The 'Winning Vs. Development' discussion

Hello there, 

I am going to give my opinion on the Winning Vs. development debate that can be found throughout the coaching world today. 'Development' and whether teams should focus on 'development' or 'winning' seems to be a topic of discussion that is ubiquitous throughout the soccer coaching world. 

In my opinion, winning and development should be thought of together. And let me make it clear, I think winning is important. Or, let me rephrase that, showing a competitive attitude and trying to win is. In other words, part of developing players should be trying to develop a competitive and persistent attitude that will allow players to compete in the game of soccer. At the end of the day, the aim of the game is to win, like any other game. I am far from the type of person that believes kids should receive 'participation' trophies and it is about the 'taking part' that counts. I believe kids should develop a love and passion for the game, but I also believe that part of the fun is the competition. Ever done a drill where kids look like they are lacking zest, but as soon as you make it competitive and introduce a score, they soon come to life. I think this sums up what kids are all about. The majority of kids will count every point or goal that they score. We shouldn't rob children of that competitive desire.

However, I do think that soccer is a game where winning can be achieved without developing players. For example - and you see it all the time - playing the big, quick kids in positions that will benefit the team, by playing direct and not really seeing any style of play or development of play, or by playing the same kids in the same positions all the time. This is when it gets problematic for me. Winning should not be at the detriment of a players development. Examples, like the above, in the long term, in my opinion, will not benefit the players. Also, I will never put pressure on kids to win a game - I think that would be negative, and possibly inhibit a creative and expressive attitude, which is something I believe in.

I want kids to win, but I want them to perform well also and work on the things that I am asking of them. If a team I coach wins 5-0, but plays very poorly and wins by being direct, for example, then I would still be very frustrated. In an ideal world, a win and a performance is what I am after. 

I think as a coach, you need to convey the style of play that you want to achieve with the players and get them to buy into what you are trying to achieve. In the past spring, I had a group of U10 boys, and these kids, although not the most technical, were the most competitive group of kids I have ever coached. It was great. Anyways, although they wanted to win all the time, they knew how I wanted them to play - which is to play out from the back and try to build up the play. This approach cost us a few goals, and ultimately a few games though the season but we stuck with it and got better as the season went on. The lads understood why I wanted them to play that way, and tried to do it. But it didn't detract from the fact that I wanted them to work hard and show that competitive desire in games.

Thanks for reading.

Developing reflective players

Hello again,

I want to write a post about how to encourage players to be reflective and different ways of doing it, that are relevant to young players.

Firstly, my reason for doing this is, as I mentioned in the previous post, I have recently read a book on learning and how to become better learners. The book also talks about reflection and how it can have huge benefits on learning and retention of knowledge. This is not the first time I have come across this concept, it was discussed and encouraged in my first year of study with The Open University. Also, on the FA Youth Award Module coaching courses in England, they make reflection or an 'action review process' as they call it, an active part of a coaching session, so I have also learned about reflection there and how to incorporate it into sessions. I have not used it as much as I should have and reading this recent book has now reignited the spark to try and think of ways to get players to become more reflective.

I don't want players to just be passive learners and to just turn up and train, and then forget about the session throughout the week, until they come back to training again the next time. The best players in the world will be thinking what they do well and, more importantly, what they need to do to improve. I want to help players with this process.

How many coaches do you really see ask a player what they are good at and get them involved in the process and discussions? Or, what they think they need to improve? Because I have not come across many that do. These questions could potentially spark good discussion between players and coaches, and might even help you in the coaching process. For example, what you - the coach - feel a player needs work on, might be different than what the player thinks they need work on. Little things like this might help work on players developing confidence in aspects that you may overlook.

