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Kit (if you are still out there) – thought you might like a quick 90 seconds of our GU10 as they wrap up the spring season: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IlWOcMJKzk&feature=player_embedded
much work remains! any comments, criticism, feedback or ideas are greatly appreciated. cheers, Simon
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This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by
Simon.
so here’s what comes to mind after reading your post:
1. how well are your girls receiving across the body? I only ask because this is a major building block in my mind and w/ your squad being relatively new, I’m curious how they’re doing. on our side, as you might expect, we have girls at various levels of proficiency w/ this skill (some excellent, some okay, some poor) despite fact that we’ve been working on it for 2 years. we’ll continue to work on it (prolly like you are doing w/ the 4v0 and 4v1) until it is absolutely second nature. I’ve found that the ones that now execute naturally are by far our better, more skilled players.
2. tough spot with the parents. in fact, that sucks! you are right, they are wrong. period. you prrolly don’t need that vote of confidence but I just wanted you to know you have a big support community here. you’ve got to keep fighting the good fight. so question is “what do you do about it?” there are a lot of different views on this subject. IMHO, sounds like you might need a parent’s meeting. others will suggest that’s hogwash and you run the team and that’s not your job. anyway, we’ve tried to meet and educate parents and share the vision and even some of the 3four3 videos among other things. I don’t know if it’s ultimately been successful. but we are fortunate in that we don’t really have any parents that are on hero pills thinking they know better than the coaching staff. we also have some credibility from the glory days that serves us pretty well in this regard. so I’m not much help here because we just don’t have that issue. in the end, I suppose it comes down to the philosophy and playing style of your team. if you set that vision and make clear the expectations of what you’re about or at least what you want to be about, then hopefully it makes sense. they can get the “intense” conditioning and random passing on just about any other team, so set ’em free if that’s what they want. bottom line, what are you aiming for? whatever it is, it must be reinforced consistently over time. so either the parents get on board or you need to find another team.
3. all of that said, I think if you can lay out the vision, it will help you in so many aspects. it will become clearer why you work the patterns. we struggle at times with certain of the girls focus. but the repetition is what they need. we work them hard w/o any pressure but demand they perform at a high rate of speed — usually two touch (that’s why I inquired about “across the body” ability earlier). and when we get out of the back and accomplish the task at hand, we blow a whistle and have them trained like pavlov’s dog to get home to do it again. the repetition is the beauty. it’s the mother of all learning. we do it again and again. we’re getting better, but there’s always improvement to be made. so after we get it to a point of speed satisfaction, we add some pressure. and as the focus starts to diminish we remind them that the quicker we get through the repetitions, the quicker we can have some more fun with finishing work, scrimmage, world cup or whatever the carrot is for the last 15 min. if they don’t perform, we don’t have the fun — it’s as simple as that.
4. the “Player Development vs No Player Development” video from 3four3 might prove helpful w/ the parents. if you haven’t seen it yet, just search youtube and you’ll find it.
hope these thoughts help! I wish you much luck and success. you’ll have to let us know what you decide to do w the parents and how it turns out. cheers, Simon
Kit – great question! not sure the age of squad you are training, but here is our experience coaching our GU10 team:
we modified an overlapping pattern #1 for 8v8 and introduced it in fall of 2013 (at U9). We heeded the Kleiben brotheirs advice of “do less, not more” and refrained from working Patterns #2 and #3 — at least initially — as we worked them 2x per week
The girls really started moving it around back w good pace against controlled or minimal pressure. but timing of the “losing your man” run was problematic. The outside backs also struggled with recognizing when the overlap was “on” and whether or not to “fly” down the flank.
despite these challenges, we would see several successful overlaps per game. Were they executed to perfection? No! Did the winger “lose her man” and create space? Not really! Regardless, we thought we’d build on this limited success and decided to forge ahead mid season and intro patterns #2 and #3.
that complicated things for several of the B calibre players and served to confuse The girls. nonetheless, they had some initial exposure to the other patterns that season.
For a variety of reasons, we didn’t have the team back until fall 2014 at U10. We picked up where we left off, now working on all three patterns while gradually ramping up pressure (started w 2 defenders and increased from there)
They really started to get it fall 2014. And we layered in some of the “why” we play like we do — to get our shape, pierce the 1st line of defense and create numerical advantages among other reasons.
bottom line: now halfway thru our 3rd season (spring ’15) they are going very well. We saw 4 successful and 6 total attempted patterns in just the first 10 min of our match on Saturday. This was a breakthrough! Coaching staff was delighted to see the heavy lifting in praxis starting to pay off. the girls prolly favor pattern#1 mostly as you might expect since they are most familiar w it.
Now, taiming of runs and losing man still need work. Also, we’re working hard on timing runs as we crash box near, far, top of D To get on end of cross. Getting our winger to recognize need to cover for the overlapping back (8v8) is also a focus for us at moment.
we don’t track patterns for entire game, but I do know we had at least nine 5+ consecutive pass sequences during our 50 min match. Possession football is contagious — that’s for sure!
Hope this helps and sorry for long post. I bet you can sense our excitement w our progress. Wish you and all our fellow 3four3ers well. Cheers!
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!
Excellent! Very helpful. You guys are world class in my view. Thanks again!
Andrew – I like your notes and year end letter. Nicely done and many thanks for sharing.
Christopher – would you care to elaborate a bit more? what were the guidelines for player behavior during the Seattle sessions? those “ground rules” would be interesting if you wouldn’t mind sharing. and more specifically, what are the consequences of non-compliance? how did Brian go about disciplining the player (or the team) if they were NOT focused and engaged? please advise.
Christopher – would you care to elaborate a bit more? what were the guidelines for player behavior during the Seattle sessions? those “ground rules” would be interesting if you wouldn’t mind sharing. and more specifically, what are the consequences of non-compliance? how did Brian go about discipling the player (or the team) if they were NOT focused and engaged? please advise.
Nuno – I agree that some of the material is “familiar”, but I really like the opportunity to see and hear the “delivery” that you reference above. That’s particularly helpful to me. Reminds me of the movie Stripes when the Bill Murray character explains to the troops, “do as I do, say as I say”.
Anyway, the “Attacking Patterns” and attention to detail around spacing and organization were the “Aha!” moments for me. That and the necessary repetition……repetition……repetition — essentially drilling these patterns into the young players minds — even after a several years. It makes a ton of sense, but I don’t see many in our area practicing and preparing in this way. I can only imagine how it helps the lads with their confidence and knowledge of what is expected of them. That’s the breakthrough for me upon my initial review of the material.
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This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by
