Teachable Moments Part Two: The Game is Just More Practice.

     What Girl Power does to dominate games is as plain as day.  What our girls do is simple; they possess the ball.  They come and get it, they dribble and dribble some more and when they can see the goal they shoot.  No passing, no clearing kicks, no fancy overlaps (yet!).  They play with complete commitment to their skills and with complete confidence in their ability to win every one-v-one they go into...and it works...over and over again.  They are, in the words of Hailey's dad, straight up ballers!
     And yet what I hear from the other bench is always the same:  Pass the ball up...clear the ball out...kick it!  I walk away from a game like Saturday's really puzzled.  Can't they see what we're doing?  I hope they do, honestly.  I hope our girls are setting an example that others will want to emulate.
      I tried in this game to give each of the girls very specific challenges that I wanted to see them meet on the field.  They were all playing with such amazing grace, creativity and energy it seemed like a great opportunity to present them each with a challenge based on what I was seeing in the game.  I asked all of them to try a Puskas move and a Cruyff turn.  I saw lots of Cruyffs.  They love that one.  Not so many Puskas though.  That's a tougher one and I think the fake shot component is something they may be a little embarrassed about using.  It can seem a little theatrical.
     I also asked them to use that carry-over dribble touch we've been working on.  I was really happy with how willing they were to give it a try in the game.

Match Week Two: Teachable Moments Missed.

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

More on this in my next post.
     

Soccer-Palooza!

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

First Touch Drill.

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

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

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

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

Fall 2014 Skills Training: Change of Pace

     Watching all of my teams play over the course of the spring I began to notice that one thing that separates the more advanced players from the rest is their ability to change their running pace easily, to be able to stop quickly then burst back into a full stride or to change their pace mid stride with stutter steps and feints.
     I think that all of our Legends players have at least one really good change of direction move that they can rely on and they all, I think, understand in a general way how to use that move in game situations.  For some it's a simple cut to left or right.  For others it's something flashier.  But few of them are comfortable yet using change of pace as a way to deceive an opponent.  Rather they tend to get up to full speed and stay there until they lose the ball, running "down hill" in the same gear all the time.
     This season I want to work with all of my teams to develop each player's ability to use their speed more dynamically, to be able to accelerate fast, to stop quickly and with control and to change pace with ease.   At each practice this season we'll start with a stretching/strengthening routine (about 10 minutes) that I hope will help the kids to develop their running stride, their balance and their feel for how to accelerate explosively.  Then in each practice we'll also work on a deceptive dribbling move that I think specifically emphasizes change of pace with some sort of stop-start component.
     My plan for this season is to not move on from one skill to the next until I'm satisfied that all of my players on the teams are comfortable executing the skill and are ready to try it in a game, and this is where the influence of the parents, of our "supporters section", becomes so important.  My instructions to my teams on game day will be simple:  I'm not interested in the final score, I'm interested in seeing each of you go out there and use the skills we've been practicing.  So when you are watching them play, please be sure to cheer loudest when you see them try to use a deceptive move, when they try to possess the ball and take control of the situation rather than booting it away.  Let them know that you see them taking chances and playing bravely.
     Here are video clips showing the first few moves we'll be working on this season.

The first is the famous Puskas or "V" move. 


Next is the Cruyff turn, an essential move for every player.   And then the Mathews, a great little hesitation and cut move. We'll also work on the mirror version, the Elastico.

Quality

     The best part of this World Cup was the ignominious exit of Brazil from the tournament.  From their very first game in the group stage the "Seleção" demonstrated that while fabulous ball control skills are a wonderful thing for Nike ads, when it's game time you forget the fancy moves and just start diving...shamelessly.  The flop by Brazilian star "Fred" in their opening game versus Croatia was so egregious that I really expected FIFA authorities to issue some sort of post-match fine or at least an apology for the referee.  As it was, Fred's transparent simulation led to a PK for Neymar and ultimately to a 2-1 win for Brazil.  
     And that's how they played every match.  All of the commercials for Nike and Coke were highlighting the romantic tradition of Brazilian joga bonita, the bare-footed, play-in-the-alleys-and-on-the-rooftops-to-the-beat-of-a-samba version of the game.  But the team in the tournament, dressed proudly in their national colors, was showing the world what most fans know to be the true nature of Brazilian soccer:  flop, dive, simulate, whine...feign injury and writhe in pain until the ref produces a yellow card...and then when you take the PK be sure to point to the sky and thank Jesus.  Man, I loved watching these losers get waxed by Germany and then again by the Orange.
     There were other divers and floppers on other clubs but, thankfully, there were also some great examples of players who don't tip over so easily.  At the top of that list is Lionel Messi.  Coach Mark was able to isolate some video from the Argentina v Belgium game that shows Messi being fouled repeatedly and yet he does not go to the turf until he is literally forced down.  In the closeup you can see that it's not until Fellaini actually steps on Messi's foot, pinning him to the ground, that Lionel finally tumbles down. Until that point he keeps stumbling forward not wanting to give up on his chance to get off a shot.  Brilliant quality.