Anyways, this is what I have come up with:

1. I have printed off a few sheets of paper listing questions that relate to sessions that I have already planned. Before, during, and after sessions the group will discuss the questions in different ways. Ways of doing this are:
1. Putting players in pairs and asking them to choose a question to discuss between themselves for a few minutes. Some players could then share their answers to the group.
2. I could get players together at the end of the session and ask a question to different players and try to spark discussion between the group.
3. The questions are very simple and can include, for example, for a 1vs1 attacking session, what moves did you practice today? Or, what strengths do you have that will help you beat a defender in a 1vs1? Or, what do you think you need to work on to help you beat a defender? The first question is a simple retrieval question, but the last two help players delve a bit deeper into their performance, hopefully, helping them improve performance in the future.
2. Another way to help develop reflection during games is to stop games for half-time team talks. These can be led by the coach or by the players depending on how much ownership you want to give to the players. As a coach, you can obviously, always be there to help and give advice. But setting practices up this, help players to develop the ability to think for themselves, and not be coach reliant all the time. Sometimes, you may also be pleasantly surprised at what the players come up with - I know I have.
1. To help guide this process, you could give players a topic to think about during the game, for example, how good were they at finding space out wide? Then, during half-time, you ask players to focus their half-time team talk based on this topic and how well they were doing at it during the game. You could then ask players what they could do better and any changes they can make to improve?
3. Lastly, I have written up a sheet that I will give to the players at the start of the season which just asks players to write three things they think they are good at and three things they think they need to improve. It also, asks what the players can do to help them work on their weaknesses.

These are three ideas that I have come up with. They are by no means solely my own ideas. I have found things on the net and tried to modify them to work in a coaching environment. 

Anyways, if anyone else has any ideas of how to develop reflective practice within a coaching environment, then please comment. I would love to hear new ideas.

Rickie

Combination Play

I have just designed a session focusing on combination play that I want to share. Here it is.

The reason for doing this session is I like players to be really clever and creative with their movement and passing to penetrate the opposition. To combine well in attacking areas of the pitch requires movement, intelligence, and forethought, just to name a few aspects, so I feel working on these aspects in practice will help develop clever and creative players.

The session will work on combinations like one-twos, overlaps/underlaps, and 3rd man runs.

Technical Practice

This simple practice involves receiving from an outside player and then combing with a middle floater player and then playing across to another player on the outside without a ball. I have attached a picture below:

In the practice, as you can see, there are different floaters in the middle through which players combine in different ways. With my players, to begin with, I think I will begin with only one combination to play through the middle. Then I will move on to another combination in turn. This, I think, will help the practice flow a bit better to begin with as players gets to grips with the session and what I want them to do. When I then repeat the session, I will then try to just start with all three combinations to play through, as payers will already have an idea of what they are going to do.

This practice is very simple. One of the reasons I like it is, although there aren't any defenders, there will still be interference within the grid, therefore still working on decision making, awareness, and perceptual skills somewhat as players will have to search and recognize spaces and the right times to combine. Also, the combinations will different each time, thus being more realistic to the game. It is sort of a mix between an opposed practice and a technical practice. That is the idea anyways. Getting the players thinking a bit straight from the start of practice can only be a good think right. I am not really a fan of patterns for younger players where kids are just repeating the same thing over and over again in an unopposed practices. Stuff like that does not set the players up well for the game in my opinion - especially for a topic like combination play which relies heavily on a players ability to perceive and recognize the right times to do things - that skill requires defenders, not mannequins and cones who don't tackle and try to get the ball. Also, when you see teams doing that stuff, the teams always perform the pattern great, but when they go to a game, the practice does not transfer to the game at all, which is absolutely pointless and a waste of time in my opinion.

Small sided games

Moving on from the above practice, I will get the get the players into some target-to-target possession type games. Once again, these are very simple, they are directional, will include fewer numbers, and involve lots of movement and combining for players. I will manipulate the games a bit to try to get more repetition of the combination I want to see.

To begin with, I will have 2 simultaneous games going on as follows:

Game 1 -  this will be a target-to-target game where players have to play from target to target within a rectangle. I will play this game so players only get a point if they perform a one-two and then play into a target player. I will also allow them to play a one-two with a target player to then receive in the end zone.

Game 2 - This game will be played with mini-goals and players play a normal game, but if they perform an overlap and score or create from it, then they get 3 goals. I will play either 2vs2 or 3vs3. The aim is to incentivise players to try and play an overlap but also not put a 'must' only score after an overlap. Sometimes players will just be in positions to shoot and score and I try to not take that away from them. However, if I don't see any overlaps, then I will put a restriction on the game that they have to perform an overlap before they can score.

