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How you feel about skill development with very prescribed individual training approaches (Coerver, “1,000 Touches”, etc.). Does that come into play at all in your practices, or you assuming that skills will either be developed by U9 or will develop in the course of doing the tactical work?
To put it another way, how do you play out of the back in a technical, possession-oriented manner, when the kids struggle to control the ball?
I know Gary has said they don’t do skill dev in their training but they assign custom homework for the players to work on non-team training days. The challenge with doing technical skills work is the lack of time available for this tactical possession work. This is something I am going to be dealing with and managing this spring.
I am personally developing an individual skills development program for clubs/teams with built-in incentives for those off days and off season that I will share. I am going to use it for a skills academy I am running for a local league that runs Jan-Feb 2014, so it will be battle tested as well.
The way I look at it, I think many of the core activities, such as the 4v1 rondo and s-passing pattern, provide a significant amount of technical repetition in a short amount of time. I think if you watch the 4v1 rondo and S-Pattern Passing activity videos and focus on one player, count how many touches they get in during the length of the videos. Tack on more repetitions as players get more accustomed and used to the activity after lots of exposure.
Does it work on heading or passing with the outside of the foot? No. However, you are practicing the ESSENTIAL skills and habits to be successful in the possession game.
sorry, meant receiving with the outside of the foot, not passing with outside of the foot. Btw, if you watch the 4v0 and 4v1 rondo video with the players wearing Argentina jerseys, most get close to 100 or more touches on the ball in that 7 minute video.
Tom, looking forward to seeing your skills development program. We do a few skills camps over the winter at our high school and I’m always looking to improve it.
Alex,
I’ve been worried about the same concept of skill development. My kids are already fairly skilled for their age, but will my kids loose their individual skill if I start teaching possession at U9 or U10 and go away from the skill focus?? I don’t know if a coach can know for sure what the gaps are in their philosophy and training sessions are until they have taken a group up through the levels – maybe all the way to U18 or higher. However, I’m not seeing a lack of skill in Brian’s teams (younger or older), so it seems there isn’t a gap to this approach.
I’d like to get a perspective on why it is that they don’t lack skill. My guess is it might just be a by-product of being a legit player from a young age. When players win a lot they like soccer more, they take more ownership of their development and in the end train on their own more. And the training on their own develops or keeps individual skill. I would imagine you would still need to encourage the time at home, because their kids (not every kid is going to work their tail off without being pushed). The other factor is that if your team has the ball the whole game you probably get more chances for individual skill. That probably has some impact as well. I would also imagine that Brian still teaches the kids to recognize moments to take players on 1v1 so they do still get those opportunities. This is just speculation as I’ve haven’t taken a team from u8-u18 yet. I’m curious what everyone else thinks.
The big question I have is, How do you teach players to recognize the time, place, moment etc… to take players on. How do I get them to see it?
I am guessing most of the guys in here, get what joins and pays, which could be a 15lb over weight kid with little football ability. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think the Kleibans are working with 5-7 yr olds and I personally would never bother with team work like in the videos with the youngest of players, that is where lots of contact time with a ball is essential. The 4v0 work would be fine and I have used that with 5 yr olds, but I have found allowing them to play in 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v2 etc and encouraging them to keep the ball at their feet, turn and shield the ball and dribbling works every time over a year or two.
I think coaches need to be braver and take teams out of leagues. If you have a team of U8s that are going to get beaten every week, why not instead use that match day for training for another year, think of what you could achieve with another 50+ hours a year.
What happens to those kids who leave a possession team for what ever reason and join a team that plays like everyone else, where individual skill will be tested far more due to how they play?
If you look at my bio, you’ll see I’m a volunteer coach in a mid-level travel program that doesn’t have a huge population to choose from and is rarely position to recruit as a way of improving a team’s talent. I guess what I’m trying to get to the bottom of is that when we see the 3four3 video’s of U11/U12 teams playing phenomenal tactical/posession soccer, we are also watching boys execute all sorts of soccer skills in the process that many of our kids can’t do at that age (or older). Does it all come together because they are elite players, who have had plenty of skill training in the past, either formal or informal? Or is it possible to develop such competency as part of all of this tactical work?
