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...]
#178 What to Work on With U8’s
#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...]
#172 Functional Shooting Activities
Last weekend I had just one game with each of my teams. Really not much to tell. The kids played well and are continuing to make steady progress in the areas we've focused on. Looking through my session plans I realized that I haven't done a shooting session in a while. Striking a Futsal ball is very unforgiving. If your technique is flawed in any way it's hard to generate any power. I decided this week was a good time to do a session that revolved around ball … [Read more...]
#171 Training the Key Elements of Attacking
My teams had their first Futsal games last weekend. I love the change in to a different form of soccer during the winter. What's the old saying, "A change is as good as a rest."? We'll I had a rest over Thanksgiving and now a change to Futsal from outdoor soccer. I'm very happy with the way my teams started the season. I'm fortunate this year because almost all of my players have played Futsal in the past so it's really been easy for me to build on top of what … [Read more...]
#170 Training Defensive Compactness
I really enjoyed my Thanksgiving holiday break this year. It was a great opportunity to recharge my batteries and get ready for the start of the winter Futsal season. The extra time I had gave me the opportunity to observed SPORTING KC Academy Sessions but on by their Technical Coach. The quality of the players is obviously very high but what struck me most was the attention to detail from the coaching staff and the high expectations they held the players … [Read more...]
#169 Don’t Just Follow Your Pass
My teams didn't have any games this weekend fortunately because the weather in KC was more like winter than fall. I took the extra time I had to start my player evaluations. I spread them out over two weekends so that I can take the time to focus on each player. The way I plan the transition between the fall outdoor season and winter Futsal season indoor is to make sure that my teams don't play for the first week so that we have time to prepare for the … [Read more...]
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