Players homework

[Nuno FerreiraParticipant]

Gary,

Any chance you can elaborate on the type of homework you guys ask from your players?

Thanks

[GaryKeymaster]

Nuno,

There’s general homework, and specific.

General is simply telling all of them, all the time, that they must be working on their games every single day outside of training. And the parents are told the same. Any time with the ball of course is good, but getting lots of solo time against a wall has also been recommended.

Specific is player specific. Obviously everyone has weaknesses/deficiencies, but we’re constantly trying to identify what specific [usually technical] quality a player is most deficient, and tell them to work on that.

For example if a winger is consistently showing poor finishing, that is what we tell him to work on. And we can get REALLY specific. For instance, if we’re seeing that every time he’s inside the 18 he’s missing because he’s trying to blast the goal when a simple “pass to the post” is the correct decision … we’ll tell him to work on that specific finishing.

If a center back’s receiving and subsequent on-the-ground 20 yard passing quality isn’t good enough (smoothness, quickness, crispness, etc …), that’s precisely what we tell him and his parent to be working on.

If it’s time for our outside backs to develop that 40 yard over-the-top backspin long ball, then that is specifically what we tell them to focus on.

Hope that helps a bit.

[Stephen RoliinsParticipant]

I coach kids on the young side U10 and below so I use small Coerver type sessions for home, put them on a daily spreadsheet and rotate sheets every three weeks or so for variety.  I find many are willing but don’t know what to do.  There are some great at home programs IMHO by BeastModeSoccer and Paul Spacey that are free to download and easy to modify for individual levels  For me home is about touches and getting many of them.

I find it great that Gary modifies for each individual and does specific player home sessions, maybe I need to up my game 🙂

[andrew crollardParticipant]

You kinda have to specialize the homework/instruction for individuals simply due to their very different understanding of the game and their abilities. I do a mid-season and end-of-season check-in letter individualized for each player. I give a hard copy to the players and email a copy to the parents to make sure they’re giving the same message to their kids.

Here’s my notes for the entire team where I briefly outline my instructions

Here’s a copy of an old end-of-season letter

I’ve also found success in giving extra reward of some kind for players who watch a professional match and write a 1-page tactical report. Gives them incentive to watch professional soccer more critically and another chance to see some of the principles we’ve been working in training.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by  andrew crollard.

[SimonParticipant]

Andrew – I like your notes and year end letter. Nicely done and many thanks for sharing.

[Nuno FerreiraParticipant]

Thanks Gary and Andrew.

I try to do something similar.

Besides the informal, ongoing feedback we have a more “formal” conference a couple time a year.

 

Do you guys do any kind of systematic testing?

 

[andrew crollardParticipant]

My club was using iSoccer.org as a means for kids to practice some basic technical skills and get touches on the ball outside of practice. However, they started charging this summer so we stopped using it and have not yet found a replacement aside from simply encouraging them to get as many touches on their own as they have time for.

During the winter we have 5v5 “pickup” futsal for U12 through high school and adults by invite (mostly the coaches and a few former players). At the start we have all the kids do some timed skill measure like juggling or toe taps. We line them up and the lowest group of players are a team who play the next lowest who play the next lowest until the top kids team plays the coaches team. Seems to be a good motivator for the kids to practice those base level touches on their own time so they don’t get stuck on the bottom teams.

[David TkachParticipant]

I also like giving them homework that doesn’t involving playing.  Depending on the age and interest level, it could be as simple as telling me two MLS scores from the past weekend to sending me one highlight clip they found on youtube to attending one professional game in person.   The idea being they continue their growth as players but from a different perspective.  Particularly for players that don’t eat/sleep/dream soccer, it hopefully exposes them to another side of the game that they can be excited about and subsequently motivate them to practice on their own and push themselves harder at practice.

[Eric DykesParticipant]

My homework over the weekend-

Watch 15 minutes of a professional match and count the number of times both teams collected the ball across their body. Holy cow! Did the light bulb turn on! they showed up fired up to work on Rondos. Saw much more improvement!

[Author]

Posts