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I am working on adding video to the program for both analysis, education (parents), and enjoyment. I have a lot of work ahead on quality though, but here’s a video from one of our games this past spring. We are in blue and the opponent is pretty much par for what we saw last year in the DC area.
I appreciate any time and thoughts people have…our emphasis is building technique for now, with some age appropriate tactical work including playing out of the back…we started emphasizing receiving across the body and switching this Spring. Lot of work ahead but the girls are passionate for sure!
Video set to private?
Problem solved, thanks Ryan!
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This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by
Wow! Nice job. My advice is to keep doingwhat you are doing and find some better competition. Th ey should have thrown out another ball so White had something to play with
Well done!
Pretty impressive. How long have you been working with these girls.
thanks guys…these players are now U10. We’ve had them increasingly focused on a possession style since the U-8 year, with a heavy investment into their technical skills…
Hi Paul
Could you give us an idea of what type of stuff you do with these kids.
I’m guessing when you say “a heavy investment into their technical skills..” you mean ball mastery/coerver 1v1 type stuff? Are you still doing it at U10?
What other type possession exercises do you other than whats here on 3Four3? What drills work best for you? What kind of messages are you giving your players?
I will start back coaching an U9 boys team in a couple weeks. I’ve been focusing on Technical skill mostly, although I introduced the 4v1 rondo a few months ago and did a bit of positional playing towards the end of last season in preparation for some Tournaments. I want to start instilling a possession based philosophy this season. Are the drills here all I will need or should I be looking elsewhere?
Many Thanks
Christian
Christian,
I am coaching u9 girls this fall and am interested in this question as well. I may start a separate thread as a resourcing for coaching at this level. Happy to exchange ideas and materials, including what is working and what isn’t working.
-Rene
Christian/Renee – this may be a bit long, sorry in advance.
I’ll just speak to our group and hope that it helps you guys. Not sure this is the answer, but it is how we are doing it and adapting the ideas from this site.
First off, I don’t think you can pull off possession soccer well (achieve results-Win!!) at U-9/U-10 without having a pretty decent amount of ball confidence already throughout the depth of the squad. We are lucky in this fashion with one of our two teams and getting there with the second team. I think playing out of the back, losing your man, rondo’s are very appropriate for this age along with building technical skill (1v1, turns, first touch). I think you’ll somewhat have to balance letting players over dribble, hold on too long, etc. in the U-9/U-10 years so that they have the confidence later on to play this style. That doesn’t mean that you don’t teach them the style, it’s more in how you coach them. Execution. How you make your corrections, etc.
So, I’ve coached many of these girls for now three to four years and am now using a professional trainer (James Myers-Antiaye from JogaSC) full time at this point as we train academy style. From a resource standpoint, it began making more and more sense last year, and that’s what we do. The key is that we are all on the same page regarding the style of play. And we are simply pushing for a more and more disciplined achievement of that style on game day.
Back to ball confidence, the girls in the video have simply played more than probably most of their peers. For some of them, it started when they were U-6. Others, when they were U-8. Lots of pick-up soccer and some advanced U-7/U-8 training in our club thanks to Mike Sprano (3four3 member). Almost year round. Work. For the adults.
The U-9 year focused on ball mastery, 1v1’s, 2v1, 2v2’s, 4v4’s, pattern play, possession games (including rondos), passing/receiving, turns, off the ball movement, lose your man, communication (mainly demanding the ball), some shadow and positional play with a heavy emphasis on building an identity. Consistent with the material on the site, but perhaps a bit watered down as the girls are still very much in the technical phase. I think Brian’s video on identity is huge and is something that really helps the individual players work together collectively to achieve a recognizable style, probably something that you should use in your messaging for sure. I’ve watched it several times and incorporated it into early season talks with the players starting last Spring. I will do so again this Fall.
In terms of more messaging, we focus on achieving the style, having the proper shape (width, depth, triangles, diamonds), spacing, communication, receiving to the back foot (across the body), lose your man, and movement. We train almost all year round. We use Futsal once a week for technical training and heavily in the Winter (3xtimes per week). We want/demand them to be somewhat ravenous for the ball in defense, more psychological right now than technical instruction. We simply use the words “pressure”.
