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...]
#189 SPORTING KC Academy Affiliate Observation Day
First of all I have to apologize for not uploading this episode last week. I had everything planned and then my internet connection went down. If you've ever had to deal with a cable company you know that nothing ever gets fixed quickly. I wasn't going to have internet back until Monday so I decide to sit on this episode for a week. There's two interesting things that happened recently. One was an incident when a player was injured in a tackle. The other … [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...]
#164 Training Combination Play to Score
Last weekend was another tournament weekend. It was local and it was nice to play a tournament close to home especially because the forecast was for rain all weekend. I had three teams in the tournament which may seem like a lot but it was manageable because it was spread out over three days. Friday was perfect, it was a great evening to play. The rain didn't start until overnight. Saturday morning was stormy. The earliest games were canceled and … [Read more...]
#066 Our New Training Center
My conversation with Andy Barney about his player development methods was very well received last week. I hope to have him back on the show in the future. Be sure to check out Episode 65 if you missed it. Today I give you a tour of our new WCC Training Center. We've been working on it for six months. The goal is to combine all of our coaching resources in one place to make it easier for you to search for and find exercises to plan your next training … [Read more...]
#045 30 Scoring Methods for Small-Sided Games
In response to feedback we received from our recent survey to our members we've started to add more content to our YouTube channel. Each week Mike Saif or I will add an animated drills video that focuses on one of our favorite games or exercises. You can find our YouTube channel by clicking here. This week I talk about how using different scoring methods can change how your players approach small-sided games. I talk about more than 30 different methods … [Read more...]
#032 How to Transfer Training into Matches
I think we all have experienced the frustration of running a session on a particular topic where the players performed well and appeared to understand the points we were making but then you don't see any of those ideas being used in the next game. This week I talk about this issue with Bob Warming, Head Men's Soccer Coach at Penn State University. This is the second time Bob has been on the podcast. If you haven't listened to our discussion in Episode #8 on … [Read more...]
#030 More than 20 Adjustments to Small-Sided Games
This week I discovered that the training session I did on give-and-goes helped my young players better understand how to stay onside. The coaching point for the wall passer is to stay on the shoulder of the defender. This creates an angle to receive and pass around the defender. When one of my players was offside a couple of times during the game I told him to, 'Stay on the shoulder of the defender until the ball is played just like in the give-and-go.' You … [Read more...]
#024 Formations for Small-Sided Soccer
The questions and suggestions keep coming in each week and one that I received today gave me an idea. Michael K said, ‘I am really enjoying your podcasts and am finding them very informative and educational. Would it be possible to include sessions that focus on set plays and restarts? This is a topic that I have on my list but it’s one that I’ve avoided because it’s not one of my strengths. I have a couple of corners and free kicks that I use with my teams … [Read more...]