Today's post is from Scott Moody, our Soccer Conditioning Expert at the Soccer FIT Academy. This blog post got my attention because I've had many conversations with parents and other coaches on this subject. There are an ever-increasing number of, 'Speed and Agility' trainers, camps and businesses. But all to often they are not soccer
Continue readingA few weeks ago I had a post entitled, "Preparing for State Cup". Well despite my coaching my U13 girls won the Kansas State Cup and are heading to the Region II Championship in Saginaw, MI. Obviously development is the most important thing at their age but I firmly believe that developing the will to win is just as important as technical, tactical and physical development. While the players had many individual goals that were centered on improvement, we had one common team goal, and that was to win State Cup.
The week after State Cup we have tryouts which causes a problem; what do you do if one of the players isn't selected for next year's team? Every team has the same issue and they deal with it in different ways. But this year
Continue readingEach state in the U.S. sets their own time for tryouts. In the mid west the date usually falls in June sometime after State Cup has been completed. In Kansas tryout can officially start one week after State Cup is completed.
There are two types of clubs, a truly tiered system where the best players are place on the top team in the club and the next strongest players are put on the second team and so on. The goal of this type of club is
Continue readingThis week's post is an excerpt from our latest book, "Developing the Complete Tactical Player". This unique book focuses on methods to train players to develop tactical knowledge, faster decision making and smarter use of the ball. I think we can all agree that this is an aspect sorely missing in many of our players but can make all the difference in taking them to an elite level.
This brief excerpt looks at
Continue readingIt's hard to believe that the end of the soccer year is coming so quickly. Our State Cup is June 1/2/3 so were in review mode to prepare for the biggest tournament of the year. We want to do our best to be successful because the winners of State Cup attend the Regional Tournament to play against the best teams in our Region. The players learn so much for that type of experience that I want the girls to have that opportunity.
We've covered a lot this year and I've really seen
Continue readingCan you teach creativity? Some coaches believe that players are either creative or their not. Certainly there are players that we can all name that appear to be, 'naturally' creative but I believe that most players need to learn to be creative.
I don't think that you could have put Mozart in front of a piano at seven years old and he could just start playing. Learning the basic patterns and structures is vital first step in the process. Once you understand the framework and basic skills you can start to put things together in new an innovative ways.
I take this same approach when working with my teams when it comes to ideas for attacking. I like to give them a number of different attacking patterns to work on before freeing them to see what the defense is giving them and deciding how they can take advantage of it.
Since this is the first year I've implemented a 4-3-3 formation with any of my teams, I turned to an expert for idea on both the attacking and defensive
Continue readingI'm in favor of teaching young players to be very comfortable and confident with the ball by teaching them different fakes . During the initial learning phase I want the players to use them every time they get the ball. Some coaches have told me that you can't teach creativity but I think you give them the tools and then teach them how to use them. This can look a bit rough at first as the kids get comfortable with the fakes but if they use them enough they learn when to use a move and when to choose another option.
There are so many different fakes you can teach that an important question becomes
Continue readingI've always had a standing challenge to my teams (U13 and below), if they score a headed goal, I buy ice cream for the next practice. It's been a way to encourage the players to try and score with their head if they can. This has been most successful with the girls teams I have coached. The extra incentive has become something that the team rallies around.
After spending a few weeks working on our combination play to score we played very well in our next games. Two of our three goals came from combinations in the middle of the field.
Another area that I've wanted to address
Continue readingAs I've written about several times, I've been going through the process of training one of my teams to play the 4-3-3 formation. I've always used a 4-4-2 or a 3-4-3 in the past so this has been a learning experience for me as well as the players.
I began with the defensive phase of the game to give the team a foundation to build on. They now have a good understanding of their responsibilities when we don't have the ball and that has made us a tough team create chances against. As a part of this we've worked a great deal on getting our wing backs involved by pushing them forward when we win the ball. This put emphasis on our wide play and we've been able to generate a lot of our offense by attacking the flanks with both our wing backs and wingers.
The area that we have been lacking
Continue readingMost coaches use small-sided games as part of their training sessions. Sometimes this is limited to a 10 minute scrimmage at the end of the session.