With these two games I will play for about 10 minutes, then switch pitches so players play on the other pitch and try to perform the different combination. I have recently read a book called Make it stick. It's a book on how to learn effectively written by a few cognitive neuroscientists, and within it, they discuss a concept called interleaving. This is basically mixing up what you learn rather than constant repetition of the same thing which apparently hinders longer term learning. This is the principle I am trying to apply here with the mixing up of the two games - I am trying to think of ways to apply what they talk about in the book to a coaching setting. I will see how it goes - I am always looking for ways to develop how I coach.

As a progression to the above I will move to promotion/relegation system player possession games where players will get points for performing either a one-two or a overlap. Players will now have to decide which combination to do within the game. This will add more competition to the scenario and also get them to decide which combinations to perform depending on the situation. The idea here, is to really get them thinking about what to do and when  to do it.

A practice that I will use sometimes to help 3rd man runs will be a target-to-target possession game again. But now, the restriction is, to score they have to make a 3rd man run into the end zone to receive from the target player. In other words, one player in the grid passes to the target player, and as this is happening a different player within the grid makes a run into the end zone to receive from the target player, thus being the 3rd man making the run.

To end the session I will play a game where I will split the pitch up into thirds. Within the game I will challenge players to combine and create goals. I will use the thirds to help focus the issue and challenge players with different ways to combine to play forward and create. For example, I will ask midfielders to try to receive in the middle third and play forward quickly and make forward runs into the attacking third to then try to get on the ball again, or I could ask them to play a one-two in the midfield third before advancing into the attacking third. There are loads of things that can be added to this setup of a game to help focus on what you want to achieve.

I like to do simple game-like practices and just add little restrictions and different ways to score to focus the issue of what the session is trying to achieve. The sessions are not complicated in their setup and structure. However, I feel they are game realistic and relevant, and will help players paint pictures in their minds which they will encounter on match day, therefore enabling more transfer to the game from practice. That is the idea anyways.One thing I will have to be wary of within this method is whether the technical ability of the players allows them to perform well in the session. If not, then I will have to rethink and regress the sessions to better suit the needs of the players.

Coaching Points

Some things to look out for in this session will be:

1. Variety of receiving and passing techniques.
2. Decision making
1. Think about what to do before you receive ball, what to do when you have it, and then what to do when you have released it.
3. Communication
4. Encouraging players to try to anticipate and read defenders and attackers with whom they will combine.
5. Playing quickly.
1. one and two touch
6. Quick, early, and clever movement off the ball.
7. Creativity and different ways to combine.
8. Players being positive and direct and looking to go forward with intent.

Thanks for reading.

Rickie

Possession Sessions relevant to U11 Girls

OK, so I am trying to plan a few possession type practices that will be relevant to my 2006 girls that I will be coaching this fall. This is what I have come up with. I have tried to make the practices simplistic, relevant, and realistic.

Technical Practices

In pairs Passing - this, as the name suggests, will consist of two players standing opposite playing balls to each other. It does not get any simpler than this practice, but the players will need it, and I will not do it for too long. I do prefer sessions that consist of lots of decisions to make and are a bit more chaotic and variable. However, this will get the player lots of repetition at passing the ball and I will vary the distances. One of the reasons I will do this, is to get the players passing using both feet. Also, I will introduce the player to different kinds of passes to add to their 'technical locker'. I have a feeling that these girls will have not been exposed to the idea that you can put swerve, or backspin on a ball, for example. So I will get them to practice different passes such as simple side foot passes, driven and lofted passes, playing balls on the 1/2 volley, and also introduce them to putting swerve and backspin on the ball. Now I am not expecting to turn the girls into Xabi Alonso overnight, but I would like to just plant a seed for future development and practice with regards to the different passes you could use.

