Hi,
I hope everyone enjoyed the exciting spring/summer season, made it
through tryouts and is ready for fall soccer. We encourage all U13 and
older players to play for their school soccer teams in the fall. School
soccer is a great way to continue player development with different teams and
coaches, and gets players connected with their school.
Fall also begins the coach education season as most opportunities
come during the "off season" fall and winter.
And a special welcome to all new VUSC coaches!
Barry
1. Coach resources
2. Upcoming Coach training
3. Fall season reminder - U9-U12 is Developmental
4. Future Coach training
5. Fall/Early Winter training
6. Watch soccer!
7. Article of the Month - Stop the Tournaments, I Want To Get Off!
1. Coach resources
A reminder that the coaches manual and
curriculum are available online. You can find the manual at http://www.bjb.org/soccer/
There is tons of other information at http://www.bjb.org/soccer/
2. Upcoming Coach training
There will be a new coach training
session for both Valley United travel coaches and VAA community coaches on Wed.
Aug 26, 7P-9P at the
We will discuss topics like: what to teach and how to teach it,
USSF/MYSA methodology, technique vs. tactics, principles of attack and defense,
the "coaches toolkit", and coaching the
game. We'll watch some videos, share some ideas, and answer questions.
3. Fall season reminder - U9-U12 is Developmental
Reminder - U9-U12 is Developmental!
That means that the players are there to learn. U9 and U10
scores aren't even kept. And playing levels are self-select.... no
promotion or relegation. The key at these younger ages is to be sure that
the kids get the key technical and tactical fundamentals. I would even
err on the side of technique. Players at this age should get a healthy
dose of footwork/ballwork, passing, and 1v1/2v2 as
often as possible, even at every practice. They can't execute tactics if
they don't have the technique to pull it off!
4. Future Coach training
We will have a number of "coffee
talks" on Saturday mornings in the off-season. I hope to have
sessions in the Oct and Dec timeframes, as well as a new coach session in March
after U9/U10 spring/summer teams are formed.
Watch http://www.mnyouthsoccer.org/
5. Fall/Early Winter training
Starting in Nov, all registered VUSC players, including those
players who registered for tryouts but have not yet been placed on a team (and
all U9/U10 players), can participate in weekly free footskills training.
This year VUSC has partnered with Coerver
6. Watch soccer!
The new English Premier League season has just begun as well as
UEFA Champions League play. There have been a number of exciting games in
the past week including a huge upset of giants Manchester United by newly
promoted
AVHS and Eastview Varsity seasons are getting underway and
schedules are available at the schools' websites. AVHS varsity soccer
will have a VUSC player appreciation day on 9/15/09 v Eastview. Players
wearing their VUSC jerseys get in free!
Youth players need to watch high level soccer. It can be on
TV or live at high schools or colleges. One of the way players learn is
by seeing high level play and trying to imitate it. It's also important
for coaches to watch soccer at all levels. It leads to great ideas!
7. Article of the Month - Stop the Tournaments, I Want To Get Off!
[I think this is a somewhat harsh article and I don't agree with all the
points. However, there is definitely something to be said for more
training and less games. I've read that a good ratio is 3 training
sessions for every game played. Many of our teams play up to 30 games in
a season but don't come anywhere near 90 practices. If 30-40 practices is
about the most a team can get, then maybe 16-20 total games (including league,
districts and states) is the amount to shoot for? Of course, kids do like
tournaments! - Barry]
Stop
the Tournaments, I want to Get Off!!
Tournaments! Tournaments!
Tournaments! They are swallowing youth soccer in this country!
Everyone wants to play in tournaments!! Soccer America has
an entire issue devoted to tournaments. Every soccer publication in this
country lists pages of tournaments for our children to attend! Every year
the biggest decision a club team makes is-which tournaments do we
attend? Most clubs have a person or three who do nothing but
prepare for tournaments! Stop the Tournaments I want to get
off!!! Tournaments are hurting
Soccer tournaments started
in this country as a way for clubs to make some money to pay the bills. Great idea. Clubs would sponsor a tournament
early in a playing season, or in the summer when league play was suspended to
make some cash. Now these tournaments rule youth soccer. It is now
very important to participate in these types of events.
Many clubs advertise for players based on the tournaments they attend.
Many coaches entice U16's, U17's and U18's to their club by promising
attendance at tournaments where college coaches will attend. Really?
Many player's (and their parents) choose a club solely
based on attendance and success in certain tournaments. Today, the main
focus for teams, clubs, parents and
players is - Tournaments!!
The weekly league game (or
two) is secondary to the Tournaments! And maybe
even eliminated from the busy tournament schedule. In
These tournaments allow our
soccer playing youth to play a variety of teams in a variety of states all year
long. But, they are expensive. It costs the average family a
weekend, car milage, hotel expense, entertainment for
between games, food and video game money to play in these weekend
extravagances. Why? Because everyone plays in tournaments!
The kids will become better players. The college coaches can see them
play! Everyone plays in tournaments. Everyone that is except youth
teams in other soccer playing countries.
The weekly game is the most
important game for most other countries. The teams have one week of
training. One week of learning. One week to prepare for the game on
Saturday or Sunday. The most important aspect of learning the game
happens in well founded training programs. The habits necessary to become
a complete player are developed in training.
Training is
important. Training is critical to the success of these soccer playing
nations.
Why is training important?
