It's great to get back outside for the start of the spring league season. My first game of the spring wasn't even with my own team. I covered for another coach who had a conflict. It's always difficult to step in as the coach of a team you haven't worked with before. They don't know me and I don't know them. But sometimes coaches with multiple teams have conflicts and we try to help each other out as best we can. The team didn't really play well during the … [Read more...]
#262 Recognizing and Executing 2 v 1 Situations
It was an easy weekend of Futsal for me last week. I only had seven games (seems like more when I say it like that). Three on Saturday and four on Sunday. At this point in the season my players have hit their stride with Futsal; they all understand what we're trying to do and are working their hardest make it happen on the field. This is the time where I start changing things up a bit to challenge them in a different way. We change back and forth between a … [Read more...]
#250 Training Players to Recognize and Create 2 v 1 Situations
What is it about round numbers that make them more meaningful to us? Getting to 200 episodes was huge and now 250 seems like another milestone. I suppose it is but I'm looking at it as being halfway to 500. That's my goal at the moment. I had two teams in a tournament over the weekend. Both teams are playing 11 v 11 so I didn't have any small-sided games over the weekend. My 2005 group when 4-0 winning their games 1-0, 1-0, 1-0 and 1-0. They scored late … [Read more...]
#243 The Pros and Cons of Counter Attacking Tactics
Tonight was the end of my first week of training with my teams. My schedule is a bit crazy this fall. I'm at the fields every night until 9 pm expect Thursdays when I come home to record the podcast. Being on the field for three to five hours every night is going to take some getting used to. I'm really enjoying the chance to work with the players on the field again. Three of the team train twice a week. One team, the U16's, trains three times a week. I … [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...]
#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...]
#165 Week 2 of Playing the 5 v 2 Game to Score
One of my teams had two interesting and very different challenges this week. During their first game of the weekend they played a team that they were clearly better than but were just coasting their way through the game. There was on urgency or intensity in their play. They knew they could get by on 50% effort so that's how they played. In the beginning I let them play and watched to see if they would pick it up. When they didn't I started to encourage them … [Read more...]
#161 Pattern Play to Develop Attacking Ideas
This was a pretty easy weekend for me. I had one game a day over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I almost didn't know what to do with all my extra time.! During these games I was thinking about the way I change the positions that players are in during games. The way I used to do it was to have everyone play the same position for the first four games of league play and then rotate the attackers and defenders. This was far to long between changes for a kid that … [Read more...]
#158 Individual and Team Possession
This is the fourth week of training for the teams in our club. I'm finally getting into the flow of the season. Each team has had a number of games and I'm starting to learn more about the players and they're starting to understand what I'm look for from them. The recreational league games started last week as well so with that, the amount of time and energy I have to devote to that area of my job will become less and less just as my coaching and Age Group … [Read more...]
#157 The First Games of the Season
I'm sorry for missing last week's podcast. Everything just piled up and I ran out of time. On top of a crazy week I also had three teams in a tournament so there was no time to get it done over the weekend as I've been planning to do. With all of that taken care of now I'm confident that I'll be able to get a new episode out to you each week from here on out. Thanks for your understanding and sticking with the show as I get through the busiest time of … [Read more...]