Square Passing practice - this is another simple practice that you see a lot of teams use. Players have to pass around the side of a side. I used this practice a lot with my U10s that I coached in the spring and it had a positive effect on their technique I feel. Other things to emphasize are:

• a good first touch in the direction you are going
• a bit of movement off the cone before you receive
• communication
• firm, crisp passes to feet
• now with this I encourage players to try to make their pass easier for the receiving players to do what they need to do next, i.e., by passing the ball to the correct foot (back foot in this example) to make it easier to take the touch in the direction of the next pass. However, I am not that demanding if the players do not pass this way all the time. The reason for this I want the player who is going to receive the ball to be on their toes and to be able to adjust and react quickly if the ball is not coming towards them favorably. I want them to be able to adjust, and to also come up with different ways to take their touch in the direction they want to go. My argument here, is that the game is not perfect when it comes to match day, and I want players to be able to cope with imperfections when they receive the ball and be able to adjust and react. I like players to receive on the back foot and all that good stuff, but it is only one way to receive and in my opinion, within the game, you are not always going to have a perfectly placed pass to be able to deal with easily. Nevertheless, I don't want passes that are all over the place and so inaccurate that the practice breaks down constantly.

One way to progress this, is to add a combination to play through the square - this just adds a different aspect to the practice and incorporates a bit more movement off the ball. I have attached a picture of the practice below:

The two technical practices above are as simple as you can get. But I think they are very effective with younger players. Especially, the players I will be coaching, who in my opinion, will need lots of technique work. Here are also a couple of ways to make the practices a bit more engaging and promote a bit more focus and quality from the players.

1. I have two grids for the square passing practice. One grid is The Championship whereas the other grid is the Premier League. I get players to start in The Championship and they have to make a certain amount of consecutive quality passes around the square before they can get promoted to The Premier League. When I do this, I talk to the players and we usually come up with 3/4 pointers that we can judge quality with. Normally, it is a good first touch in the direction of play (sometimes I am a bit lenient with this, as discussed above, if they adjust quickly and still play across the square effectively). Other pointers can include firm, quality passes, communication, and to try and play with two touches. If the players get to The Premier League, then I give them, say, three attempts to repeat the amount of passes they did to get there, and if they don't do it, then they get relegated to The Championship. This is a very simple way to increase the focus of the players, and when I have done this, the level of the play really increases.
2. I sometimes have competitions with the first pair to make x amount of quality passes to feet wins.

One thing I also like to do with simple practices as above is to change the distances within the session. This will make it a bit more realistic as players can get into a bit of a rhythm when continually playing over the same distances, thus becoming easier and not including as much thought. Playing over varying distances with younger players will help them understand the weight of their passes better as they constantly have to keep changing the weight of pass.

Variable Practices

This practice will progress from the technical practices above. For these girls, I am going to start very basic and do a lot of 2vs1s to help the players to work on movement off the ball, creating angles to receive and support. This will teach them the basic principles of keeping the ball. Also, my thought here is, that in a 2vs1, we can work on quick and clever combination play. For example, overlaps and one-twos. Also, players will get lots of touches on the ball and lots of involvement. So the practices that I have found will be as follows:

I will do simple 2vs1s inside a grid working on maintaining possession of the ball. Ways to progress this are:

1. Make a certain amount of passes, then move to another grid. Defenders are locked in zones.
2. You could have the defenders locked in zones and the 2 attackers going anywhere within the big grid passing and moving trying to keep the ball.
1. An extra progression to this could attackers cannot be in the same grid as each other and they have to constantly move about. This will force them to be aware of each other, to constantly be on the move, and to create space and distance between themselves.
1. This progression could stray a bit from the reality of the game. There will be times that in order to provide an option for the player on the ball, the other attacker will have to be go into the same grid. I would stress this point to the players, and state that although you want them to be in different grids, that sometimes they will have to go into the same square to provide a passing option.

As the progressions move on with this practice, it can get very chaotic and messy. I love this as it really gets players thinking and if they can organise themselves, play with quality, and keep the ball in a messy practice, then I think it will set them up better for the game.

Small Sided Games

These progressions are possession/small sided games that will include more numbers and will usually be carried out at the end of practice following on from the previous practices. They will be very realistic and similar to the game.