Training allows a supervised and progressive means to learn the game, if done properly! Training allows the player,
coach and team to focus on the areas of the game that will influence
performance. What are those areas
· Fitness
· Constant technical improvement
· Improvement of tactical
understanding based on problems in the previous game
· Improvement of the mental aspects of
the game by applying stress in the training situation in a variety of
situations
· Team building
Do
any of these things happen during a tournament? Not
very likely. The very nature of tournaments prevents this from
happening. Maybe in
Soccer teams in
These tournaments are
killing soccer in this country. Young players can not learn how to play
in these types of situations. Everything about these tournaments is
bad for the development of American soccer players!!
Tournaments allow players
and teams with slow pace or no pace to succeed. Teams play three games in a
twenty four hour period and if they are lucky play two more and win a
trophy. Assuming we accept the fact that minimum recovery takes twenty
four hours, it is physically impossible to play that many games in a short
time. In a recent tournament in
These tournaments breed Underwater
Soccer. Nice and slow-no change of pace-no defending. Soccer is
not meant to be played this way. Soccer is a game that is played
when the player is uncomfortable -when the player closes in on fatigue-when the
player runs, works and defends for ninety minutes. The
very early laws of the game of soccer stressed a physical component by not
allowing a lot of substitutions. Fitness is a part of the game. Ah,
so you think there is a fitness component when playing in a tournament?
No, there is not. There is an energy
conservation component-not fitness? American youth players stop
running when they are uncomfortable. And since they are playing so many
games in a short weekend, they just don't run at all. When the
players try to move on to the next level (college), they are shocked to
realize they can not make the team. They don't know how to play! They
don't know how to run and they don't know how to work. They don't know
how to defend. They don't know what the physical aspect of soccer is all about.
They have never been taught what it takes to play this game at a high level.
Technical
development in a tournaments situation?? No chance. The games do offer a variety
of opportunities to cultivate technical improvement. But, because the
games are so slow and there is very little defending, the time and space
available for players is not realistic for a real
soccer game. In fact, it is counterproductive. When a player does
get into a real game where time and space are
limited he/she can not play!
Tactical
improvements?
Don't look here. There is no time between games to either discuss any
tactical problems or work on them before the next game. If your team
faces a formation or a tactic you haven't seen before, what do you do??
Hope you don't see it again. As a rule, there is very little teaching
going on in regards to tactics in many clubs. The prevailing mentality is
simply-find the best players and let em play!
Not a bad strategy. But as players move on in their soccer career, an
understanding of tactics is very important. Even a constant
teaching/review of 1v1; 2v1; 3v2 etc is essential to complete maturation of a
soccer player. This tournament mentality does not allow this teaching to
take place. A player who relies only on athletic ability without learning
the game will hit a soccer plateau and not get any better. This
happens far too often in the
And the problems do not end
there. The mental aspect of the game is lost. Soccer is a game
where the mental aspect is so very important. In fact we delight in selling the
game as a players game and as a mental game.
But, we do nothing about it. No less an authority than
former German international Jurgen Klinnsman feels that working on the mental side of the game
is lacking right now in soccer all over the world. There is
no mental preparation during tournaments at all. If's
2:00 it must be
Preparation is
important. Preparation is important for the individual and for the
team. The game of soccer is both physically and mentally demanding.
It is the responsibility of the coach to prepare for
both. In tournaments preparation does not happen.
Fields? Are you kidding.
So many teams want to attend tournaments that most tournaments don't have the
space necessary to supply good fields. Fields are created on any space
possible. The grass is too long, the holes are too big, the field is too narrow and very bumpy. The
fields create problems with injuries and bad soccer. Narrow, bumpy, heavy
fields are not the surface to learn how to play. These field's contribute
to a very direct style of play and don't allow for any creativity or any
positive dribbling. The fields at most
tournaments are simply unplayable.
Officials? There is a shortage of
officials all over this country. Any fall
weekend will see many officials working a high
school game in the morning and a college game or two in the afternoon and
evening! As the hours on the job increase,
the quality goes down. This is exactly what happens with tournaments.
Officials will do four, five or six games each day. Officials have been
known to eat lunch while working a line. And, how about
that six o'clock game. What can anyone expect from an official who
has been on the field for six or eight hours!! These long hours for
officials can cause real problems in tournaments!
Some parents and coaches
argue that they Acan not get better@ playing the same
old teams and tournaments allow better competition. Every other league in
every other country plays the same teams each year. The concern for these
teams is to make themselves better. There is
very little concern about who they play. The teams train hard all week to
put what they learned on the field on the weekend. They learn how to play
the game systematically and with a sound progression. Our tournaments
kids miss out on a lot of necessary soccer information. Traveling eight
hours to play three games in eighteen hours does not make a team better.
Quality of competition is important, but the quality of each team's effort each
game is what counts in the end. The time spent traveling would be better
spent training at an intense level and preparing for the GAME on Saturday!!
Some tournaments have
addressed some of these problems. The Cinncinati
Blue Chip Classic each April allows each team to play only once each
day. The teams play three games in three days. Not great, but
better than the usual five games in two or three days!
Recently adidas began an Elite
Soccer Program (ESP) which brings in some of the best male and female soccer
players to a site for five days of training and games. Each of these
programs allows the players to Abe seen@ by college coaches and play only one game a day. The players have a chance to
play the game at a higher level than the weekend tournaments. The college
coach can see if the kid has a game.
A
tournament now and then is fine. It can be fun for the club, the players
and the parents. Maybe they can travel to some cities that are fun.
A tournament can bring a team together and build some morale. But too
many tournaments will prevent the natural progression of learning that will
take place in well organized and thoughtful training sessions. Training sessions that use the last game as a learning situation to
build on and training sessions that prepare the team for the next opponent.
The old coaching expression that A-the game is the best teacher@ is not
true. Games used as a laboratory and supplemented by systematic and
progressive training sessions-is the best teacher!
Stop
the tournaments!