Notes" blog I want to keep my personal blog going just for the sake of keeping access to all of my old posts open. I've moved everything from the old Coach Pat's blog to this new one and everything going back to the earliest days at NKYA are available here in the archives.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Playing into the Open
In my last post from the indoor season I wrote about the Girl Power squad making progress in learning how to "move the postage stamp". As I noted there the girls have all become more than competent at maintaining possession individually and they'd begun developing some understanding of how to use that skill to first hold the ball then pass to a teammate so that they can possess the ball as a group. Some coaches call this progression "skill, space, release": use skill to possess the ball then move into space to find an option to release or pass the ball to a teammate.
Girl Power have become very good at playing this "skill, space, release" game now with every player having two or three really reliable 1v1 moves that can get them into space and they have all improved dramatically in their ability not only to see each other on the field but also to assess what their teammate is seeing. That last bit, the ability to visualize quickly what the field looks like from someone else's perspective, is a hugely important development and I'm thrilled to be seeing this already from our girls. What I'm talking about here is not merely the ability to see when a teammate is open but also the ability to see how they can get open, what the possibilities of a situation are. Sometimes passing is foot to foot. You see a teammate standing in open space unmarked and you pass the ball directly to them. But sometimes you pass the ball into space so as to break the mark on a teammate. If I see you marked closely on your right by another player but you've got open space to your left I pass the ball into that space so that you can run onto it. I pass you open, which is a phrase you hear a lot when the ESPN analysts are discussing quarterback prospects. Can they only hit open targets or do they have the mental acuity to see opportunities to throw a receiver into the open space.
Here's an example of that type of cooperative play from a recent training session. We had eight players on hand Monday so at the end I set the pug goals up to let them play 4v4. But I also added a rule that each team had to keep two defenders and two attackers on either side of the field, so in the first few minutes Hailey and Ashley were together as attackers and they could not chase back into their own half, they had to stay "up". Their teammates could only defend and not bring the ball "up" past the half line. My goal was to force them into more 1v1 and 1v2 situations with the ball and to give them an opportunity to discover the value of the "drop" passing we occasionally work on. So right at the start of the game we get an example of the sort of visualization that I'm talking about when Hailey drives the ball into the right corner then does a very deft cruyff to slide back up the line and gain space from the nearest defender, Eileen. As she turns back to the center of the field Hailey looks up and sees Ashley out near the center of the field with Anna marking her to the inside, that is, on the ball side. Hailey then turns her shoulders a bit to face a spot about four yards out from goal, totally empty space, and she hits a perfect pass, square to that spot, and as she does so she says loud enough for everyone to hear "you better make this". Apparently she was talking to Ashley and apparently Ashley was already anticipating the pass as she broke away from Anna on Hailey's touch and was able to simply walk the ball into the goal. That was some showtime-level play.
Of course you saw that same sort of play on display Saturday afternoon as Abby managed two goals off of some really brilliant "through" ball passes. The first was from Ava and it was just perfect and I want you to take a moment to think about what happened there. Ava saw that 1) there was an open lane for her to put the ball into space behind the other team's defenders, and 2) that Abby was running full speed toward those defenders. In a fraction of a second she put that all together and slotted the ball to just the right spot and then Abby just had to do what great strikers do...finish. I'm happy to say we've got a squad full of determined, even mule-headed, finishers right now so a well served pass rarely goes unused.
All this talk of tactical passing aside though, don't forget what it was that got us here. It was that attention to individual ball skill and that is still critical. Olivia got our first goal and it was the result of a box to box run in which she beat at least three defenders 1v1. Ashley's goal was also a long run and to get into finishing position she split the two defenders with a beautifully delicate touch. In the opening minutes of the game it looked like it would be a very close affair but once the girls started getting their skills on things opened up. By the second half we were seeing some beautiful individual skill on display (Anna's maradonna was killer) and you've got to keep in mind how important that is in terms of the team's ability to both generate scoring opportunities and to defend by limiting the other side's ability to possess the ball. The way I described the team when they were still playing U8 rec is as true now as then: they defend by possessing the ball and not letting you have it.
Girl Power have become very good at playing this "skill, space, release" game now with every player having two or three really reliable 1v1 moves that can get them into space and they have all improved dramatically in their ability not only to see each other on the field but also to assess what their teammate is seeing. That last bit, the ability to visualize quickly what the field looks like from someone else's perspective, is a hugely important development and I'm thrilled to be seeing this already from our girls. What I'm talking about here is not merely the ability to see when a teammate is open but also the ability to see how they can get open, what the possibilities of a situation are. Sometimes passing is foot to foot. You see a teammate standing in open space unmarked and you pass the ball directly to them. But sometimes you pass the ball into space so as to break the mark on a teammate. If I see you marked closely on your right by another player but you've got open space to your left I pass the ball into that space so that you can run onto it. I pass you open, which is a phrase you hear a lot when the ESPN analysts are discussing quarterback prospects. Can they only hit open targets or do they have the mental acuity to see opportunities to throw a receiver into the open space.
Here's an example of that type of cooperative play from a recent training session. We had eight players on hand Monday so at the end I set the pug goals up to let them play 4v4. But I also added a rule that each team had to keep two defenders and two attackers on either side of the field, so in the first few minutes Hailey and Ashley were together as attackers and they could not chase back into their own half, they had to stay "up". Their teammates could only defend and not bring the ball "up" past the half line. My goal was to force them into more 1v1 and 1v2 situations with the ball and to give them an opportunity to discover the value of the "drop" passing we occasionally work on. So right at the start of the game we get an example of the sort of visualization that I'm talking about when Hailey drives the ball into the right corner then does a very deft cruyff to slide back up the line and gain space from the nearest defender, Eileen. As she turns back to the center of the field Hailey looks up and sees Ashley out near the center of the field with Anna marking her to the inside, that is, on the ball side. Hailey then turns her shoulders a bit to face a spot about four yards out from goal, totally empty space, and she hits a perfect pass, square to that spot, and as she does so she says loud enough for everyone to hear "you better make this". Apparently she was talking to Ashley and apparently Ashley was already anticipating the pass as she broke away from Anna on Hailey's touch and was able to simply walk the ball into the goal. That was some showtime-level play.
Of course you saw that same sort of play on display Saturday afternoon as Abby managed two goals off of some really brilliant "through" ball passes. The first was from Ava and it was just perfect and I want you to take a moment to think about what happened there. Ava saw that 1) there was an open lane for her to put the ball into space behind the other team's defenders, and 2) that Abby was running full speed toward those defenders. In a fraction of a second she put that all together and slotted the ball to just the right spot and then Abby just had to do what great strikers do...finish. I'm happy to say we've got a squad full of determined, even mule-headed, finishers right now so a well served pass rarely goes unused.
All this talk of tactical passing aside though, don't forget what it was that got us here. It was that attention to individual ball skill and that is still critical. Olivia got our first goal and it was the result of a box to box run in which she beat at least three defenders 1v1. Ashley's goal was also a long run and to get into finishing position she split the two defenders with a beautifully delicate touch. In the opening minutes of the game it looked like it would be a very close affair but once the girls started getting their skills on things opened up. By the second half we were seeing some beautiful individual skill on display (Anna's maradonna was killer) and you've got to keep in mind how important that is in terms of the team's ability to both generate scoring opportunities and to defend by limiting the other side's ability to possess the ball. The way I described the team when they were still playing U8 rec is as true now as then: they defend by possessing the ball and not letting you have it.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Moving the Postage Stamp
The typical training set-up we use at Legends is sometimes referred to as "playing on a postage stamp" in that we often try to restrict the amount of space in which all of our exercises take place. For instance, when we play our 1v1 game we always put the goals close together to close the field space down and make the area as crowded as possible. Lately we have even been playing some 1v1 games in the box soccer courts including a simple "keep away" game. As I noted in my last post, playing keep away with my players is a technique I've used for a while as a way to introduce them to ball control, not only as a particular set of skills but as a way of playing the game. With the whole "postage stamp" mode of training what we're doing initially is getting players to focus less on just moving the ball towards goal as fast as possible (kicking and running) and learn to focus more on their ability to keep the ball close even as other players are challenging them for it, that is, to be able to play keep away.
