Soccer Quarantine Week 1

Watch the introduction video below before completing each of the assigned tasks for this week. After you’ve completed all parts of the assignment, post your results on the attached quiz. If you have questions or comments, post them in comments below! Good Luck!

1. Juggling
2. Long distance run
3. Speed and Agility Training (Rapido video and instructions below)
4. Soccer Photo

Speed and Agility Video

Speed and Agility Instructions

The Quiz

CLICK HERE to take the quiz after you have completed all of the tasks (or at least by Sunday).

Soccer Skills Chart

If you didn't feel bad for my daughters having to have me as a dad before, maybe you will now! I've created a chart for them of skills work to keep them busy for the winter. This is all basic foundational stuff, but it really will serve to make them better players in the spring...

And I've decided to share it with you, too!

If you work on it between 15-20 minutes per day, it should take about 2 months to put a sticker on every box (of course we have stickers! What kind of chart wouldn't use stickers!)



Each of the skills tasks listed is hyperlinked to a YouTube video explanation. You don't have to watch the video everytime you work on the skill, but they should help you get pointed in the right direction.

The "Ball Mastery" section of the chart is from a program called MAESTRO which is described below. Videos for these drills are on the final page of the attached PDF.

MAESTRO is a 7 day program that should be treated as 7 levels. Once you have mastered all of the moves from a particular day of the program, you are ready to move on to the next. The “easier” skills will build the foundation that will allow you to execute the more advanced ones. There are 7 exercises to complete for 60 seconds everyday that have been carefully selected and structured to gradually increase in difficulty to promote a healthy learning speed, followed by a footwork combination that you can practice to challenge your mastery of the exercises together. This program should be supplemental (in addition) to your regular training schedule, not replacing. MAESTRO is designed to give you thousands of EXTRA touches outside of your team and individual training sessions.

SKILLS CHART

MAESTRO

Play List

Post your song requests here, and I'll do my best to have them at practice tomorrow!

What is Your Position?

Hey, I have a simple question for you: What is your position?

Think about it before you answer. I don't want to know which position you play. I get to decide that. In fact, here's the list for our first tournament (subject to change).

• Keeper
• Paige
• Center Back
• Livy
• Aspen
• Emily
• Defensive Midfielder
• Amelya
• Outside Midfielder/Wing
• Abby
• Chloe
• Hadlee
• Remy
• Attacking Midfielder
• Natalia
• Riley
• Forward
• Braylie
• Jenna
• Rilee

So, my question is; What is your position?

Time for some homework! You might have to do a little bit of internet research to finish this one. In the comments answer each of the following questions:

1. What is your name?
2. Which position will you be playing?
3. What are your primary responsibilities on offense?
4. What are your primary responsibilities on defense?
5. Watch at least 3 YouTube videos to discuss your position and post a link to your favorite one here.
6. Who plays your position for the Utah Royals? for RSL?
7. What do you personally need to work on to be better at your position? 

Under Pressure!

Get the ball! Get the ball! Get the ball!

If I had a penny for every time I heard a parent yell "Get the ball!", I could buy a couple of tacos. And not taco tuesday tacos either. We're talking deluxe, over the top, guacamole on the side type tacos.

Get the ball! We yell this at (to?) our kids for years, and for good reason. The ball is where the action is. We don't want our kid, our future soccer star, to continue to chase butterflies or pick dandelions. We want them to play soccer, and playing soccer means kicking the ball!

Get the ball!

No wonder it's so hard to get our defenders to stop trying to "get the ball." They've been told to do this for years. It's ingrained in their soccer psyche. Like my dog Maisy, start yelling "Get the ball!", and players start juming up and down and salivating.

But we have to stop. We have to stop as parents, and we have to stop as players. Our first thought can't be "Get the Ball!", it needs to be "Pressure!"

Pressure!
Pressure!
Pressure!

Perhaps one of the most important fundamentals of defense is also the hardest to teach young players. The closest person to the ball does not have the responsibility to win the ball. Let me repeat that more boldly:

The closest person to the ball does not have the responsibility to win the ball.

The first defender should instead concentrate on:

• Slowing down the attack.
• Applying just enough pressure to get the attacker's head down.
• Making the attack predictable and push the attacker to the least dangerous part of the field.
• Being patient.
• Only attempting to tackle the ball if the attacker makes a mistake.

While theses principals may not apply in every situation, they give us a much better place to start than "Get the ball!"

EDIT:

We don't always mean what we say!

A few years ago, a friend of mine was trying to potty train his two-year-old boy. He was frustrated because everytime the boy needed to go to the bathroom, he would grab hold of his privates. This was a little embarassing to my friend when it would happen at the store, at church, or on national tv.

Why did his kid do this? At first, we assumed it's just something kids do. But then, I noticed something. We were driving down the road, when the little boy said, "Excuse me dear Father, I need to use the restroom (or something like that).

What his dad replied was a bit of a revelation to me. He said, "We're almost home. You need to hold it for just a minute." He literally told his son to hold it! Who can blame the kid for actually holding it?

What's my point? Well, last night at practice, I found myself yelling at players to "Get the ball." I realized it's a pretty common expression on the field that doesn't actually mean that you want the player to get the ball. Instead, every time I yelled it, I really meant for the player to pressure the player who had the ball.

Dang it! I'll try to do better and yell pressure. But, try to remember that if someone yells "Ball!" or "Get the Ball!" what they really mean is "Pressure!"

3-4-3 Formation

If you’d asked me ten years ago which formation I would use on my team, there would have only been one option: the 4-4-2 diamond. That diamond would have had Jamison Olave and Nat Borchers on the back line. Kyle Beckerman would be the super-active defensive midfielder. Javier Morales would have been at the point of the diamond controlling the attack. My view of the world of soccer may have been somewhat biased and limited by a certain team that played a beautiful game of possession-based soccer.



