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Regarding this post, I want to mention that I have studied the information on the site regarding spacing when, for example, building out of the back as the ball swings from one player to the next prior to moving forward.
I aim in this post to gain basic referential information to get across to U14 boys regarding unitary compact movement with all lines considered to give them a holistic reference of understanding.
To play as one, we must move as one whether we do or do not have the ball. I want the boys to understand basics regarding the movement as one unit relative to his position as well as place on the field.
Any insight would be appreciated. I respect and appreciate your input and expertise.
Thank you for your time,
James Brodie
Goal: To design the most efficient and effective tryouts in order to attain the highest quality players given the circumstances (below).
I will be participating in a tryout in a couple of weeks where I can select players for a competitive team. I have just literally been given the keys to head coaching a group (to be determined).
Conditions regarding tryouts –
- 3 different days
- 1 hour 20 minutes per day
- Kids need only attend one tryout, and I won’t know how many or who they are until the day of the tryout (which makes creating an efficient and effective tryout environment interesting).
- 3 teams represented in the tryout sessions
- Tryouts are not structured with someone running it while I have the opportunity to assess from afar.
- I assume mutual agreement upon the represented coaches as to who wants to do what in the tryouts. I have no issue taking the lead in this situation.
- I will be made aware only at the tryouts which kids have indicated an interest in playing for my team by the color ribbon taped around their wrists. I won’t know, however, if they have chosen me as a first choice coach if they are wearing more than one ribbon.
Given these conditions, what suggestions might you have regarding design of the environment for these three days that can benefit me in meeting my goal in selecting the best possible players. I respect your input and appreciate any feedback.
Thank you for your time,
James Brodie
David,
You are sounding a lot like a teacher; something a good coach should be! I appreciate how you devote thought to this area. I notice you are squaring your focus on concern for really reaching your target audience – the player. It is evidenced in your selected quotes: “…until they learned it” and “…it’s what they hear. ” In the educational field, this is something we call differentiated instructional practice. At the heart of differentiated instruction is the learner.
For example, let’s say I seek to coach a group of kids I do not know on how to dribble, pass, or shoot. I can find sessions and bring them to use at the practice. As a result, the kids will have to modify themselves at the mercy of my design, which was devoid of my knowledge of the kids’ present levels of performance in relation to my intended outcomes – assuming I really had any at all. Sure, I can make adjustments live during the session, which is fine. However, what predetermined knowledge did I have of my audience prior to conducting the session? Continuing with the aforementioned example, say I arrive at the field on Monday with my lesson on how to dribble, pass, or shoot, and my audience is a group of U9 boys who have never touched a ball. On Tuesday I arrive with my same lesson and my audience is now a group of U9 boys who have been heavily involved in soccer since the age of 5? I metaphorically just walked around with a size 6 shoe and tried to make each member of my audience fit into it, regardless of his or her shoe size. For some kids, my instruction may have accidentally fit just fine, some may have outgrown it a long time ago, and some are yet to grow into it at all.
Which brings us to the question of what they already know about that which we want them to learn.
- Begin with the end in mind. What is it that your players will be doing effectively (goal)? What does it look like and sound like? Task analyze the components that comprise the whole. Knowing the components helps to diagnose later on in future sessions.
- Craft and conduct a pre-assessment setting up the exact conditions that would elicit the application of learning you seek to have your players demonstrate. Prepare to take some data on what you see in reference to each of your players gaps’ in their present levels relative to your learning goal. Your players will naturally demonstrate what they know instead of having to articulate it devoid of context because your pre-assessment should elicit the behavior right in front of your eyes. Video tape it if you feel the need to look at it more carefully. I would conduct this pre-assessment Thursday prior to the week in which I would initiate informed instruction, which would occur on the following Tuesday.
- Armed with this knowledge, I would suggest you analyze the information and come up with adequate entry sessions knowing what you saw your players do. Were they far more prerequisite in their knowledge than you initially thought regarding the components that comprise the whole? Did they surpass your learning goal as written? Now you have a working baseline with your players in mind.
- Design your sessions, and about midway through the series of sessions, implement the pre-assessment again to see where they are as a result of your instruction. Are they getting it any better now that you have been able to coach/teach them? Yes or No. If no, what can you coach differently in respect to the components. They may need to learn something a different way. The onus lies not in our ability to place fault on the learner for not responding, but in our ability to recognize a lack of responding due to our instructional misfire and creating another method by which to seek a response. If we are relentless in the pursuit of always seeking a positive response and re-teaching/re-coaching in a different way, great things happen.
- Upon completion of all the sessions, conduct the post-assessment, which can be the same authentic pre-assessment you created that matched perfectly to the application of learning you wanted to see and hear from your kids.
- Review the data for pre and post. How did your players rate regarding the learning behavior necessary to carry out your intended learning goal?
Now during the instructional phase (between the pre and post assessment). It is perfectly permissible to always check for understanding. Get overt responses from your kids, be it verbal explanation or physical demonstration. Have a coach/parent walk around and occasionally ask a random kid here or there this open-ended question: “What are you learning right now?” When you want kids to process something, it is a fantastic idea to have them briefly articulate their understanding to a teammate and then have the teammate return the favor. At this point you can navigate and listen to what you hear. Upon completion of any session, it is advisable to create what is called an “exit ticket.” Basically, it is a player’s way to exit a practice by briefly sharing what they learned (which can be verbal) with a coach prior to them leaving. The aforementioned strategies are all forms of informal on-the-spot assessment, which allow you to make real-time incremental changes should you see or hear something that is not matching your learning goal(s).
