Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Kit –
I second Simon’s comments above. Accept the reality that this relationship is not going to last. Especially because you have a group of parents who are all reinforcing each others ignorance – not just an isolated individual or two, and at least some of them are the parents of the better players, I think you are fighting a losing battle when it comes to changing the team culture. One possibility is that your program will attract better players whose families buy in to what you are trying to do, and then you can drop the ones who don’t and basically “take over” the team. If that does’t happen though, you should take your daughter and find another possession based team where she can get a proper football education without the added stress that your current situation will inevitably bring to her playing experience.
Dan Abrahams’ books are the best I have read on this subject. “Soccer Tough”, and “Soccer Brain”.
We put our players under enormous pressure in our academy. The hope is that it makes them stronger in the end but I think it is an important part of coaching to give them the tools to learn to handle and deal with that pressure.
Possession activities with wide neutrals. For example, in a 15 x 30 yd space, 3v3 in the middle with 2 neutrals playing on the wings (outside the line).3-5 yd goal from cones at each end. Each team has one designated GK, the other 2 play as MFs. Restrictions are that the GK and both neutrals have to touch the ball b/f team can score. Neutrals can’t pass to each other. Depending on technical level of players might have to make the space bigger – 20 x 40 to give them extra time.
Example #2 – 4 goal soccer. Playing 4v4 make the field extra wide and make a 2-3 yd cone goal in each corner. You can also add neutrals on the wings here as well, with the same restriction that both neutrals have to touch the ball before the team can score.
You can also try some creative ways to get the lightbulbs to come on. Example: With red cones make 2 grids 15 x 15 yds. Have 2 evenly matched groups playing rondos, one inside each grid, 3v1 or maybe 4v1 at this age. Make it a competition to see which group has the highest # of consecutive passes within a set time limit (1-2 min). Loser has pushups or something. For round #2, take different color cones and make a smaller (8v8yd) grid inside one of the 15 yd grids. One group has to play inside that smaller grid while the other group gets to use the 15 yd grid again. Same competition with the same consequence. For round #3 reverse it so the 2nd group has to play in the smaller grid while the 1st group gets to use more space. The kids confined to the smaller space will protest “it’s not fair,” which of course is exactly the point. When the team in possession doesn’t make use of the space available to them, it is like giving an unfair advantage to the other teams. A coaching point during games to reinforce this lesson could be something like “use the space you have”.
In my experience the appetite for pattern play in this age group was about 2 minutes. 🙂
At a minimum you can at least teach it during scrimmages. A free kick or corner is a natural stoppage of play anyway, so it only takes 1-2 min more to at least explain the basics of what you want everyone to be doing in this situation. If there are glaring errors (i.e. – someone completely unmarked at the far post), you can correct and make them re-do the play. Over time you can reinforce what you’ve taught and then begin to layer in more complex ideas so the both team and individuals will gradually progress throughout the year. Beyond that I think of set pieces as kind of the icing on the cake – something to work on in the fine tuning stages in the week before a big game or tournament. Caveat though – this is with U9/U10s. At that age the basics are enough when it comes to set pieces, and I really don’t want them getting a lot of repetitions dealing with balls in the air over and over again anyway. With 18s I think you need to spend a lot more time on it otherwise it will end up deciding matches against you.
I also agree that taking free kicks is a skill that players need to work on their own. No one was born with a devastating free kick.
Frank – have you thought about trying to nail down what specifically the players are doing wrong – technically – when they try to play 1-touch and do “the cool stuff”.
From what you wrote it sounds like their brains are moving fast but their technical ability can’t keep up. Maybe take a step back and review some things like proper body position of the receiving player (relative to the defender and angle of hips), accuracy of the incoming pass (correct foot).
“If you knock someone down, be sure to help them up. The more they challenge each other, and make practices realistic and game-like, the stronger the team will be.”
I agree with the 2nd sentence, but isn’t the 1st sentence a little inconsistent with that?
Here’s an exercise I used last year to help some of my players get a more accustomed to physical contact. If you have 15 players, put them all in a small grid with 8 balls. On the command “play” they compete to see who will still be in possession of a ball at the end of a minute. They are not allowed to leave the grid. When a ball goes out you or another assistant pass it back in. At the end of a minute players who don’t have a ball have to do some sort of exercise (push-ups, plyometric jumps, etc…). Have the players with balls pass to someone who doesn’t have one and then repeat, this time with one less balls (keep taking away balls until you get to a 3:1 player to ball ratio). Keep on repeating, sometimes varying the time – so they never really know when it is going to end – to keep that sense of urgency.
