We were finally able to play some early season games last weekend. With the stops and starts we've had to our training during the late winter and early spring seasons it was hard to know what to expect. Add to that the fact that we were missing a number of players from each of my teams because they got a head start on their Spring Break trips. That gave us the opportunity to bring in some guest players from the teams below ours. The players we brought up did … [Read more...]
#181 US Youth Soccer Rule Changes – Three Years Later
The high school girls that I coached during the fall and winter had their school tryouts last week. A couple of my best players weren't picked for any teams at their school. These are Juniors in high school that could have played "C" Team, JV or Varsity. There are players that were selected for these teams that are not as good as the players that were left out. I don't understand the motivations of many high school coaches. They'll select Seniors just … [Read more...]
#180 What to Work on With U12’s
I took last week off from the podcast to prepare for our 3rd Grade and older coaches meeting for the spring season. So I spent a lot of time getting the rosters and cards ready for our older recreational teams that play through our local league. That means that I didn't get to share my thoughts on the US Youth Futsal Youth National Finals that I had two teams in. You can listen to the episode to hear what I had to say about that. The weather continues to … [Read more...]
#179 What to Work on With U10’s
Last weekend we had our last Futsal games of the league season. The second half of the season was very choppy because of the crazy weather we've had in the midwest but it's been great to watch the progress of the players. They've developed a very solid understanding of how we want to play the game as well as improved their foot skills throughout the winter. Two of my teams will play in the US Youth Futsal Nationals this weekend. There's more winter weather … [Read more...]
#178 What to Work on With U8’s
We're starting to wrap up the winter Futsal season. There's just two weeks left in the league and then we have the US Youth Futsal Nationals. There are 160 teams entered in the tournament and only 20 of them are from the KC area according to the organizers. It's always a great event and I'm really looking forward to it this year. We had a loopside game this weekend that allowed me to work on playing with a "Fly Keeper". It's basically a fifth attacker. It … [Read more...]
#177 The Coach – Parent Relationship
We finally got in a full weekend of games without any weather interruptions. The "Polar Vortex" moved in for the week so we weren't able to train outdoor until Thursday but indoor training went ahead as usual. As I suspected my youngest team were pretty rusty. They looked like they hadn't played a game in six, which they hadn't. They had forgotten some of the basic of Futsal. Fortunately, it only took them about a half and we started to look like ourselves … [Read more...]
#176 Tournaments – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
We had the US Youth Futsal Regionals here last weekend. I'm going to talk about my teams' experiences and tournaments in general in the main part of the show so I'll save that for later. We had another major winter storm here earlier this week. My teams train on Tuesdays indoor and my oldest team trains outdoor on Wednesday but we lost all of our training sessions this week. I thought our winter break was great but now a couple of my teams haven't played … [Read more...]
#175 Using Tactical Periodization to Plan for the Season
Last week we had a major snow storm in the midwest and it forced the cancelation of games on Saturday. This came at the worst time for me because we just came off of a two week Christmas break and no games scheduled last weekend. Unfortunately, we're going right into the US Youth Futsal Regionals this weekend. With no game time in the last month it made this week's training session especially important. Listen to the episode for my description of our … [Read more...]
#174 Coming Back to Training After a Break
It was great to get back to training this week. The break was fun but I've missed my teams and working with the kids. There was an interesting comment on last week's podcast. John said, "The US has not and will never produce a world class talent because of lack of culture, the fear of over training (even though the kids are having fun and doing what they love), the need to dabble in other sports Because “it benefits athletic development” , and the coddling … [Read more...]
#173 The Benefits of Breaks
I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday season. I just returned from a great family ski trip. We’ve been going to the same little ski resort in Colorado since I was 16. It’s not crowded and very family friendly. My kids learned to ski and snowboard there and now my young nieces and nephews are going as well. I love want I do and where I do it but I’m definitely on the lookout for ski town where I can coach during the spring and fall and then ski all winter. … [Read more...]
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