Here I am many years and hundreds (thousands?) of soccer games later, and thankfully my understanding of formation has increased. Form should follow function, and not the other way around. We are not a cup-winning MLS team. We are 12-year-olds on a full-sized field for the first time. Therefore, our formation this year is based on careful consideration of both the type of soccer that I want our team to play, and the type of opponents that we’re likely to face.

That consideration brings us the the 3-4-3; 3 defenders, 4 midfielders, and 3 forwards.

Why the 3-4-3

I like to score goals, and having three forwards should give us lots of opportunity to do so. These three forwards will spend much of their time very high up the field. They should help us create many opportunities to break down a defense with quality passes, crosses, and through balls. They should give us more opportunity to go 1v1 with defenders to move into the scoring zone. Overall, we should have more shots on goal and more goals.



Four midfielders gives us offensive width right where we need it. Utilizing width in the middle third will help us to unbalance the opponents defense and allow us to create numbers up situations on which we can capitalize and score. The attacking midfielder will be free to move forward into the attack to increase our ability to move the ball around the scoring zone.

Furthermore, this combination of 4 midfielders and 3 forwards will serve to encourage overlapping runs and position switching, which we will talk about later.

The 3-4-3 is also a very strong defense against central attacks. Our forwards and attacking midfielders will be available to press and defend very high up the field, hopefully tackling or intercepting the ball before it crosses into our defensive half. However, if the ball does make it to our side of the field, we’ll have a defensive midfielder and THREE center backs to intervene!

Weaknesses of the 3-4-3?

We don’t get to put 3 players on our front line without making sacrifices in other areas of the field. However, I think these sacrifices are minimized at this level due to the age and skill level of our opponents.

The obvious concern is that we will be vulnerable on defense due to the fact that we’ll only have 3 players on our back line. I actually don’t think this is going to be true for two reasons. First, the majority of teams that we’ve faced in the past tend to attack more centrally. Rather than weakening our defense, the use of three full backs will be ideal against exactly this type of attack.

Second, the few teams that do try to work the ball up the flanks and cross it in will be limited by their ability to provide quality crosses. I’ve yet to see a team at this level that provides consistent crosses from the outside to beyond the far post. Not only can we easily defend this portion of the field with three defenders, it should also simplify the process by giving our defenders more specific and limited responsibilities.

Will It Work

Yes! But, we have work to do. Primarily, we must have fast and athletic defenders who are both willing and able to cover a greater portion of the field. Our defenders will be shifting from side to side more than any other team working with a 4 player back line. Our defense line will often be pressed up as high as possible, which means our defenders will be running back and forth A LOT!

Our midfielders must be disciplined. This means knowing where they should be, what their responsibilities are in every situation, and having the individual skill to fulfil their role both offensively and defensively.

We will need to communicate! I honestly think this is one of the hardest skills for young girls to develop on the field (ironic, eh?). I want to be the loudest team in the league.

Summary

Strengths
Forwards are always high and wide.
Four midfielders provide width.
Attacking midfielder allowed to move forward into the attack.
Encourages overlapping runs and position switching.
Strong defense against central attacks.

Weaknesses
Awards space down the flanks
Limits ability to play balls in the flanks in the attacking and defending third

Requirements
Fast and athletic defenders to cover the length and width of the field.
Disciplined midfielders
Forwards with the ability to beat defenders off of the dribble and to provide quality crosses.
Effective communication

What are your thoughts? Can we/Should we do this? I know this is a fairly brief intro, but what have I missed? What else do we need to think about?

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

About ten years ago, my piano teacher, a good friend of mine, told me that she would no longer be able to teach me piano. I was confused. I'd been taking lessons for almost three years. I paid my bill every month. I never complained about having to go to lessons. As far as I knew, I was the perfect student.

“I feel too guilty taking your money,” she'd said. “You come every week, but you never practice.”

“What!” I explained confused. “I practice every week right here with you? I pay a lot of money for that practice.”

But she was right. My skill at piano had been progressing so slowly because I’d been missing that one key element which is required of anyone who wants to get better at anything: a parent who made me practice.



Piano lessons are expensive and it’s rare that a parent signs their child up for piano without understanding that they’re going to have to have daily practice sessions. Do kids like these practice sessions? If you hesitated even for a moment before shouting “Yes!”, then it’s probably likely that you’ve never had a kid in piano lessons, never had piano lessons yourself, or possibly never even been a kid.

The reality is that if you want to get better at anything, be it piano, soccer, or anything else, you’re going to have to practice. And two days a week with the team is not going to be enough. Soccer practice happens every day. 15 minutes a day if you’re in a hurry or just not feeling it. 30 minutes a day when you have a little extra time and there’s a specific skill that you really want to get down. Hours a day when you forget that you’re practicing and just start playing!

All practice is not created equal. I can sit down and pound out a pretty sick version of Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater on the piano every day for a week, and I’m not going to get better at anything other than wasting time and annoying my wife. With this in mind, I’ll be assigning homework. Each student should have individualized assignments each work to improve skills that they need to improve in order to progress. I'm not sure yet what form this homework will take. I've been exploring a few ideas and should reach a decision before next week's training.

Parents, help your player remember to practice. Make them practice when they don’t want to. Teach them what dedication and work ethic really mean when applied to something that they want to achieve.

Players, practice! Even on days when you don’t want to. Even if you’re busy. Even if you’re already so good that you could dribble laps around Ronaldo with your eyes closed. Practice!