SSG with kids of similar ability levels will improve technique, even without any coaching. I played a good level of football and never had a coach teach me any technique what so ever. I learnt through hours and hours of playing. How ever I did pick up some bad habits because of no coach telling me to receive on back foot, etc.
I believe the kids in the vids played a lot of street football or at least did and they have a big passion for the game. Also some have been scouted so will be good players.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by
David Williams.
Hi Alex,
How you feel about skill development with very prescribed individual training approaches (Coerver, “1,000 Touches”, etc.). Does that come into play at all in your practices, or you assuming that skills will either be developed by U9 or will develop in the course of doing the tactical work?
It has gotten sprinkled into the Technical Warmup phase of a session at times. But the core, the bread and butter are the Rondos. The Rondos offer a tremendous amount of technical development, and the bonus is that they focus on the tech required for this possession style. The remainder of individual technical development must happen outside the team training environment.
Now, if we’re talking pre U9 (or ‘non-elite’ U9), then by all means feel free in addition to the 4v0 4v1 Rondo / S-pattern add generous doses of “Coerver-type stuff”.
To put it another way, how do you play out of the back in a technical, possession-oriented manner, when the kids struggle to control the ball?
I’ll attack this question as soon as I get back home …
Hi again Alex, so part II in trying to answer your questions. 🙂
To put it another way, how do you play out of the back in a technical, possession-oriented manner, when the kids struggle to control the ball?
Please allow me to share an email I got from someone with what seems the same concern. Then my response.
Gary,
Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it.
I see your point and agree that if we are developing (pro) level players, the tactical should be taught at team practices and at a younger age. The problem I see is kids at the younger ages often don’t have the technical ability to succeed tactically. IE they can’t receive a ball under pressure in order to make a decision about where it needs to be next. The first touch is four feet from them or they can’t pass an accurate pass to a player 20 yards away. When a kid can’t do these things, trying to teach them tactics seems like a cart before the horse issue.
I agree they must work on the technical side (what I call the skills and one v one tools) on their own and daily. But, I have had coaches in Texas tell me that if I teach the younger kids the technical things, and bring them technically sound kids at U14, they will take it from there. I can see how U14 may be a little late if the kids can achieve some technical proficiency at a younger age and can handle the tactics.
I have also been told it is partly regional in that Texas teams play more direct, fast paced and with size than the CA teams and other areas of the country. I saw a little of that to be true at the Surf Cup but also saw some very large forwards at Surf cup that put heads down and went route 1 the entire day.
I support your effort to change the soccer culture in the US and hope you have success. I am doing what I can with my kids and their teams here in Texas to promote what I call, playing the right way.
I will be reading the blog….
And now my response:
Hi [John Doe],
I feel compelled to respond because while there is a logic to your statements (a logic common to most), on many levels those assertions are not correct.
Allow me to deconstruct a bit.
“The problem I see is kids at the younger ages often don’t have the technical ability to succeed tactically.”
The kids do have the technical capacity to succeed tactically at just about every level. And if we’re talking surf cup teams … absolutely 100% they do.
“IE they can’t receive a ball under pressure in order to make a decision about where it needs to be next.”
If they’re being trained properly in the tactical possession-based game, they should have sufficient spacing to receive under less pressure. Furthermore, the player’s decision about where the ball needs to go next should be decided long before he receives (this is also tactical training).
“The first touch is four feet from them or they can’t pass an accurate pass to a player 20 yards away. When a kid can’t do these things, trying to teach them tactics seems like a cart before the horse issue.”
If they’re being trained in the tactical possession-based game, their spacing will give them enough time in case their first touch isn’t the cleanest. Similarly, their 20 yard pass doesn’t have to always be on the money if spacing is being taught correctly.
When trained properly, the tolerance for errors are greatly relaxed.
Furthermore, with proper spacing (again this is tactical training), players don’t feel as pressured and are able to focus on their touch, and focus on their decisions and game understanding. And that leads to better execution in every facet of the game. For instance, with proper tactical training, instead of having 1 second before the pressure comes, a player will have 3.
Now, if a player can’t reasonably kick a ball 20 yards or receive a pass within reason, then we’re talking AYSO. Certainly not an average club team, and certainly not a Surf Cup team.
We’ve implemented successful possession-based soccer from Bronze to Premier, from U9 – U19. And girls.