But keep away is just the first stage of the player's development. At that point you've got players who can control the ball for five or ten seconds at a time in a space about the size of one of our box soccer courts (your postage stamp). If they create scoring opportunities it's a matter of an individual winning multiple 1v1s to get to goal. Or it may be one player after another advancing the ball a little, losing it to a defender, then having a teammate pick it up who then wins another 1v1, and so on but there is no real coordinated team play, no real passing. At this point I'm just trying to get them not to fight each other for the ball. This is where Girl Power was about one year ago.
The next stage comes when they really do start to understand how to maintain a useful space away from the ball when a teammate is dribbling. At that point they start seeing passing opportunities as a natural option and they begin experimenting with that. So when that happens the postage stamp gets a bit bigger, maybe the size of the penalty area now. That's where Girl Power have been for a few months. In a lot of field conditions against most teams that ability to just keep control in a smallish space long enough to find a good pass to a nearby teammate usually results in that teammate breaking free for a fairly straightforward shooting opportunity.
But what if the field is a big one or the surface is slow? And what if the other team has defenders who know better than to hang back and wait for you to dribble into them? Well, then you have trouble getting the ball out of that postage stamp-sized area and that's what we saw with the girls a couple of weeks ago when they played on the large field at T&C. They were great at possessing the ball and they were even passing a bit but they just couldn't get the ball out of our own half.
The reason for their trouble in that game was simply that while they were all doing their best to dribble and win space and then doing a pretty good job of finding a teammate for a pass when they needed too, eventually the ball would find it's way to the player farthest up field whose only support would be someone behind them. At that point the only way forward was going solo as none of our players off the ball would react quickly enough to the opportunity and get open up front for a through ball or at least to draw some defensive attention.
So, our girls can keep the ball away from you 1v1 in a little space and they can play as a unit and keep possession in a slightly bigger space but in certain situations they get stuck in that smallish space and can't get to goal. In describing the next stage of our team development to the girls in practice last week I told them that they need to learn how to take that little space they are so good at playing in and move it up the field. We did some drills to emphasize that and going into our last indoor game the coaching phrase I kept using was "move the little space up the field."
We didn't actually see much of an effort to move the postage stamp in that game but the girls were all enthusiastic about the idea, Ava in particular, and right now I'm happy just to have it sort of in the back of their minds. And there were a few hints of something new on the horizon. Most of the girls, when they were playing out of the defensive third were clearly looking to win their first 1v1 and then dish the ball as the next defender closed on them. There were also a lot of really nice through ball passes from midfield leading a running player into a shooting opportunity.
Their excellent dribbling skills combined with all of these new-found cooperative skills allowed the girls to overcome a 0-3 first half deficit. They were down 1-4 in the second half and went on an unanswered 6 goal run for a final score of 7-4. We'll keep working on moving the postage stamp and hopefully this season we're going to see them developing a sense of how to work as a group to capitalize on their individual ball control strength.
But keep away is just the first stage of the player's development. At that point you've got players who can control the ball for five or ten seconds at a time in a space about the size of one of our box soccer courts (your postage stamp). If they create scoring opportunities it's a matter of an individual winning multiple 1v1s to get to goal. Or it may be one player after another advancing the ball a little, losing it to a defender, then having a teammate pick it up who then wins another 1v1, and so on but there is no real coordinated team play, no real passing. At this point I'm just trying to get them not to fight each other for the ball. This is where Girl Power was about one year ago.
The next stage comes when they really do start to understand how to maintain a useful space away from the ball when a teammate is dribbling. At that point they start seeing passing opportunities as a natural option and they begin experimenting with that. So when that happens the postage stamp gets a bit bigger, maybe the size of the penalty area now. That's where Girl Power have been for a few months. In a lot of field conditions against most teams that ability to just keep control in a smallish space long enough to find a good pass to a nearby teammate usually results in that teammate breaking free for a fairly straightforward shooting opportunity.
But what if the field is a big one or the surface is slow? And what if the other team has defenders who know better than to hang back and wait for you to dribble into them? Well, then you have trouble getting the ball out of that postage stamp-sized area and that's what we saw with the girls a couple of weeks ago when they played on the large field at T&C. They were great at possessing the ball and they were even passing a bit but they just couldn't get the ball out of our own half.
The reason for their trouble in that game was simply that while they were all doing their best to dribble and win space and then doing a pretty good job of finding a teammate for a pass when they needed too, eventually the ball would find it's way to the player farthest up field whose only support would be someone behind them. At that point the only way forward was going solo as none of our players off the ball would react quickly enough to the opportunity and get open up front for a through ball or at least to draw some defensive attention.
So, our girls can keep the ball away from you 1v1 in a little space and they can play as a unit and keep possession in a slightly bigger space but in certain situations they get stuck in that smallish space and can't get to goal. In describing the next stage of our team development to the girls in practice last week I told them that they need to learn how to take that little space they are so good at playing in and move it up the field. We did some drills to emphasize that and going into our last indoor game the coaching phrase I kept using was "move the little space up the field."
We didn't actually see much of an effort to move the postage stamp in that game but the girls were all enthusiastic about the idea, Ava in particular, and right now I'm happy just to have it sort of in the back of their minds. And there were a few hints of something new on the horizon. Most of the girls, when they were playing out of the defensive third were clearly looking to win their first 1v1 and then dish the ball as the next defender closed on them. There were also a lot of really nice through ball passes from midfield leading a running player into a shooting opportunity.
Their excellent dribbling skills combined with all of these new-found cooperative skills allowed the girls to overcome a 0-3 first half deficit. They were down 1-4 in the second half and went on an unanswered 6 goal run for a final score of 7-4. We'll keep working on moving the postage stamp and hopefully this season we're going to see them developing a sense of how to work as a group to capitalize on their individual ball control strength.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Foundations
Back when I first started working with the group of players who would become Girl Power* one of my favorite ways to warm up the team at the start of training or before games was to play keep-away. I'd take off with the ball and challenge the whole team to try and take it away from me. The kids always loved it and it gave me an opportunity to introduce them to the idea that soccer is a game of dribbling as opposed to "kicking and running". I would do my best to keep the ball very close to me and to keep possession while never simply running away from the kids. If one of the players did get the ball from me it was gratifying to see some of them emulate me and try to dribble and control the ball rather than just kick it.
Over time I began to introduce my players to fundamental ball control exercises like "toe-taps" and "foundations" (bells) and I regularly noticed that for many players these exercises felt silly and pointless, unrelated to the game. To convince players that it was worth their effort to apply themselves to becoming competent at toe-taps and foundations I would challenge them to steal the ball from me in a 1v1 game of keep-away. Before we started I might explain to the whole group "I'll dribble to keep the ball but only using toe-taps" or "only using foundation touches and we'll see if they can get if from me." By doing that regularly I was able to convince most players that the fundamental skills we were learning from just those two exercises were skills they could use effectively in games, skills that would make them better at the game they loved.