The keys to this exercise are the size of the grid, and of course the coaching. Normally you would do something like this to teach dribbling to keep possession so you would need a large enough grid for players to be able to find space – but that is not your intent. The purpose is to encourage physical play. So keep the space small so physical contact is unavoidable. Don’t call fouls unless it is a deliberate kick or trip. Let any kind of body contact whatsoever go. In fact, encourage it. When someone gets knocked down, encourage them to get up. Praise them effusively if they get back up and lay a nasty body check on someone.
Huge caveat: this is something I used sparingly, to address an identified weakness in my team. They were too “soft” and getting intimidated and easily bodied off the ball by more physical teams, to an extent that was interfering with their ability to play our style of play. There is a risk of injury, and it is very stressful for them, so I only used it in small doses. Still, it helped some of them just kind of “get over it” when it came to dealing with physical play.
I just posted this on the goal kick thread so I apologize for the double post but it probably fits here better. At 7v7 – this is pretty much exactly how I set my U9 team up tactically when we are playing 7v7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJlH4_GEluY. It is a 2-3-1 with the OMs playing endline to endline, dropping deep to defend and help with the buildup, and then getting all the way forward into the attack. The CMF also does double duty, playing as both a Holding Mid and Attacking Mid.
As we have improved our ability to hold possession, I have gradually encouraged the CBs to get forward more in support of the attack by having one at a time step up to act as an extra MF. For example when the ball is on the right wing, the RCB comes forward to offer support and help us circulate the ball if needed, while the LCB shifts centrally and stays around midfield. When the ball shifts left, the 2 CBs shift as well, with the RCB dropping centrally and the LCB moving forward in support.
In general this has worked well for us. As some have pointed out it does require a very high work-rate from the lone CMF at 7v7. He not only has to cover the whole field laterally but also (in 7v7) plays as both a “6”, “8” and “10” (I encourage mine to interchange with the striker). Defensively he has to press high and also drop deep and help cover the space in front of the CBs. At 8v8 this isn’t as much of concern because the holding mid and attacking mid roles can be split b/n 2 players.
As far as how this transitions to the future, 0ne of the reasons I like playing with a 2 CB system is it allows us to practice playing out of the back exactly as shown in STT activities in this course. Even at 7v7, we play out with a back 4 + D-Mid, and this will stay the same as we progress to 8v8, 9v9 and 11v11.
There are obviously a lot of different ways to do it, and as many have suggested you can play the same way with 1 CB (back 3) instead of 2 (back 4). A lot depends on the passing range of the players as well, so what works at U11 may not work as well at U9.
Frank –
It takes time but they will get it. My team has been doing this 1 of their 3 weekly practices (basically every Monday) for almost 7 months straight. Only in the last couple of months has it finally started to click – for most of them.
Hi Ryan,
For me personally there are just too many variables to make something like a pass completion statistic very useful (even averaged over a season), so it boils down more to “I know it when I see it.” For a variety of reasons, some kids just don’t seem to get it. They don’t orient their bodies the right way, they don’t think ahead, they don’t get their heads up, they consistently make poor decisions with the ball relative to their skill level, and consistently fail to move off the ball to create good options for their teammates. The cumulative effect of all of this is a pattern develops over the course of a season where you find that the overall quality of your team’s play suffers when certain players are in the game, and improves again when they come out. This is particularly evident when playing 7v7 like both of us do, because the impact of a single player is magnified – and becomes even more so as time goes and the rest of the players continue to progress.
Mike
We do something similar, with a 2-3-1 at 7v7, then adding an attacking mid to make it 2-3-1-1 at 8v8. The outside mids play dual roles – like fullbacks on defense and when building, then like forwards in the attack.
On GKs I have the outside mids immediately get wide and push up to long for a long diagonal ball and quick counter if we can catch the other team sleeping and not getting back, but when that’s not on they quickly lose their man and drop quickly along the touchline, so they can provide a good option for the CBs. So basically we still play out with a “back 5”, even in 7v7 or 8v8. This allows us to work tactically using the same play out of the back exercises as shown in the clinic.
Here’s a good video I found of Barelona’s U11 team playing this way at 7v7 – you can start to see their shape playing out of the back at about 1 min in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJlH4_GEluY
