We finished up our Futsal season last weekend with the US Youth Futsal Regional Tournament. It was a patch-work event because teams dropped out last minute due to a winter storm coming through. Then some left early because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to get home on Sunday. We should have been playing Futsal Nationals but that was pushed back due to Covid. It was a bit of an anticlimax that's the kind of year it's been. All but one day of practices … [Read more...]
#265 What My Teams Learned from Futsal this Year
#264 Creating Game-Like Activities
I find myself apologizing for missing an episode again last week. My hectic schedule got away from me again last week and I just didn't have the time I needed to put the episode together. I had to use that time to review D License assignments and provide feedback. Our recreational league is also in the busy 'Organizational Phase'. That means I'm preparing rosters, chasing birth certificates and making sure that coaches have completed their background checks. … [Read more...]
#263 The Impact of Formations on Individual and Team Development
I'm sorry that I wasn't able to post an episode last week. It was a crazy week and with everything going on I just didn't have the time to finish the episode and get it posted. I lead two virtual meetings for the D License course that I'm an instructor for. The rec season organizational period is in full swing. I had futsal games and training sessions to run and last weekend I took my 2009's to Dallas. I'll try to get back on track and be sure to post an … [Read more...]
#260 2020 Soccer Year Review
Last weekend I coached 18 Futsal games from Friday to Sunday. That made for a long weekend for me but it was great for the teams to get a chance to play four games each in one weekend. There is no better way to start the season than we a bunch of games one after the other so that the players can build from one game to the next. By the end of the weekend the kids were back in 'Futsal Mode' and really playing well. We had our first outdoor practices canceled … [Read more...]
#259 Technical Training in Game Like Environments
I had a fun weekend with my two older teams playing the last of their outdoor games for a while. The 2009's won one and lost two competitive games in another 2007 division. more important than the score, they played really well. They struggled a bit to score but that's to be expected against the bigger stronger players they faced. My 2005's had their first game since coming back from quarantine. They also played great but couldn't finish their chances. The … [Read more...]
#256 Analyze your Opponent
Well, We had a tough three games in State Cup last weekend. The level of competition and athleticism was just two much for us. We didn't help ourselves with some unforced errors that cost us goals at key points in the game. We also didn't create as many chances as we needed to in order to give us a chance to stay in the games. It was a four team group and two of the team were clearly better than the others. We were very competitive with the third team in the … [Read more...]
#255 How to Prepare Meaningful Player Evaluations
My schedule has really slowed down in the last couple of weeks. The end of the fall always brings with it a much more relaxed pace. I'm grateful that we were able to complete our season. That was definitely not guaranteed when we started back in August. This weekend is State Cup for my 2005's. This is the one tournament all year that I focus on winning. If we're successful we have the opportunity to go to regionals and that will put the team in front of … [Read more...]
#254 Do You Need a Coaching License?
Last weekend should have been State Cup for my 2005 but it was moved to the November because the facility that was supposed to host it was closed to all non-professional sports. I had blocked out the whole weekend for my other teams so they didn't have any games scheduled. We ended up moving a reschedule game for my 2005's into the empty weekend. That gave me just one game last weekend and that one wasn't until Sunday afternoon. It gave me lots of extra time to … [Read more...]
#253 Encourage Creativity and Confidence in Your Players
One of the benefits of coaching as many teams as I do is that I see just about every situation you can imagine. Last weekend I had eight games from Friday through Sunday. Two games Friday, two Saturday and 4 on Sunday. Today I thought I'd pull out one takeaway that I had from each day. On Friday one of my teams had an opponent that relied almost exclusively on aggression and physicality to play the game. Their goal was to simply to force us into mistakes … [Read more...]
#226 Dealing with a Season Postponed by COVID-19
Well, I can safely say that it’s been the weirdest week I’ve ever had during a spring season. Things seemed to be changing by the hour not just by the day. At the end of my intro last week I said that I hoped to be back on the field in two weeks. Now it’s looking more like two months would be a more realistic time frame. The local league, and also our club, have canceled everything through April 30. There's at least a chance that May will end up being … [Read more...]
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