Target to target through the thirds possession game - this is a simple possession game that is extremely relevant and realistic to the game. Pretty much everything that the girls will encounter here, they will encounter in the game. I like possession games to be directional and have a purpose. The players play in one direction and have to play from one target to another in order to score a point. When the team plays into their target player, the other team gets the ball and has to play across the other way. Ways to progress and manipulate this practice are:

• mess about with grid sizes
• mess about with player numbers
• could add floaters down the sides. These are essentially the same as wingers in the game.
• Instead of playing into target players, players have to play into an end-zone to receive. This would help with through passes and runs in-behind defenders.
• could remove the thirds to help players play without the visual aid of the thirds
• could just quite simply get goals on the end and play a normal game with keepers and players have to play through the thirds to score.

This practice, in my opinion, is one of the best that you can do. You can take this absolutely anywhere. For example, you could lock players into zones, you could have players dropping deeper to receive, making forward runs to create overloads. You could play that players have to play a one-two into the end-zone. This game can be taken anywhere. It will also be enjoyable for players as it is like a game.

Once again, these practices can be done in any order depending on what you want to achieve and the ability of your players. Some players might be technically very good, and might just need 10/15 mins at the start of practice for a bit of technique refinement and then can go straight into the game realistic possession practice. Also, these sessions can be done for any age group in my opinion.

Any comments would be much appreciated.

That is it for now.

Summer Camps Vs Club Coaching

I am doing a few summer camps over the summer and started my first one today. The coaching is totally different. The main differences are basically the ability levels of the children and coupled with that, their motivational levels. Now this is just related to the camps that I coach on. I am sure there are camps out there that are full of more committed and higher ability players.

Anyways, the camp I am on this is pretty much 99 percent recreational kids. They are not a bad group of kids in terms of listening and their behavior. But in terms of their ability to play soccer, it is very frustrating. I love working with good kids, and I want to coach the best kids that I can - as I am sure any coach out there wants to.

Firstly, the kids on camps can find it extremely difficult to pick up what most coaches would consider rudimentary moves and turns etc. When I demo a move and then ask the kids to try it, some of the kids lack of coordination, balance, and proprioception baffles me. My lads in the spring could do a move within one minute of me showing them with no further instruction pretty much. Now whether the move was efficient is another question, but a least they were moving their body and feet in the right way and had a good grasp of the technique. The kids I have had today, were moving their legs and body in just completely the wrong ways compared to what I had demonstrated. Now this can be frustrating, but also beneficial for a coach I feel, because I then have to try and think of different ways that I can get the kids to understand and learn what I am trying to show them. Nevertheless some kids do not get it and I have to move on, otherwise I would literally be there all day.

I do wonder to myself sometimes why kids like that do struggle to get things. I suppose it can be for multiple reason such as lack of physical literacy, exposure to the game, lack of experience, or even maybe lack of focus, commitment and concentration.

Moving on to the lack of motivation for the majority of camp kids, this can be frustrating. Some of the kids, quite frankly, are there to get them out the house and active during the summer and have no interest in soccer at all. For this, I do try to understand the players perspective and try to make it as enjoyable as possible for them. It can be quite challenging though - especially when I have got them for 3 hours each morning. I try to play a lot of fun games that relate to the topic, and get lots of repetition in what I want to achieve.

Sometimes, I even just bribe the kids with 'world cup points' :-D

Anyways, that is it for now.

Rickie

Tryouts Friday 3rd June

So we had tryouts last night. This was the second night of tryouts for the 2006 age group and we were looking to really start to put names down of kids who were going to be in the top team for this age group. I am going to be coaching this team so I was mainly focused on the top pitch.

I already had an idea of about 4/5 kids who I was going to recommend for the top team based on the first night of tryouts. At the end of the night we managed to pick 7 kids who were going to be on the top team. We will have a squad of about 12/13 so need to get another 5/6 kids. This is going to be difficult as we want to make the best decisions for the kids. We want to make sure we place kids on a team where it is the right level for them to be challenged, successful, and develop. The other girls are all very good little players and it is difficult to distinguish between them. Once thing is for sure, the second team will also be very strong when we do have the top team picked.