During the spring season I will often run an entire session that revolves around two or three small-sided games to reinforce technical or tactical topics that we have covered a number of times during the fall and winter. As the session continues the players move in and out of the two or three different games. Each one has a slightly different challenge for the players to solve. The players enjoy the change of pace and the games help the players connect the skills we've developed to the game itself.
I'm always on the lookout for games that are a bit different. A book that we recently released has given me a number of good games that my players have really enjoyed. Check it out here.
Developing Creativity Through Small-Sided Games, is written by Brazilian soccer coach, Eduardo Andriatti Paulo. He feels that the Brazilian system has moved away from
Continue readingIn a post last December I talked about how I was working with my team to understand the different ways to beat the offside trap. Some of the ideas and exercises I use are from the book, 'Offside!'.
A reader suggested that runs from the midfield was another way to effectively defeat the trap. Here's what David Williams says about these types of runs in, 'Offside!':
"Tell the loan striker to restrict his runs forward
Continue readingOne of the most important decisions we make as coaches is when to move through the various stages of skill development with our players. Move on too soon before the technique is mastered and the players performance becomes sloppy and inconsistent. If you wait too long to challenge the players with the next level of a skill or tactic and they will become bored and unmotivated so they just go through the motions. This will also hurt they're performance because they'll begin to develop bad habit through lazy practice. We've all seen a team that can keep great possession in a 5 v 2 exercise but lose composure (and possession) when the pressure is greater in a game situation.
Just as importantly, we have to decide what is the best way to progress a given skill or tactical idea. Most coaches will progress
Continue readingAs a coach I'm always evaluating my players but mostly on a subjective level. I do some 1v1 and 2v2 statistical evaluations that I wrote about in a previous post but that's the only objective information I've used to in the past.
This spring our club has implemented the SoccerFIT Game Speed Assessment for all of our teams. The test looks at three specific categories - Speed/Agility, Soccer Fitness and Technical Skill. The ideal situation is to see a balance between these unique areas but in most cases players will be stronger in one or two and weaker in the others. Here's an example of a report that you would receive after entering your data from the tests:
There are 15 different test
Continue readingThe main topic of discussion among soccer coaches and parents over the last month has been the U.S. Soccer Developments Academy's move to a 10-month season beginning in 2012-13.
U.S. Soccer created the Development Academy in 2007 to improve the everyday environment for the elite youth player. The Development Academy is a partnership between U.S. Soccer and the top youth clubs around the country to provide the best youth players in the U.S. with an everyday environment designed to produce the next generation of National Team players.
U.S. Men’s National Team Head Coach JURGEN KLINSMANN commenting on the change said, “If we want our players to someday compete against the best in the world, it is critical for their development that they train and play as much as possible and in the right environment. The Development Academy 10-month season is the right
Continue readingIt was difficult to choose a winner in our recent shooting drills competition because we received so many good entries. In the end we picked this exercise from Dennis Hillyard of New York. We were looking for drills that were easy to understand, used equipment all coaches have access to, provided a lot of repetitions for the players, were scalable to larger and smaller numbers and provided progressions that could be used as the players develop. This exercise meets all of those criteria.
Shooting Competition - First Time Shooting
Continue readingFC Barcelona has become the world’s top club and has set the standard for all other clubs to follow. With more than a dozen major championships and counting over the past four years, the team has achieved remarkable success in La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League and also the FIFA World Club Championships. Further, the bulk of the 2010 World Cup Champion Spanish National Team mainstays call Barcelona their home club.
What has prompted this run? Certainly talented players including the likes of Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique and others are critical to the team’s stunning run. However, the Barcelona model is much more complex, as the coaching, philosophy, tactics, team culture and more all contribute to the spectacular results and consistency that have been the hallmark of the club in recent years.
A new book that we've just released call, FC Barcelona: Style and Domination, A Tactical Analysis of FC Barcelona examines the special qualities and practices that have been critical to the club’s recent success. From a profile of the manager and summary of the club’s overall
This week's post comes from our Soccer Conditioning Experts at Soccer FIT. This article struck a cord with me because I think that as coaches we are sometimes guilty of the single-minded focus on technique especially for our youngest players. The post makes the point that we are in danger of obsessing over perfect technique to the point that we lose functional speed.
