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Hola, Amalia. I must say that your report is quite shocking! There’s an old saying I was introduced to in the previous millennium by a well known British emigré up here: “You don’t get better at billiards by running around the table.” (or words to that effect)
@ Nuno Ferreira: Re “Ajax, Barcelona, Cruyff: The ABC of an Obstinate Maestro”, I used to watch Barend & Van Dorp’s show when living in the Netherlands. Very similar style to Gary & Brian’s – provocative, irreverent. (lol)
Luv it. 🙂
Hi everyone,
My name is Robert Kleemaier. I’m a boys soccer trainer in Kelowna, British Columbia. For a long time now, due largely to my multilingual (Dutch/English/German), multicultural (Austro-Canadian) background, I’ve muttered repeatedly that I was born in the wrong country. The hockey mentality that prevails at the grassroots level up here is simply painful to watch on the soccer pitch. Kick & rush is the default option. But a 10-pass sequence? Caressing the ball? Running off the ball to create space? Helping your teammate by *not* running into that space? Are you kidding me? In short, the shortcomings documented in the blog about the lack of soccer culture in the US are equally mirrored or worse exacerbated in Canada.Dying on the vine, I came across goplaybetter.com in November 2013 (our off-season). What a refreshing way of looking at teaching football for the grassroots trainer! It bore tremendous fruit last season during which I was charged with teaching 13 players how to start learning to play & appreciate proper football, half of whom had significant cognitive issues. It was a daunting task for a volunteer, but thanks to the broadening of the developmental metric spectrum we managed to become a competitive team during our oddly short & interrupted 4-month season (April-June/Sept-Oct.). Then only to see that my best player with a superior understanding of the game didn’t even get selected for the jump to the next level…*sigh*.
Now I am immersing myself in Gary’s & Brian’s opinions, approach & expertise, and am duly impressed. It is causing me to think deeply about what needs to change in my approach to teaching the Beautiful Game. The challenge before me now is twofold:
- to adapt the curriculum to an 8-v-8 setting for the Boys U12 season in 2015;
- to disseminate Gary’s & Brian’s approach within my SA.
The former is entirely doable. It will take time, but possibilities are already starting to become evident. The latter, however, will be a real challenge, for anything proper that I introduce to my team can just as easily be undone by the next ‘coach’. And all this in the name of ‘competitive balance’. There is, however, a slight chance that I will be called upon to pass on to other volunteer coaches what I’m learning here, so I’m cautiously hopeful the seeds of change will be planted soon.
Looking forward to interacting with some of you at some point in the near future.
Groetjes/Cheers/Tschüß,
R.