1vs1 Mastery - Pressure from the front

This post will detail a session that I have come up. The session is a 1vs1 session, specifically with the defender coming from the front. This is the what people typically think of when they think of a 1vs1. A good example would be Ronaldo or Robben running at a defender. I have attached a picture of the session, and for the purpose of this post I will only discuss the technical practices I will use. I could talk all day about this stuff. Also, it is good to note, that this is not one session really, it is a couple of simple, practices that can be used interchangeably over a number of sessions.

Reasons that I do this session are:

• I like players to be positive and direct at the right time, in the right areas, and if they get the chance, I like them to try and take defenders on in a 1vs1.
• This session also involves lots of touches on the ball and lots of overall involvement so that is another reason why I think it is relevant - especially younger players. I will be coaching a group of Under 11 girls, so my sessions with them will consist of lots of technical work so this will be very applicable to them I feel. I like players to be good with the ball at their feet.
• I also think the session will be fun for players to be involved in. I aim to foster a love for the game, so devising sessions that are fun to be involved in, is also at the forefront of my thought processes when designing sessions.
• In addition to fun, I also, obviously, want players to learn and develop. In this session, there is plenty of repetition of the focus, in a way that is relevant to the game I think.

Warm up
Firstly, before i start a session I like to get players doing some kind of arrival activity. Most of the time, quite simply, I get players to juggle until the majority of the players arrive at practice. Simple, efficient, effective, and relevant for younger players.

The main warm up for this session will be a tag based 1vs1 game where players have to try and evade defenders and get through a gate to score a point. This game involves lots of disguise, body movement, and lots of agility and speed (acceleration/deceleration) in order to be effective, and involves trying to get around a defender so fits nicely into the 1vs1 focus in my opinion.

Here is a link to the above practice. I always do it without a ball in the warmup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzudlUykYFs 

Following on from that, I always do simple relay races for about 5 mins. I get the players moving in different ways, for example, forwards, backwards, sidesteps, etc. This helps with developing the movements that players will use in the game, and I keep the distances very short to not tire players out too much. The focus here is to be short and sharp, and to get different movements in. These are always very competitive and players always love them. Simplicity is key majority of the time.

Technical Practices
As in the diagram at the bottom of the page, the first practice that i generally use for this topic is a simple, technical, dribbling lane which involves dribbling at a cone and performing a 1vs1 move. This is very simple but gets lots of repetition of the focus. I have four moves that I like players to be able to master - these are listed in the diagram. The problem will this practice is the fact that it is quite boring and repetitive, so being cognizant of this fact will help with trying to think of ways to increase the competitiveness and focus for the players. I do try to make sessions fun and game realistic, but sometimes players just need simple, technical, repetitive practice. However, I do try to get away from this as soon as I can, and will only do this practice for about 20 mins at the most in a session before I move on to real 1vs1s.

1vs1 Practices

Moving on to the good stuff. One practice I use is a simple multiple grid 1vs1 practice where players are playing a game of line ball to score a point. I usually get players to play for 60-90 seconds per game and whoever wins moves up a grid (gets promoted) and whoever loses moves down (gets relegated). Every group I have done this with absolutely love it.

Way to increase the competitiveness in this practice are:

• I use a premier league, championship, league 1, league 2, conference grid system so players can try to get to the premier league.
• Sometimes I will use big goals in the premier league so players strive to get to score in the big goals.
• I will also give players 2 points if they score after nutmegging their opponent.

One other session that I like is a 4 goal dribbling game where there are multiple 1vs1s going on, on the same pitch. I like this because the position of the goals implicitly forces players to change direction and move their defenders about. It also includes lots of interference because players have to be aware of the other 1vs1s moving about inside the grid. The aim here, is to increase players awareness, and to get them to attack space when it arises.

I will also sometimes use a repetition circuit where players get turns at beating defenders in different scenarios. For example, one grid would be a 1vs1 line ball, one pitch would be a 1vs1 shooting on a mini-goal, and one pitch would be a 1vs1 shooting on a big goals with a goalkeeper. Players move from one to the other within this circuit. These can change and coaches can use their imagination to manipulate grid sizes, spaces behind defenders to influence attacker decisions, numbers of defenders and attackers can be increased etc.