You can find our experience matrix here: http://analytics.3four3.com/stats/coach_details.cfm?coach=brian%20kleibanThank you again [John Doe]!
– Gary
Hope that gives further insight Alex.
But again, if you’re dealing with U9s and under that can’t connect or receive a 10 yard pass, then for sure divert more time to those things.Please follow up if I’m off-base with your question(s).
In my experience, good tactical understanding not only buys time and space as Gary is saying, it also reduces the time you need on the ball. A quick glance up confirms the team mates are where they are supposed to be, as opposed to time spent searching high and low for team mates doing their own thing.
I’ll chime in on this as I am in a similar situation. My club has to combine 2 age groups just to field a team because my town is so small. We already recruit from nearby towns that are up to 40 minutes away. The average kid on my team is extremely tactically deficient. When I took over my U13/14 team in spring 2012, we had 2 players (the centerback and keeper in the video below) who tried to do everything and beat teams 2v11 because they were the only ones with any technical ability at the time. I started implementing choreography into my sessions and focused on a lot on the tactical side of the game. We went from last place and a -57 goal differential the season before I took over to first place and a +23 goal differential during the season the video is from (spring 2013). A part of that was the U13 players (especially the kids at left mid and center mid) I got were a lot better than the U15 players I lost over that year, but the bigger part was the tactical work.
By implementing the most basic of tactical instruction, i.e. lots of 1-2 passing and wide players getting wide, it allowed the less skilled players to get involved in the buildup and the attack. My right back in the video and the kid starting at left wing are obviously technically weak. However, giving them the simplest instruction about what they are supposed to do in common situations allowed us to keep the ball longer as a team so the more talented players could work in better space. It also allowed for my mediocre players ( the ones at left back and holding mid in particular) to have an impact on the game.
It is much easier now to motivate the kids to work on their individual ball skills outside of training because we are a winning team and they feel pride and motivation to keep getting better. I’ve shown them all the Coerver skills and things like proper passing and shooting technique. It is extremely easy to show them the link between playing time and how much work they’re putting in outside of scheduled team practices.
Here’s the video. I played everyone out of position in this half except the outside backs and the left forward. We won 8-4. The team we are playing against is from the next town over. Our high school team has lost to these guys more often than not over the last 5 years. The year before I started coaching this group, we had lost to them 2-1 and tied 2-2. Since I’ve taken over, we’ve won all 6 games against them by a combined score of 34-9. I’ll let the video speak for itself about the tactical style gap between the two teams.
On this topic I’ll offer a perspective that might help but I am not an expert. When any group of players can (as a group) do something slightly better than the other group then they have an advantage and appear to be more successful. Like the 5 yr old that can break from the herd and run and chase the ball while the others watch – looks like a superstar.
In the above video one team can pass ok but they play as a team better than the other team and this slight advantage does wonders. But I really didn’t see one player on the other team really know how to do many of the little things to counter. So passing against a team that has no defensive skills will go a long way. Respectfully, I’m not picking on either of these teams.
If you go back and watch “the U11” video that started all this this is what still blows me away. At about 1:10 you will see maybe eight touches between 5 players that end in a goal. Sure they had good spacing but if you watch the beauty of each touch and the skill needed to pull off exactly what just happened you start to realize the technical brilliance of those players.
Hell, please show me eight touches like that with high school players or even college players. That is, show me a sequence of similar touches by several players that are put together with the magical beauty they created.
So my point is that they are probably technically at a very high level in the same way that Barca players seem to just pass well with good spacing. The fact is they (Barca Players) could probably blow past any defender when challenged and as a result defenders give them space because they have no other choice. It seems high technical skill is not so obvious when one makes things look so easy – in any endeavor.
So I believe all the points from above are spot on but one must develop the technical,tactical,physical and psychological but I also wonder how you do it all w/o glossing over the technical while moving forward.
this thread / perspective gives me so much more confidence to attempt the posession game heading into the 2014 upcoming girls U10 season. I know it won’t be easy! I know it will be a big change from all the SSG and Coerver stuff we’ve done to date. but we’re going for it and I just wanted to say thanks! all of these comments and resources will aid immensely in training the trainers / assistants, the girls themselves and even those parent that are truly interested. I’m so pumped! can’t wait to get started — even if we’re expecting a foot of snow tonite 🙂 thanks again!
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This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by
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