When it comes to “technical work,” can we be TOO technical?
Interesting question…and in my opinion the answer is “YES!” I understand that foot angle & toe placement when touching the ball is extremely important. But as coaches, we must ask ourselves “how much technique is
Continue readingAs I've discussed in earlier posts, I think that most coaches agree that our players don't watch the game being played at the highest level enough. Kids in countries where soccer is part of their culture grow watching professional player every week so when it comes time for them play they have a rich source of creative ways to break down defenses. They've watched Messi and Iniesta rip apart a back four with quick passing combinations and then tried the same thing with their friends at the park. Our players need to be given examples of ways to create goal scoring opportunities so they can look for those situations
Continue readingI don't think most coaches give a lot of thought to the needs of their goalkeepers when they sit down to plan their session. They're usually just another player in the team for most of the session and then go in goal when it comes time to shoot or play a game. While it's important for all goalkeepers, especially young goalkeepers, to work with the ball at their feet they also need to train with the team in functional exercises. This establishes a link between the goalkeeper rest of the team that will translate to game day.
A book that got me thinking about this subject is, "Team Training for the Goalkeeper" by John Murphy. In this book Murphy gives examples for training your goalkeepers with the team in all phases of training. Warm-up, Functional Training, Possession, Small-Sided Games, Phase of Play exercises and 11 v 11 setting are all discussed. He also includes full sessions that integrate the goalkeeper throughout the session.
Here are a few warm-up exercises
Continue readingA topic I don't see coaches cover very often is running with the ball. We all spend a good bit of time on dribbling sessions but running with the ball is a different skill. When you're dribbling the idea is to have the ball close to your feet and under tight control. When you're running with the ball you're trying to take space quickly so you get the ball out of your feet and run after it.
A session from the Manchester United Soccer School is great for working on this skill. I came across the session in our book, 'Technical Practices of the Pros'.
I've used this session with teams as young as U10. It's been
Continue readingAs I've written in previous posts, I enjoy incorporating diamond drills into my sessions because they provide all of the principles of attacking in a dynamic format that keeps the players moving and engaged. In one post on 'Diamond Passing' I shared some progressions on the diamond passing drills that I've used in the past. Over the last two months I've introduce these to my players during a number of practices. They've done a great job with them and I can change the pattern on the fly just by saying, "Layoff-and-Go", "Overlap" or "Play the Forward". I've also seen the movements from these exercises occur in scrimmages and games so the players have made the transition between practice and practical application.
During the winter my club participates in Futsal since the Midwest winter makes it tough to stay outdoor year-round. For those not familiar with
Continue readingI've never been a fan of teaching youth teams to operate an offside trap. My feeling is that the time spent teaching this tactic is far better spent training players to better understand defending. You're also leaving the success or failure of your defense in the hands of the referees. Even with very good referees, your only one missed call away from a breakaway and likely goal.
I do believe that it's a good idea to spend some time teaching your players how to beat the offside trap. This knowledge is not only useful against trapping teams but also against teams that play a regular pressure-cover-balance defense. A book I've taken some ideas from is, 'Offside! - How to Coach It, How to Use It, How to Counter It.' This book does a great job of explaining how teach the tactic as well as how to beat it.
There are a number of different ways that you can combat the trap. I focus on four
Continue readingEvery formation weakness that other teams will look to exploit. It's important to know what other teams might try so that you can prepare your team to deal with them. With this in mind, I read David Platt's, 'How to Play Against and Beat the 4-3-3'. Platt suggests that the best way to deal with a team that is adept at playing the 4-3-3 is to play a variation of the same system, the 4-3-2-1.
This excerpt of the book focuses on how to attack against the 4-3-3 beginning in the back and working through midfield.
Playing with a 4-3-3 system enables that team to be press high up the pitch and limit the ability to play out from the back. Clearly this is something
Continue readingEvery systems has it's strengths and weaknesses. In previous posts I've described why I feel that the 4-3-3 is a great system to teach players the game. While I believe in playing our own best game regardless of what the opposition is trying to do, playing against other systems provides challenges that the players need to learn to deal with. In the next few weeks I'll show you how I've taught my teams to handle these differences.
Teams that know you are playing with three in the midfield might try to overwhelm these players by having five in the
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