As we progress through learning different change of direction moves and deceptive techniques those two control skills, controlling the ball with your toes (toe-taps) or with your instep (foundations), turn out to be the fundamental touches that most of our 1v1 moves are built from. Below are some video clips from a recent Girl Power game in which I've isolated aspects of their game that demonstrate how important those fundamental control touches are, how they just show up everywhere in a game.
Above you see Abby stealing the ball cleanly out of the reach of an opponent by using a little instep chop or "foundation" touch.
This video also shows the value of the "foundation" or bells touch as Hailey deftly makes a little right-left move that completely bamboozles her opponent. I can remember clearly how frustrated all the girls were with learning "foundations" and yet here it is helping them get to goal.
In this clip you see Ava using a move that we practice until the team is sick of it, the Cruyff turn. It's a move that builds directly off of that foundation instep touch and here you see Ava using it to escape from a player who is a good head taller than her. Also note that Ava's confidence in this skill after so much practice allows her to dribble directly at our own goal in order to set her opponent up for the deceptive turn.
I wanted to include one example of some very heads-up passing too as the ability to look up and see opportunities even before the ball comes to you is something that requires the confidence you develop from being comfortable with the ball at your feet. In this case Ava isn't concerned about the tight spot she's about to be in with the ball. Rather she's only thinking of the next move, how to get the ball to Hailey.
Finally, here is that "foundations" based Cruyff turn again, this time from Zoe. It's as smooth as can be and that's the result of hundreds of repetitions so that now Zoe can execute this skill without thinking about it.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Resilience
Before the Girl Power game this past Saturday I put two "restrictions" in place for the team. Firstly, any of them playing keeper would only be allowed to throw the ball. No punts. Secondly, during the second half I would expect each player at some point to dribble the ball into the other team's final third then take the ball back out past the half line before being allowed to turn back toward goal to find a shot.
Part of my reasoning for restricting the punting is that I wanted to force them while in as keepers to have to think more about how to get the ball out in a way that would re-start our attack. Once a player has developed a good punt then it becomes their automatic go-to skill whenever they get their hands on the ball. And why not? They know it's impressive and it seems to be what their teammates and the crowd want, right? But a punt can be just a very long turn over if it's not placed thoughtfully and so by taking that tool away in this game I hoped to force both the keeper and the field players to find other ways to solve the problem of how to get the ball out.
My thinking in asking players to dribble in then out of the attacking half was similarly based on a need to force players to experience the game in a particular way. I'd watched a couple of USWNT games and one Premier League game recently where the team with the better skills and attacking tactics was managing to produce a lot of shooting opportunities but no goals for long periods of the game. It was a game between Everton and West Bromwich Albion of the English Premier League that really got me thinking about this. Everton had ball possession for an overwhelming 70% of the game and took an astounding 33 shots on goal without scoring even once. West Brom on the other hand managed one goal on a corner kick early in the game and held that lead to the end.
What I noticed watching that game was that while Everton had gotten into a beautiful rhythm, attacking West Brom's goal in wave after wave, West Brom had also developed a rhythm in their defense and were stoutly absorbing the Everton attack. It began to look like a sort of football version of the rope-a-dope.
Later in the week I saw a USWNT Olympic qualifier vs Mexico in which they seemed to be having the same issue. They possessed the ball and attacked furiously while the other team simply absorbed the pressure, never trying to mount much of an attack of their own. The US team finally broke through and it seemed to me that what changed for them was that they altered the tempo of the game just slightly by actually bypassing a few shooting opportunities and bringing the ball back out into midfield to begin their attack again. By doing this the US Women were able to patiently draw the defending team out just enough to create some space in front of goal. They managed one goal but it was enough and Mexico were certainly the toughest side they faced before meeting Canada in the final.
So, what I hoped to achieve by having players double up on their dribbling work by going in then out of the other half wasn't just to force them to increase the number of 1v1s they could face. Rather my main goal was to get them to realize that they can use their skills and the whole field space to alter the tempo of the game and that one player who moves the ball thoughtfully and with some patience can move the other team's defense around to our advantage. As good as Girl Power has become at creating opportunities for shots they are still often moving at a break-neck pace as they approach goal. While I don't want them to cut back on the quantity of shots they take I'd like them to slow down enough to take the extra touches necessary to increase the quality of the shots they take. By taking 'extra touches' I mean that they often make a great move to win an opening but then rush into that space so fast, even recklessly, that they aren't able to get off a good shot.
As it turned out our opponent on Saturday gave us exactly the sort of game I was describing. In the first minute of play Abby threw every move at them she had and I think I could hear the other Coach groaning. Everyone else on the squad was anxious to show their moves too and I saw some really jaw dropping stuff. At one point early on Zoe did a pull-and-play-behind at full running stride so smooth and fast that I suspect the opposing player who was on her may have thought Zoe simply evaporated with the ball. In response to all this ball control skill the other team was mostly kicking at the ball. To her credit, the other Coach was repeatedly pleading with her team to dribble more but only getting a positive response from one player. Girl Power managed at least 60% ball possession and took an insane 36 shots with an impressive 19 of those being on frame. But with 1:29 left to play only 4 of those had found the net and we were down 5-4.
Late in the second half the other team had managed to equalize and then take a one goal lead thanks to that one committed ball hog they had. As we took the kick-off after she put in goal number five I was concerned that our girls were a bit shell-shocked. I could see them all look up at the clock and I was worried they might panic but at the whistle they took a good small touch, one player to another, moving the ball laterally to Ashley. As she dribbled past our bench I called out to her "there's time, take it easy and find your shot". Ashley had been having a great game showing some of her best dribbling work this session and she was sure footed this time as she moved into the corner on the keeper's right. She drove right into the defender on that side then pulled the ball back out and turned toward the center. One soft touch to set it up and she blasted the ball high and into the top corner, far post. As cool as you please and with time to spare.
At about the 1:00 mark the other team took their places around the ball to kick-off. One player was on the ball but her nearest teammates were three yards or more to either side. What happened next was truly amazing and shows the way Girl Power are developing not only their ball skills but their game IQ. With the one opposing player standing over the ball for kick-off and no one else close by to take a short pass I hear Hailey and Olivia both call to their teammates "they're just going to kick it." I think they both sounded a bit incredulous, like, "wow, they're just going to give us the ball" which is exactly what they did as their center player tried to toe poke the ball straight through our front line. I think Hailey ended up making the final run along the wall to the keeper's left and after digging the ball out of the corner she got it across the goal to Ashley who tried to put it right back in. The keeper deflected it but Olivia was waiting about two yards out and tapped it in for the winner with only seconds left.
It was a thrilling ending and what impressed me the most was that while the girls were playing energetically in those final moments they were also playing with confidence and self-assurance. There wasn't enough time left for a lot of chances but there was time left for two or three attempts and Girl Power played like they knew that was enough.
My plan to get them to dribble in and out of the attacking half didn't work out as the pace of the game in the second half kind of took over but the way the game ended was the right lesson in itself. It showed them that they can play with urgency without being in a panic, that they can play skillfully even when time is limited.
The restriction on the keeper punting was a success I think in that it did put a lot of pressure on our keepers and defenders. The keepers had to assess and think a bit before distributing the ball and the defenders had to be moving to stay available. I know that seeing our players play the ball at their feet out of our own third of the field can be stressful but we'll probably keep that rule in place the remainder of the session.