Lastly, if some players demonstrate more proficiency than others as evidenced in the pre-assessment, you can now use them strategically by purposefully placing them into various groupings during your sessions. They now serve as demonstrators/models to those around them who can pick up on their talent. This is where peer learning/coaching comes into play! Kids learn best from one another.
Take care,
James Brodie
First off, I must offer credit for posting a video to critique. Thank you for sharing. I think your team is very well coached and the girls are fun to watch. They definitely control the game! Part of my education begins with me being comfortable enough to share. Here’s my first go at it.
The ability of your girls to orchestrate space and transition the ball from the back to middle third of the field is a strength. The girls are aware of their teammates who are both in front and back of them in these portions of the field. They are patient in possession and can move the ball from one player to the next to the next with little need to apply one-two combinations or splitting through passes from the back to middle third of the field with only a couple of players involved. What I mean by the aforementioned statement is that, for example, player 1 will move the ball to player 2 who will move the ball to player 3, as opposed to player 1 moving the ball to player 2 who then combines to advance the ball back to player 1. Having said that, the nature of this particular clip was not conducive to the need to move the ball in that fashion in the back and middle thirds of the field as spreading the ball with single passes across several players proved effective in advancing the ball to the top of the final third of the field.
As the ball enters the final third of the field (inside 20 yard football field mark), the defending team has retreated in a horizontal line across the field. Now that your girls have no front line ahead of them in which to comfortably move the ball and the defending back line has established defensive compactness and the ability to cover the wide offensive players, the girls on the offensive were stuck in breaking the back line. In addition, I got the impression that they displayed a similar degree of patience in the attacking third, but were at a loss when they no longer had visible players in front of them to receive the pass. Several of the opportunities inside the 20 yd line ended after only one pass. In the attacking third, as one girl would pass, she would not necessarily move with any intent after the pass to break the back line. In addition, the recipient of the pass usually did not come back to the ball to receive it. In some of these instances they had a window of time where they were numbers up (e.g., 3v2) if you were to set a 10 by 10 yd. grid around where the ball was located.
Conceptually, I wondered about the converse to how the girls feel and act in reference to comfort, time, and space in the final third when comparing that to the middle and back thirds of the field. I guess for lack of a better term I would define it as urgency in possession with intent to score. I liken it to a visual of an upside down triangle where your back and middle thirds are the wider ends of the base of the triangle, and as you progress to the steep vertex near the skinny part of the triangle a different mindset goes into effect regarding how they feel and act in the flow of the final third facet of the game when space and time are compressed. Thus, deployment of small numbers of players quickly moving in confined space with a sense of urgency and uniform intent to move the ball forward (sounds like Rondos with a momentary directional transition when the opportunity presents itself) goes into effect.
In the final third, urgency to expedite is initiated. In the video, the opportunities would usually occur with 2 or 3 of your players working in combination as “one” to attack a segment of their back line to vertically advance the ball in the line “yet to be created.” Thus taking defenders on outright or making them believe the dribbler is headed to goal, only then to distribute the ball in the available space to the offensive player to her immediate right or left, and moving off the ball to yet again receive a quick pass behind the back line. I also agree with Brian Mitchell in breaking the back line with an up, back, and through. There was an instance where this looked to be on, but was not recognized initially by the right forward until it was too late (as Brian Kleiban says, “Timing is everything.”). Also, dribbling horizontally to make a through pass as well as diagonally slanting across the face of a defender to receive a cutting through ball.
In the video one of your players showed instances of playing with possessive intentional urgency. I believe it may have been your holding mid maybe named Taylor (heard someone on the video mention her name). Late in the video she involves herself in the middle third, plays the ball, and immediately advances vertically to quickly receive the ball again. She eventually ends up in the attacking third (almost splitting the back line herself) where the ball eventually goes out wide left (can’t see the girl with the ball). During that time, Taylor is showing for the ball to be played behind (expressing communicative intent) the defender so she can make a splitting run. What I like that she did that made the back line vulnerable was ability to possess, but with an attacking mentality backed by speed and aggressiveness.
I think of Rondos in tight space when I think of front third compression with the need for unity among team members. This is an awesome group of which to be a part.
Take care,
James Brodie
Mark,
I coach with a local club in Angleton, TX. It is a simple, local club that is primarily organized by parents who have kids playing in the club. We do not have much compared to our Houston counterparts (e.g., local onsite trainers or a curriculum that our kids utilize). There is a lack of volunteer coaches every year, and some parents are “roped in” to having to coach with the threat that their child’s team will disband if no volunteer steps up to help. Our kids do not officially play competitive soccer until U11. I would consider us heavily behind the curve as compared to clubs closer to and within the Houston area.
I am aware of the clubs to which you are referring. We are within fairly close distance to the Clear Lake area.
I checked out your site. Nice. I see you have a an 09 team.
I am very interested in how you will conceptually provide the foundation to the little ones and progress from U5 in the upcoming years. This is exciting.
I will likely pick your brain if you don’t mind.
Take care,
James
Hello Mark.
My name is James Brodie, and I live about 30 miles south of the Houston area. A few days ago I believe I saw a couple of people from Texas in the “Introduce Yourself” section of the forum as well (El Paso & Houston).
It’s nice to have a Texas contingent! I look forward to hearing and learning from you.
Take care,
James
Hello all. My name is James Brodie, and I have coached both recreational and competitive soccer for 8 years in Texas. I too have been a silent follower of the site and have admired the beautiful, unified work of art evidenced by the boys in the videos. Simply put, I am here to study and learn from the best. It is my goal to translate every ounce of what is offered and put it into full application in every facet of my coaching. I am excited and honored to be part of this community. I look forward to the journey.
