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.