Small Sided Games (SSGs)
When coaching 1vs1s, I like to use smaller pitches and small players numbers such as 2vs2s, 3vs3s, 4vs4s as the game at the end of practice. This way players will get more repetition of the focus. I also like to manipulate pitch sizes to give the players different pictures to think about.

Simultaneous SSGs
You could have two pitches of different sizes where players take turns playing on each pitch. For example, one pitch could be a 2vs2 whereas the other pitch could be a 4vs4 or 3vs3. Also, due to the different pitch sizes, players have different decisions to make. They could go from being in a really tight space so really having to focus on keeping the ball tight and under control and using fast feet and deception to beat a defender, but when they move to the other, bigger pitch, they will have more space to attack defenders with pace and the try and beat them for speed. The aim of the games is to get lots of opportunities for 1vs1s, and to also give players lots of different scenarios to face, hopefully making them think more and help them become better decision makers in the future, and get to practice a variety of scenarios (just like a game).

Ways to progress and adjust are:

• manipulate pitch sizes and players numbers.
• could use overloads/underloads to really stress players
• another good idea that I found is to start with a 1vs1 in one grid and the rest of the players in the other grid. Players are given numbers and when shouted, have to move into the 1vs1 to play, therefore creating a 2vs2, and lessening the numbers in the previous grid. The catch, is though, that before players enter the grid they have to perform a technical challenge, e.g. 20 juggles. This will create a momentary overload/underload scenario in the grid they are going to enter - assuming one player finishes their juggles first.

One last game I came up with is a 3 game simultaneous SSG. A diagram is below. The game basically has two SSGs going on either side of a 1vs1. Players take it in turns playing in the 1vs1 and have a certain number of turns each in the 1vs1. They then go back to their team and play in the normal game and another player goes into the 1vs1. The idea here is to challenge the players thinking from going from more of a game to a 1vs1 - they are constantly making decisions under different scenarios.

Wembley
This game is a classic and will give kids lots of dribbling opportunities, 1vs1s, shooting etc..
Here is a link to the game and how to play it, along with several other classics. Kids love it.

http://www.thefa.com/news/2014/may/dust-of-your-boots-and-get-involved-with-reds-v-blues

Lastly, these are sessions that I have found along the way reading. Some I have kept the same, and some I have adjusted and manipulated as neccessary. I encourage other coaches to do the same. The sessions can also be used interchangeably, and in different order etc., depending on the players you have. They are just ideas.

That is it for now

Rickie

First blog ever..

Okie dokie, this is my first blog ever, and I am sitting here tapping my fingers wondering what to write. I suppose a good starting point would be a quick introduction about myself. Following on, I will then talk about the reasons for starting this blog, and also likely topics that will I will write about.

My name is Rickie Powers, and I currently live in Cincinnati, Ohio, having moved here permanently in 2015. I was born and raised in England. I started coming to the USA on a working visa coaching soccer, and met a girl, whom I ended up marrying, hence the reason for being here permanently now. Now I am in Cincinnati, I have tried to get involved in the 'soccer scene' as much as I can. I currently coach at TFA (well i say currently, I will be coaching in the fall 2016 for them). Before that, I coached a group of Under 10 boys at Cincinnati West Soccer Club.

Firstly, I have several reasons for starting a blog, and these are:

1. To help me learn. By writing a blog post, it should help me be a bit more reflective. I like learning and think that writing things down will help me think about things in a different light and also help consolidate them into memory a bit better.
2. The second reason is for other people to view, comment, and discuss (when I finally figure out a way to share this). This links in to the above as I think discussion is good to help learning, and to get different ideas and viewpoints on things I talk about. I like getting other peoples ideas and opinions on things, and also like to watch others coach. This has got to be one of the best ways to glean information in my opinion.
3. One last reason, is to help meet people and get my name about. The internet is obviously extreme ubiquitous, so I am trying now to utilize it to my advantage.

In this blog I will be talking about various topics withing youth soccer coaching. I will be talking about anything that comes to my mind, or any experiences that I come across. These posts will be my own thoughts and opinions, coming from experience that I have gained.

That is it for now.