Part of my reasoning for restricting the punting is that I wanted to force them while in as keepers to have to think more about how to get the ball out in a way that would re-start our attack. Once a player has developed a good punt then it becomes their automatic go-to skill whenever they get their hands on the ball. And why not? They know it's impressive and it seems to be what their teammates and the crowd want, right? But a punt can be just a very long turn over if it's not placed thoughtfully and so by taking that tool away in this game I hoped to force both the keeper and the field players to find other ways to solve the problem of how to get the ball out.
My thinking in asking players to dribble in then out of the attacking half was similarly based on a need to force players to experience the game in a particular way. I'd watched a couple of USWNT games and one Premier League game recently where the team with the better skills and attacking tactics was managing to produce a lot of shooting opportunities but no goals for long periods of the game. It was a game between Everton and West Bromwich Albion of the English Premier League that really got me thinking about this. Everton had ball possession for an overwhelming 70% of the game and took an astounding 33 shots on goal without scoring even once. West Brom on the other hand managed one goal on a corner kick early in the game and held that lead to the end.
What I noticed watching that game was that while Everton had gotten into a beautiful rhythm, attacking West Brom's goal in wave after wave, West Brom had also developed a rhythm in their defense and were stoutly absorbing the Everton attack. It began to look like a sort of football version of the rope-a-dope.
Later in the week I saw a USWNT Olympic qualifier vs Mexico in which they seemed to be having the same issue. They possessed the ball and attacked furiously while the other team simply absorbed the pressure, never trying to mount much of an attack of their own. The US team finally broke through and it seemed to me that what changed for them was that they altered the tempo of the game just slightly by actually bypassing a few shooting opportunities and bringing the ball back out into midfield to begin their attack again. By doing this the US Women were able to patiently draw the defending team out just enough to create some space in front of goal. They managed one goal but it was enough and Mexico were certainly the toughest side they faced before meeting Canada in the final.
So, what I hoped to achieve by having players double up on their dribbling work by going in then out of the other half wasn't just to force them to increase the number of 1v1s they could face. Rather my main goal was to get them to realize that they can use their skills and the whole field space to alter the tempo of the game and that one player who moves the ball thoughtfully and with some patience can move the other team's defense around to our advantage. As good as Girl Power has become at creating opportunities for shots they are still often moving at a break-neck pace as they approach goal. While I don't want them to cut back on the quantity of shots they take I'd like them to slow down enough to take the extra touches necessary to increase the quality of the shots they take. By taking 'extra touches' I mean that they often make a great move to win an opening but then rush into that space so fast, even recklessly, that they aren't able to get off a good shot.
As it turned out our opponent on Saturday gave us exactly the sort of game I was describing. In the first minute of play Abby threw every move at them she had and I think I could hear the other Coach groaning. Everyone else on the squad was anxious to show their moves too and I saw some really jaw dropping stuff. At one point early on Zoe did a pull-and-play-behind at full running stride so smooth and fast that I suspect the opposing player who was on her may have thought Zoe simply evaporated with the ball. In response to all this ball control skill the other team was mostly kicking at the ball. To her credit, the other Coach was repeatedly pleading with her team to dribble more but only getting a positive response from one player. Girl Power managed at least 60% ball possession and took an insane 36 shots with an impressive 19 of those being on frame. But with 1:29 left to play only 4 of those had found the net and we were down 5-4.
Late in the second half the other team had managed to equalize and then take a one goal lead thanks to that one committed ball hog they had. As we took the kick-off after she put in goal number five I was concerned that our girls were a bit shell-shocked. I could see them all look up at the clock and I was worried they might panic but at the whistle they took a good small touch, one player to another, moving the ball laterally to Ashley. As she dribbled past our bench I called out to her "there's time, take it easy and find your shot". Ashley had been having a great game showing some of her best dribbling work this session and she was sure footed this time as she moved into the corner on the keeper's right. She drove right into the defender on that side then pulled the ball back out and turned toward the center. One soft touch to set it up and she blasted the ball high and into the top corner, far post. As cool as you please and with time to spare.
At about the 1:00 mark the other team took their places around the ball to kick-off. One player was on the ball but her nearest teammates were three yards or more to either side. What happened next was truly amazing and shows the way Girl Power are developing not only their ball skills but their game IQ. With the one opposing player standing over the ball for kick-off and no one else close by to take a short pass I hear Hailey and Olivia both call to their teammates "they're just going to kick it." I think they both sounded a bit incredulous, like, "wow, they're just going to give us the ball" which is exactly what they did as their center player tried to toe poke the ball straight through our front line. I think Hailey ended up making the final run along the wall to the keeper's left and after digging the ball out of the corner she got it across the goal to Ashley who tried to put it right back in. The keeper deflected it but Olivia was waiting about two yards out and tapped it in for the winner with only seconds left.
It was a thrilling ending and what impressed me the most was that while the girls were playing energetically in those final moments they were also playing with confidence and self-assurance. There wasn't enough time left for a lot of chances but there was time left for two or three attempts and Girl Power played like they knew that was enough.
My plan to get them to dribble in and out of the attacking half didn't work out as the pace of the game in the second half kind of took over but the way the game ended was the right lesson in itself. It showed them that they can play with urgency without being in a panic, that they can play skillfully even when time is limited.
The restriction on the keeper punting was a success I think in that it did put a lot of pressure on our keepers and defenders. The keepers had to assess and think a bit before distributing the ball and the defenders had to be moving to stay available. I know that seeing our players play the ball at their feet out of our own third of the field can be stressful but we'll probably keep that rule in place the remainder of the session.
Monday, February 8, 2016
Poise
Girl Power faced a familiar opponent Saturday evening, the NKSA Cheeths. We played them in two friendly matches in the fall and while we won both games I could clearly see the NKSA squad growing in confidence during that second match. When we ran into them at the fall tournament they were a team transformed, playing with a high energy level and a lot of discipline. They got the best of us in that tournament match despite the fact that we had so much more ball possession during the game.
Thinking about that last match later I came to the conclusion that all of that ball possession was a result of the individual skills of our players, which is what we train for. But in a game situation where a strong team gets a goal up on us early my squad's response is based on that same individual skill. That is, they each as individuals pick up their intensity while at the same time becoming less coordinated as a group. Each girl goes out there and does what they've trained so hard to do. They attack the ball, get possession and then attempt to dribble penetrate. Against less experienced or less organized squads the Girl Power's level of individual competence leads to wave after wave of patient but relentless attack generating a lot of shooting opportunities.
In that fall tourney game against the Cheetahs we met an opponent who had learned how to keep a disciplined shape on the field and as a result when one of our players would eventually lose the ball after attempting yet another 1v1 the NKSA players were more often in an advantageous position to capitalize. As their lead grew our girls' level of intensity increased to becoming nearly frantic and that only added to NKSA's advantage. Our girls began wandering and then actively chasing toward the ball, leaving more and more empty space around the field so that, again, when one of our players lost the ball on the dribble after valiantly pressing through defenders (and their own teammates) the Cheetah player who picked up that turnover was often looking at an open path to goal. Their final goal of the game was a dagger, a rocket off the powerful right foot of Cheetah leader Jolie (she's a real player and fun to watch). She had picked up a lost ball from Anna I think near the center circle then sprinted diagonally toward the corner on her right. Just as Ava threatened to catch her Jolie let loose a blast from the eighteen cutting back across to the far post. Frozen at the near post Eileen didn't have a chance of getting to that one.