So, this isn’t a list of drills, but just our approach. Very much a work in progress. You can see that they don’t have a developed, disciplined style, yet. That is our goal though. I think if you and your parents are patient and working to achieve possession style, than you’ll get there. They have to understand that in your area that may really stick out (in our area it does). But the players have to play a lot to be individually confident by U-9/U-10. I don’t see any other way unless you have a group that actually plays the game at home with their friends/neighbors like what I remember doing as a kid. That seems rare these days in our area.
Here’s some of our higher level U-10 girls (in blue) going against mid-level U-11’s a few days ago.
We lost this match, but worked to play our style the rest of the day with more success in the remaining 3x mini-games. Never waver.
With that said, we are focused on building composure, intelligent play/decision making, playing to space individually and in small groups, and use of their skills right now. So, in that sense, we got what we needed out of it. This video was somewhat to educate the parents and reveal some of the training at use during games. And it was for the girls. I want them to see their style, understand they are different, and go harder at training to continue making this go.
– Paul
Hi Paul/Rene
Thanks for the reply.
The Group I have been with for the last two years are fairly good technically. I would consider them the best team relative to their competition in our county. It’s not so important but they have only lost one match in two years albeit in 5aside football. My aim is for them to be able to compete and beat the top clubs in our capital city here in Ireland.
The work I and the coaching team have been doing mostly consists of ball mastery, 1v1’s and 3v3’s. Like I said previously I started doing the 4v1 rondo and some positional play a few months ago. I’ve always encourage our players to get on the ball and not be afraid to dribble/take-on an opponent. I’ve never actually told any of them to pass the ball although they pass the ball around very well; recently after a tournament another coach came to me and asked how we got them to pass the ball around so well. I didn’t have an answer! Just told what kind of training we do. To be honest a coach on twitter was my guiding influence @markproskills
This season I want to instil a possession based philosophy in them but I don’t want to mess it up by doing the wrong things or giving them the wrong messages. I have watched every video here numerous times and studied all the material and can confidently put on these drills but I wonder if this is enough. That is why I asked what you are doing with your team; I was not surprised to hear you do a lot of other stuff but happy to hear you are following the 3Four3 principles.
As you pointed out, I think Brian’s Day 1 video is the key; Establish you teams identity, something we have not done yet. Winning seems to be a dirty word these days on this size of the Atlantic the buzz is all about developing players over the team. Quite frankly I want to do both but don’t want to sacrifice one for the other and this is one of the reasons this has not been done yet. I asked Gary on Twitter recently if he coaches tricks etc and said he didn’t but was delighted to hear he absolutely encourages it. Up until recently I was lead to believe if you encourage kids to keep passing the ball you would kill the natural creativity which kids have.
Rene,
Our U9 team will train 2 nights midweek for 1hour and on Sunday morning for 1.5 hours. We are not in a league as such yet but do enter Tournaments regularly. I too would be happy share materials ideas etc. Maybe post a training session/drill or game highlights also.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by
Christian McAuley.
Paul- looks good! I was laughing at first because it was funny to see those little girls start off with like a 10 pass sequence! haha so awesome. Keep it up.
John – big thanks!…Yes, we simply ask them to play where’s there’s space right now (I think they sometimes over do it and don’t see the attacking space ahead, but that’s what learning looks like)…and we have been pushing hard to have the off the ball players demand the ball. I think by having the open players make themselves available at the right shape and spacing with communication really induces the passing game to go and the style of play to progress.
Christian – I would completely agree with encouraging the players to go 1v1, particularly if they are not yet confident on the ball. If they already are, then progress to teaching them about risk and decision making so that they gain that awareness and intelligence. You want them to take risks while they are young (and before they become self conscious, for girls a big problem)…try a move, go 1v1, and just work to get it back if they lose it.
Rene – good luck with things, I would certainly look forward to a thread on activities at the U-9/U-10 level.
– Paul
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This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by
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