I had last weekend completely off. No games! I always take the first weekend of the futsal season off. This provides a welcome break between the outdoor and indoor seasons. It also gives me one more week of practice with my teams before we play our first futsal games. For the first two weeks of indoor practice we focused on finding the openings or creating the openings when attacking. This week we switched and worked on defending so it was all about closing … [Read more...]
#212 Attending a Coaching Course
Since I didn't have a podcast last week I have to catch you up on what I've been up to. Two weeks ago I had my last outdoor tournament of the fall. Two teams played in the tournament and it was a great way to wrap up the season. I go into all of the details about the weekend in the episode. We had our first two weeks of futsal training sessions in the last two weeks. Moving indoors changes our focus a bit because we don't have the space to run the Play - … [Read more...]
#211 Should Coaches Train their Own Children
With only one game last weekend it left me with a lot of time on my hands. Saturday consisted of work around the house to get it ready for the winter (which seems to have started already!). My game on Sunday was at 8 am but first I decided to get up early and watch the Rugby World Cup Semi-Final between Wales and South Africa. That started at 4 am my time. I love watching the knockout rounds of just about any sport. The intensity and drama are something that … [Read more...]
#210 Using the Play-Practice-Play Method in Practice
Last weekend was a busy one; I had six games between my four teams. The results were 3-2-1. The interesting thing was that the teams were 1-1-1 on Sunday and I LOVED the performance of my teams in every game. My approach was different with each group but I think it really matched with what they needed on the day a struck a balance between too much direction and not enough. Realizing that the balance needed by each team will be different and that sometimes even … [Read more...]
#209 Experiencing Different Soccer Cultures
Thanks to an email from listener Kevin I discovered how to allow iTunes to include up to 300 podcast episodes in the feed. I've made that adjustment so we have a couple of years before we have to worry about older episodes dropping off of the feed. Thanks Kevin! I don't usually use guest players for my teams unless we're very short on players. This weekend one of my teams really need a couple of guests because of illnesses but none were available to we had … [Read more...]
#208 Ways to Encourage Your Players to Compete
I followed up the out of town tournament two weeks ago with an in-town tournament last weekend with two different teams. One team played their own age group and the other was playing up. They both faced some good competition and didn't end up making the finals but they both had great experiences that will definitely help them continue to develop and build on a great start to the year. I talk more about their experience in the episode. There's a Grassroots … [Read more...]
#206 Choosing the Best Size Field for Your Small-Sided Games
It was a crazy wet weekend. I know this podcast sometimes sounds like a weather report but it has such an impact on the game and my coaching that it's an important factor. You can listen to the episode for the details. I'm continuing to experiment with not coaching during running play. I think it's having a very positive impact on most of my teams. However, one of the teams hasn't reacted as well to it as the others. I talk about the details more in this … [Read more...]
#202 The After Effects of the Heading Ban in Youth Soccer
I had three teams in a tournament last weekend. As with all early season tournaments in KC it was HOT. Two of my teams were playing in their own age group and one was playing up. The two playing on-age both made the final. One lost on PK's and the other won. I think the players learned some good lessons from the experience. You can listen to the episode for more details. The team that was playing up had an up and down weekend. At times we played great, at … [Read more...]
#201 Formations for U13’s Transitioning to 11 v 11
I only had one team in the tournament last weekend so it was almost like having a weekend off. It was nice to focus on just one team for the whole weekend. It was my U12 team that is playing in the U13 11 v 11 division. They've really made the move to 11 v 11 must smoother than I thought they would. It's helped that half of our games have been against other U12 teams playing up so I'm sure it will get more challenging but it's been a good start. Today’s … [Read more...]
#191 The Techne App – Individual Training made Simple
I had a team play in a tournament that used grass fields last weekend. This is the first time any of my teams have played on grass this spring. In my opinion a good grass field is better than a turf field but it has to be a good grass field. The fields we played on this weekend were good in the past but aren't what they used to be. We're just not used to playing on grass anymore. It slows everything down so much that it's hard for the players to get their … [Read more...]
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