Playing indoor on the small field at T&C the conditions can be favorable to a team that plays the ball over the top a lot, that is, with long passing from the back and a "clear it out" defensive mentality. Saturday evening that proved to be the case as the Cheetas got out to an early lead even as Girl Power were, as usual, putting on a show of individual skills. This game, I thought, might go the same way that last one did. But something happened twice in the opening minutes that in retrospect I can see indicated that we would see a new level of confident team play from Girl Power. In the first run of play after kick-off the Cheetahs managed to boot the ball down into our left corner. Ava had plenty of time to get to the ball and trap it cleanly and then she did something that was so remarkable and yet so very "Scout" like. Looking up from the ball and quickly assessing her options Ava turned toward her defensive partner Olivia and made a smart pass right through the box to the other side of the field. It may have looked risky at the time but in reality Ava made exactly the right choice. Olivia was wide open and the Cheetahs were all lined up on Ava's side of the field. Olivia had an open path to the midfield with the ball and most importantly she was ready for the pass. Ava did that again a few minutes later and this time it was at Olivia's prompting who was calling out "square" to her. I could hear the groan/moan from the bleachers, the murmurs of "oh no, not that way" but again it worked beautifully. By that time, despite the energy with which the Cheetahs were pressing, Girl Power started to settle in and started to feel their strength. Their body language was casual and confident. Suddenly they were not only dribbling brilliantly but they were communicating, mostly in the correct specific terms we've been working on, and we started seeing some beautiful passing to compliment their 1v1 skills. Suddenly our girls were playing with a disciplined shape, but not a rigid formation as most teams attempt. Rather they flow about the field now, ever more aware of their shared responsibilities. As the play of Ava and later Emily and Eileen in defense showed they feel free to find different ways to solve the problems encountered in defense, solutions that keep our defense and attack connected, one leading directly into the other. The way I've described this style of play that we've been working toward is "rotation" and in Saturday evening's game they were masterful in executing it.
I say masterful in this instance because of the confidence, the ease with which they rotate and cover for each other now. And they do so in a way that is actually deceptive to other teams. At one point in the first half, with the teams tied now on three or four apiece, there was a run of play where Olivia I think trapped a long, aimless, ball that came into her corner and began dribbling out into the open space the other team was giving her. Her defense mate, Eileen had just made a similar run from the other side and so as Olivia struck up-field our half was empty save for Emily in goal. I could hear the tone of the other coach's voice change as he pleaded for his girls to challenge Olivia quickly. He could see the opportunity that had opened up and wanted them to take it. But before Olivia had even taken on her first 1v1 just past the half line Emily smartly read the situation and called out for someone to get back. Keep in mind this is while we still have possession. Eileen shouted back with a supportive "I got ya" and looped back into a central defensive position. When she did that I could hear the disappointment in the other coach's voice, realizing they'd missed their chance. Our girls did that the whole game; freely attacking space from the back; smartly rotating to cover. And they weren't just covering to defend the goal, to simply block the shots. They were playing to recover the ball and attack again.
Late in the game Ava made another one of her smart outlet passes having trapped the ball against the wall near our goal. She saw that a pass to Olivia in goal was not an option and neither was dribbling out across the box which was crowded with Cheetahs. But she did see Eileen to her right up the wall so she made a quick pass to her. Eileen then did the Legends thing which is she tried to dribble out of a tight spot despite being double and then triple covered. Back and forth she played the ball using her pull-and-play-behind, dragging her opponents with her until eventually they just sort of got tired of it and left her an opening so she could split two of them and get headed up field. Her long pass up for Hailey was a bit strong but eventually that play led to a goal for Abby. That run of play demonstrated the important difference between what Eileen and the other girls had been doing in defense and the way other teams, the Cheetahs included, deal with balls in their own third. After Eileen got the ball up toward Hailey she chased after her to be there for a drop. Hailey dug the ball out of the corner, trying to get off a shot or get the ball to Abby who was waiting far post. The ball ping-ponged around in the Cheetah's third for twenty seconds or so with Eileen moving into the corner as Hailey moved toward the penalty spot. With Cheetah players frantically trying with each touch to clear the ball out they were only managing to give us the ball back over and over. Eventually a rebound off of one of their defenders fell to Abby's foot and she calmly chipped it over the keeper's left shoulder high into the corner of the goal to put the game away.
The difference in the attitudes of the teams toward defending is that when Eileen or Ava or any of them trap the ball and attempt to dribble out or find a smart pass they are defending to create offense. But a team that clears the ball as their default defensive option is defending only in hopes of regrouping and their players are in a mode where thinking about how to solve the problem the actual moment presents is not required or even encouraged.
I watch enough pro soccer to know that being able to clear the ball is an essential skill for good defenders and every week I'll see some amazingly acrobatic turn made by a defender who is running full speed toward his own goal and yet manages to spin and boot the ball thirty yards back up field. But what you also see from good defenders on good teams is that they only clear the ball when they are unsure of their other options. So those players are expected to be able to assess the situations they are in on the fly and find their best way forward rather than acting in some automatic fashion. I know that our girls can put themselves in some precarious situations by dribbling out of the back but don't think that I'm encouraging them to do that because I think it's the best strategy for a team. Rather I think it's the best strategy for a coach who wants to put his players in a situation where they are free to feel the power of their skills and to creatively solve the problems they see in front of them.
So now some highlights.
Emily was strong in goal the first quarter including a stop made with one foot as she did the full "splits". Cat-like!
Abby was stringing combinations together with really remarkable effect and now she's adding in this new found power on her shooting stroke. Guess the box soccer thing is working.
Anna, despite having recently had some serious dental surgery, was gliding through defenders with those silky step-over/scissor combinations she loves. And in this game she was smartly getting into position on the weak side of the goal when off the ball too. As a result she had a couple of nice "clean up" goals.
Ava was playing with her usual stellar field awareness. Her first touches into space and her passing were brilliant.
Hailey was hard pressed in this game with the Cheetahs being less susceptible to her subtle feints than other teams. She seemed to adjust to that going into the second half and began adding more of an irresistible pause to her fakes and lunges and so she started drawing her defenders more off balance.
Olivia was tentative the first few minutes about dribbling out from the back. She made some brilliant through-ball passes in that first quarter though and by the second quarter and into the second half she was taking full advantage of the space in front of her to dribble up and take her chances. She was brilliant in keeper to with some really excellent outlet throws (defense flowing into offense).
Ashley was having a hard time initially finding the feel for playing effectively away from the ball. By the second half though she seems to have had an epiphany and began smartly moving quickly to either a central or far-post position when one of her teammates had the ball on a wing. As a result she got a lot of chances on goal.
Eileen's new found speed and confidence continues to impress. She's a firecracker!
Thinking about that last match later I came to the conclusion that all of that ball possession was a result of the individual skills of our players, which is what we train for. But in a game situation where a strong team gets a goal up on us early my squad's response is based on that same individual skill. That is, they each as individuals pick up their intensity while at the same time becoming less coordinated as a group. Each girl goes out there and does what they've trained so hard to do. They attack the ball, get possession and then attempt to dribble penetrate. Against less experienced or less organized squads the Girl Power's level of individual competence leads to wave after wave of patient but relentless attack generating a lot of shooting opportunities.
In that fall tourney game against the Cheetahs we met an opponent who had learned how to keep a disciplined shape on the field and as a result when one of our players would eventually lose the ball after attempting yet another 1v1 the NKSA players were more often in an advantageous position to capitalize. As their lead grew our girls' level of intensity increased to becoming nearly frantic and that only added to NKSA's advantage. Our girls began wandering and then actively chasing toward the ball, leaving more and more empty space around the field so that, again, when one of our players lost the ball on the dribble after valiantly pressing through defenders (and their own teammates) the Cheetah player who picked up that turnover was often looking at an open path to goal. Their final goal of the game was a dagger, a rocket off the powerful right foot of Cheetah leader Jolie (she's a real player and fun to watch). She had picked up a lost ball from Anna I think near the center circle then sprinted diagonally toward the corner on her right. Just as Ava threatened to catch her Jolie let loose a blast from the eighteen cutting back across to the far post. Frozen at the near post Eileen didn't have a chance of getting to that one.
Playing indoor on the small field at T&C the conditions can be favorable to a team that plays the ball over the top a lot, that is, with long passing from the back and a "clear it out" defensive mentality. Saturday evening that proved to be the case as the Cheetas got out to an early lead even as Girl Power were, as usual, putting on a show of individual skills. This game, I thought, might go the same way that last one did. But something happened twice in the opening minutes that in retrospect I can see indicated that we would see a new level of confident team play from Girl Power. In the first run of play after kick-off the Cheetahs managed to boot the ball down into our left corner. Ava had plenty of time to get to the ball and trap it cleanly and then she did something that was so remarkable and yet so very "Scout" like. Looking up from the ball and quickly assessing her options Ava turned toward her defensive partner Olivia and made a smart pass right through the box to the other side of the field. It may have looked risky at the time but in reality Ava made exactly the right choice. Olivia was wide open and the Cheetahs were all lined up on Ava's side of the field. Olivia had an open path to the midfield with the ball and most importantly she was ready for the pass. Ava did that again a few minutes later and this time it was at Olivia's prompting who was calling out "square" to her. I could hear the groan/moan from the bleachers, the murmurs of "oh no, not that way" but again it worked beautifully. By that time, despite the energy with which the Cheetahs were pressing, Girl Power started to settle in and started to feel their strength. Their body language was casual and confident. Suddenly they were not only dribbling brilliantly but they were communicating, mostly in the correct specific terms we've been working on, and we started seeing some beautiful passing to compliment their 1v1 skills. Suddenly our girls were playing with a disciplined shape, but not a rigid formation as most teams attempt. Rather they flow about the field now, ever more aware of their shared responsibilities. As the play of Ava and later Emily and Eileen in defense showed they feel free to find different ways to solve the problems encountered in defense, solutions that keep our defense and attack connected, one leading directly into the other. The way I've described this style of play that we've been working toward is "rotation" and in Saturday evening's game they were masterful in executing it.
I say masterful in this instance because of the confidence, the ease with which they rotate and cover for each other now. And they do so in a way that is actually deceptive to other teams. At one point in the first half, with the teams tied now on three or four apiece, there was a run of play where Olivia I think trapped a long, aimless, ball that came into her corner and began dribbling out into the open space the other team was giving her. Her defense mate, Eileen had just made a similar run from the other side and so as Olivia struck up-field our half was empty save for Emily in goal. I could hear the tone of the other coach's voice change as he pleaded for his girls to challenge Olivia quickly. He could see the opportunity that had opened up and wanted them to take it. But before Olivia had even taken on her first 1v1 just past the half line Emily smartly read the situation and called out for someone to get back. Keep in mind this is while we still have possession. Eileen shouted back with a supportive "I got ya" and looped back into a central defensive position. When she did that I could hear the disappointment in the other coach's voice, realizing they'd missed their chance. Our girls did that the whole game; freely attacking space from the back; smartly rotating to cover. And they weren't just covering to defend the goal, to simply block the shots. They were playing to recover the ball and attack again.
Late in the game Ava made another one of her smart outlet passes having trapped the ball against the wall near our goal. She saw that a pass to Olivia in goal was not an option and neither was dribbling out across the box which was crowded with Cheetahs. But she did see Eileen to her right up the wall so she made a quick pass to her. Eileen then did the Legends thing which is she tried to dribble out of a tight spot despite being double and then triple covered. Back and forth she played the ball using her pull-and-play-behind, dragging her opponents with her until eventually they just sort of got tired of it and left her an opening so she could split two of them and get headed up field. Her long pass up for Hailey was a bit strong but eventually that play led to a goal for Abby. That run of play demonstrated the important difference between what Eileen and the other girls had been doing in defense and the way other teams, the Cheetahs included, deal with balls in their own third. After Eileen got the ball up toward Hailey she chased after her to be there for a drop. Hailey dug the ball out of the corner, trying to get off a shot or get the ball to Abby who was waiting far post. The ball ping-ponged around in the Cheetah's third for twenty seconds or so with Eileen moving into the corner as Hailey moved toward the penalty spot. With Cheetah players frantically trying with each touch to clear the ball out they were only managing to give us the ball back over and over. Eventually a rebound off of one of their defenders fell to Abby's foot and she calmly chipped it over the keeper's left shoulder high into the corner of the goal to put the game away.
The difference in the attitudes of the teams toward defending is that when Eileen or Ava or any of them trap the ball and attempt to dribble out or find a smart pass they are defending to create offense. But a team that clears the ball as their default defensive option is defending only in hopes of regrouping and their players are in a mode where thinking about how to solve the problem the actual moment presents is not required or even encouraged.
I watch enough pro soccer to know that being able to clear the ball is an essential skill for good defenders and every week I'll see some amazingly acrobatic turn made by a defender who is running full speed toward his own goal and yet manages to spin and boot the ball thirty yards back up field. But what you also see from good defenders on good teams is that they only clear the ball when they are unsure of their other options. So those players are expected to be able to assess the situations they are in on the fly and find their best way forward rather than acting in some automatic fashion. I know that our girls can put themselves in some precarious situations by dribbling out of the back but don't think that I'm encouraging them to do that because I think it's the best strategy for a team. Rather I think it's the best strategy for a coach who wants to put his players in a situation where they are free to feel the power of their skills and to creatively solve the problems they see in front of them.
So now some highlights.
Emily was strong in goal the first quarter including a stop made with one foot as she did the full "splits". Cat-like!
Abby was stringing combinations together with really remarkable effect and now she's adding in this new found power on her shooting stroke. Guess the box soccer thing is working.
Anna, despite having recently had some serious dental surgery, was gliding through defenders with those silky step-over/scissor combinations she loves. And in this game she was smartly getting into position on the weak side of the goal when off the ball too. As a result she had a couple of nice "clean up" goals.
Ava was playing with her usual stellar field awareness. Her first touches into space and her passing were brilliant.
Hailey was hard pressed in this game with the Cheetahs being less susceptible to her subtle feints than other teams. She seemed to adjust to that going into the second half and began adding more of an irresistible pause to her fakes and lunges and so she started drawing her defenders more off balance.
Olivia was tentative the first few minutes about dribbling out from the back. She made some brilliant through-ball passes in that first quarter though and by the second quarter and into the second half she was taking full advantage of the space in front of her to dribble up and take her chances. She was brilliant in keeper to with some really excellent outlet throws (defense flowing into offense).
Ashley was having a hard time initially finding the feel for playing effectively away from the ball. By the second half though she seems to have had an epiphany and began smartly moving quickly to either a central or far-post position when one of her teammates had the ball on a wing. As a result she got a lot of chances on goal.
Eileen's new found speed and confidence continues to impress. She's a firecracker!
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Keepers
One of the more or less constant points of friction between a coach and his players or even between the coach and the parents is the issue of goal keeping. Not many players enjoy playing in keeper and frequently parents have opinions as to which players should or shouldn't be in the goal. But from the coach's point of view it's critically important for the development of individual players that they get experience playing keeper even if they don't like doing it or feel they simply aren't good at it. It's that second sentiment, the "I'm not good at keeper" attitude that is toughest to combat with young players because they don't really have the capacity or experience to judge their own or anyone else's performance. They assume that if a ball goes in it was their fault and so they view the position of keeper as being one of near guaranteed failure.
I insist that every player on my squads take a regular turn in as keeper for several reasons. First and most obviously, it may turn out that a particular player actually has an aptitude for it and they may pursue it as their preferred position later in their career. Secondly, you need to be in there as keeper often enough to be able to become less sensitive to the apparent failure of letting a goal in and you need the reps in order to learn how to discern between shots you could have stopped and those you had no chance at. Thirdly, becoming a quality defender (anywhere on the field) involves understanding how to anticipate what your teammate behind you will do as you challenge on the ball. At the very least a good defender knows that keeping goal ain't easy so you feel the responsibility to not leave your teammate hanging in the net alone. Gaining that sense of responsibility requires some time spent standing on the line yourself.
Finally, I'd add that young players tend to think of keeper as a strictly defensive position which to them means you're only playing half the game and you're only involved in the game in situations where the apparent cost of failure is high. If you trip over your own feet trying to do a maradonna it's embarrassing but that mistake doesn't necessarily translate into a goal for the other team. What if you bobble the ball while in keeper as the other team is charging into you for the rebound? Disaster. But a good keeper isn't simply playing defense, isn't simply playing as a shot-blocking crash-test dummy. A good keeper sees themselves as the base of the attack. They enthusiastically go after the ball, get possession and then re-start your offense by leading your teammates up field with a good punt or throw. They form the point of a triangle that lets the fullbacks switch fields with the ball to unbalance the other team. They even dribble out on occasion, surprising the other team with a sudden overload situation.
So for all of these reasons I put all my players in keeper regularly, even the ones who don't seem to be particularly good at it, even when it clearly might cost us a goal or two. As I've said before in different contexts, while I like seeing my teams be successful I am not coaching them to win by moving them around, chess-piece-like, taking advantage of the skills and talents they individually have right now. I'm training them. And that means for the long term. And that means letting them experience the whole game from every position on the field. It means challenging them to master some elements of the fundamental skills it takes to play anywhere on the field. But skills and techniques aside, the best reason to keep rotating every player in as keeper is that from that lonely position they are truly forced to appreciate how important team work and communication are. When I see one of my players become upset that they've let a goal in the first thing I think is that I want them to appreciate that the run of play that led to that goal was not in their control. I would want to talk with them after the game and say "maybe you guessed wrong and went right rather than left. Maybe you just didn't get your hands down quick enough and that's something we can work on. But you didn't let that crossing pass come in did you? You didn't dive in and let that midfielder get by coming up the left did you? It wasn't you who made a bad touch and gave up possession when we had the ball in the other half was it? So all of those things happened and in the end they led to a shot which you weren't able to block. So who is responsible for that goal?" The answer of course is "everyone". Being a keeper forces you to understand "we're all in this together."
Girl Power were back in action last night, kicking off the indoor season with a tremendous performance against a Kings team that plays in CUSL D1. We scored first and really had them on the ropes the first half, both with our dribbling and with our stamina. By the second half though the other team found their stride and began putting goals in and the difference I think was that our girls, physically strong as they are, did get a bit fatigued mentally and so they started drifting thoughtlessly toward the ball leaving shot opportunities open for the Kings' strikers. I was thrilled with the level of quality that I saw from our girls. Their first touch wasn't always brilliant but we can work on that. They dribbled fearlessly and were winning 1v1s consistently.
In the second half I asked Abby to take the keeper spot and she did so reluctantly. Anna offered to go in half way through for her (Sugar Anne indeed) so about 12 minutes in when Abby had been scored on a few times I made the goalie switch. Abby came off crying, devastated by what she thought was a bad performance on her part. The truth is that she hadn't really had a chance at any of the shots that went in. She'd played well and had a couple of especially beautiful punts, low but still long, leading her teammates right into the Kings' half. At first I wanted to console Abby but I realized she probably wouldn't have it so I said calmly "I need you back out on the field so get it together. You're not going in until you calm down." A moment later she was fine and got back in in time to help her team mount a little come back.
We got close and certainly gave that team a great game but in the end they were a little stronger in some ways that should be instructive for us. Their best players were committed to a more refined sort of dribbling and they made it work for them. Our girls are great at that fine dribble touch in practice but don't always bring it out in games, instead falling back into more of a sweeping sort of touch on the ball that frequently leads to giving it away. So, we know what to focus on in training.
The thing I was most impressed by was the fearlessness of the girls. They played at such a high level in terms of their effort and energy. In the first half a couple of the Kings players came off weeping because they were so winded from the effort of matching our speed. I also noticed that our girls have become amazingly resilient, even stout, when challenged for the ball and they seem very casual about hard contact now. The way I'd put it is that last night they looked very committed to the game and each other and as a result they looked very tough, not backing down from the challenge at any point. I was more than proud...I was a little in awe. They play a beautifully free-flowing and skillful sort of soccer.
So in my post-game talk I emphasized the quality I'd seen in terms of their dribbling, their spacing and their tireless, dogged pursuit of the ball. I wanted them to know they'd had a good game. But I also had to take a moment to say something to them about the whole keeper thing. I started out speaking gently about how hard the position is and how important it is that they all be willing to give it their best effort. I asked them to understand that there is a difference between situations where you "maybe" could have made a stop and situations where you "should" have made a stop. At this point I let my voice become a little more stern. "None of you have the experience to always understand that difference so you don't get to decide when you did or didn't play well in keeper. I make that decision and just like with everything else if I see you make a mistake I'll talk with you about it."
Then it was back to discussing the tallies and how they all did. I'm not always sure I like "them tallies" any more than Ashley does but I have to admit that it certainly gets their attention.
After I let everyone go I asked Abby to stop and talk with me. I tried to reassure her that she had in fact played a great game while in keeper and she was brilliant in the field with all of those lightning-quick cruyff turns. "When you get home call your mom and dad and tell them about the game. Tell them we played against that white-haired coach. He was asking about you after the game and he wants you to play for them so bad he can't stand it. But we're keeping you." They're all keepers.
I insist that every player on my squads take a regular turn in as keeper for several reasons. First and most obviously, it may turn out that a particular player actually has an aptitude for it and they may pursue it as their preferred position later in their career. Secondly, you need to be in there as keeper often enough to be able to become less sensitive to the apparent failure of letting a goal in and you need the reps in order to learn how to discern between shots you could have stopped and those you had no chance at. Thirdly, becoming a quality defender (anywhere on the field) involves understanding how to anticipate what your teammate behind you will do as you challenge on the ball. At the very least a good defender knows that keeping goal ain't easy so you feel the responsibility to not leave your teammate hanging in the net alone. Gaining that sense of responsibility requires some time spent standing on the line yourself.
Finally, I'd add that young players tend to think of keeper as a strictly defensive position which to them means you're only playing half the game and you're only involved in the game in situations where the apparent cost of failure is high. If you trip over your own feet trying to do a maradonna it's embarrassing but that mistake doesn't necessarily translate into a goal for the other team. What if you bobble the ball while in keeper as the other team is charging into you for the rebound? Disaster. But a good keeper isn't simply playing defense, isn't simply playing as a shot-blocking crash-test dummy. A good keeper sees themselves as the base of the attack. They enthusiastically go after the ball, get possession and then re-start your offense by leading your teammates up field with a good punt or throw. They form the point of a triangle that lets the fullbacks switch fields with the ball to unbalance the other team. They even dribble out on occasion, surprising the other team with a sudden overload situation.
So for all of these reasons I put all my players in keeper regularly, even the ones who don't seem to be particularly good at it, even when it clearly might cost us a goal or two. As I've said before in different contexts, while I like seeing my teams be successful I am not coaching them to win by moving them around, chess-piece-like, taking advantage of the skills and talents they individually have right now. I'm training them. And that means for the long term. And that means letting them experience the whole game from every position on the field. It means challenging them to master some elements of the fundamental skills it takes to play anywhere on the field. But skills and techniques aside, the best reason to keep rotating every player in as keeper is that from that lonely position they are truly forced to appreciate how important team work and communication are. When I see one of my players become upset that they've let a goal in the first thing I think is that I want them to appreciate that the run of play that led to that goal was not in their control. I would want to talk with them after the game and say "maybe you guessed wrong and went right rather than left. Maybe you just didn't get your hands down quick enough and that's something we can work on. But you didn't let that crossing pass come in did you? You didn't dive in and let that midfielder get by coming up the left did you? It wasn't you who made a bad touch and gave up possession when we had the ball in the other half was it? So all of those things happened and in the end they led to a shot which you weren't able to block. So who is responsible for that goal?" The answer of course is "everyone". Being a keeper forces you to understand "we're all in this together."
Girl Power were back in action last night, kicking off the indoor season with a tremendous performance against a Kings team that plays in CUSL D1. We scored first and really had them on the ropes the first half, both with our dribbling and with our stamina. By the second half though the other team found their stride and began putting goals in and the difference I think was that our girls, physically strong as they are, did get a bit fatigued mentally and so they started drifting thoughtlessly toward the ball leaving shot opportunities open for the Kings' strikers. I was thrilled with the level of quality that I saw from our girls. Their first touch wasn't always brilliant but we can work on that. They dribbled fearlessly and were winning 1v1s consistently.
In the second half I asked Abby to take the keeper spot and she did so reluctantly. Anna offered to go in half way through for her (Sugar Anne indeed) so about 12 minutes in when Abby had been scored on a few times I made the goalie switch. Abby came off crying, devastated by what she thought was a bad performance on her part. The truth is that she hadn't really had a chance at any of the shots that went in. She'd played well and had a couple of especially beautiful punts, low but still long, leading her teammates right into the Kings' half. At first I wanted to console Abby but I realized she probably wouldn't have it so I said calmly "I need you back out on the field so get it together. You're not going in until you calm down." A moment later she was fine and got back in in time to help her team mount a little come back.
We got close and certainly gave that team a great game but in the end they were a little stronger in some ways that should be instructive for us. Their best players were committed to a more refined sort of dribbling and they made it work for them. Our girls are great at that fine dribble touch in practice but don't always bring it out in games, instead falling back into more of a sweeping sort of touch on the ball that frequently leads to giving it away. So, we know what to focus on in training.
The thing I was most impressed by was the fearlessness of the girls. They played at such a high level in terms of their effort and energy. In the first half a couple of the Kings players came off weeping because they were so winded from the effort of matching our speed. I also noticed that our girls have become amazingly resilient, even stout, when challenged for the ball and they seem very casual about hard contact now. The way I'd put it is that last night they looked very committed to the game and each other and as a result they looked very tough, not backing down from the challenge at any point. I was more than proud...I was a little in awe. They play a beautifully free-flowing and skillful sort of soccer.
So in my post-game talk I emphasized the quality I'd seen in terms of their dribbling, their spacing and their tireless, dogged pursuit of the ball. I wanted them to know they'd had a good game. But I also had to take a moment to say something to them about the whole keeper thing. I started out speaking gently about how hard the position is and how important it is that they all be willing to give it their best effort. I asked them to understand that there is a difference between situations where you "maybe" could have made a stop and situations where you "should" have made a stop. At this point I let my voice become a little more stern. "None of you have the experience to always understand that difference so you don't get to decide when you did or didn't play well in keeper. I make that decision and just like with everything else if I see you make a mistake I'll talk with you about it."
Then it was back to discussing the tallies and how they all did. I'm not always sure I like "them tallies" any more than Ashley does but I have to admit that it certainly gets their attention.
After I let everyone go I asked Abby to stop and talk with me. I tried to reassure her that she had in fact played a great game while in keeper and she was brilliant in the field with all of those lightning-quick cruyff turns. "When you get home call your mom and dad and tell them about the game. Tell them we played against that white-haired coach. He was asking about you after the game and he wants you to play for them so bad he can't stand it. But we're keeping you." They're all keepers.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Coach Jeremy's Performance Training
Hardin Performance Training
Fitness is the time and effort it takes the body to recover from stress to a resting state; Performance is the execution attained and used during those moments of stress. This is a performance based system that by default increases the athlete’s fitness levels.
Sports are not algorithmic activities, they do not have one set of instructions that pathway to a single conclusion. They are Heuristic in that there are many possibilities that demand creativity to devise a novel solution to each situation. This system uses Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose to enable each participant to develop their own problem solving skills to overcome movement related obstacles under stressful situations.
Each athlete will develop 6 core characteristics through the process of this system:
1. Respect for themselves and others
2. Responsibility to take and answer for their actions
3. Accountability to their teammates and coaches
4. Focus under pressure
5. Compassion for the things we believe in
6. Authenticity for showing who they are and what they are about
The Legends organization has been extremely influential in helping me as a trainer and coach make the necessary adjustments to my own philosophy that has been developed over the last 12 years. I credit Eric Henderson as well as the Mark, Pat and Ben whom I have had the pleasure of working with over the past 3 years in helping me integrate with this young and growing club in Northern Kentucky. I am happy to make my home official with the Legends organization as I have partnered with the club and brought Hardin Performance Training on site at the Legends facility in Burlington. I am excited and privileged to provide Performance training to the club, and help develop each player as they maximize their potential to compete and find their joy for the game. I take a page out of Bill Bowerman’s philosophy that I bring to the club:
“Sports are an observed pastime in which we exhaust ourselves on. My mission is to have every athlete discover meaning in the type of training it takes to prepare themselves to compete in that exhaustion. If they can find that meaning, then they may find meaning in another observed pastime… life”
Athletes will go through a process of looking at their bodies in a new way, and discover the natural laws to movement that can aid them in taking the handcuffs off their game as they find a new passion and joy for their sport. Below is a broken down overview of what your athletes will be exposed to:
1. Functional Movement Screen with Corrective Exercises:
Each athlete will be given a movement screen that will rate and rank their movement patterns. Based on the results they will be given basic movement correctives to perform daily at home to help correct the way their brains are operating the movement in question.
2. Jump Rope Training:
Each athlete will need to purchase their own jump rope and bring them to every session. The jump rope addresses the widest range of athletic barriers while being one of the safest and functional pieces of fitness equipment. Athletes will learn rhythm, tempo, ankle-hip-shoulder stability, posture and vastly improve their fitness levels. By the end of the summer athletes will be asked to jump rope for 5 minutes uninterrupted while holding a beat above 120 jumps per minute.
3. Power Training:
The ability to promote elastic energy through the kinetic chain is what makes us athletes. We will be using plyometric, throwing and striking as avenues to teach this reactive skill. As in all that we do, variety will be used to build well rounded abilities and to keep the athletes reactively guessing to what might be coming next.
4. HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training):
The natural law of speed is to convince your body that going faster will be easier for it to do… so by practicing going as fast as you can in a variety of ways your giving your mind the choices it will need to choose the faster alternative.
5. Running Form:
Running is the least trained aspect of sports yet is one of the most defining components of performance. As the legends teach precision skills to be used in big moments in the game, we will break down the running form in drastic details so each athlete can have a detailed understanding of what they can proactively do to increase performance and lower unnecessary wear and tear.
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