From college to 5th grade all in one morning.

I began my morning working with college goalkeepers and finished it working with a 5th grade co-ed recreational group.  I enjoyed both experiences. All participants were engaged and eager to learn.  The standards of learning as widely disparate as were the ages. Measured success of each session was also gauged by different standards.

On a field adjacent to the one I was working with goalkeepers on another team was practicing and I on occasion got a glimpse of their goalkeepers being worked with.  At one point they were practicing full blown diving saves - both feet off the ground, laying out for a driven ball 4-5 feet off the ground that was barely within reach when service was good.  Matt, one of the goalkeepers I was working with asked why "we" never worked on full diving saves like that. I answered with a question of my own, have you ever had to make a full blown diving save like that? 

Matt replied, "Yes."

Were you successful?

"Yes"

"Why were you successful?"

There was a long pause.  I could see the Matt considering his answer. He finally ventured that he had been ready / prepared to make the play. I urged Matt to continue on with his answer.  " I was properly positioned on the ball line / angle arc. My feet were square to the action with toes towards the ball. I was in the correct ready position, I read the cues the shooter offered for when and how he would strike."

"Your basic fundamentals were excellent?"

"Yes."

"What do we work on in every session?"

"The fundamentals."

"How are the goalkeepers fundamentals on the team down at the other end of the pitch?"

So we watched the other goalkeepers train for a bit. Karl was the first to offer that fundamentals were not as sharp as they could have been. Missteps were causing them to miss plays. They were not getting both hands to the ball at or close to the same time. The ball was getting to their palms.  Matt concurred.  So, those goalkeepers were unable to make the routine saves on a consistent basis in practice. Yet they were training to make the spectacular save?

We went back to working on the fundamentals.

Later this morning I was working with the co-ed recreational group of 5th graders.  There were a fairly wide range of skill levels as is the norm in such situations.  In speaking with the gentleman who had worked with age group the previous week he related the need to work on ball control, push passing and basic tactics. The usual fare for this age group and recreational soccer. Being completely new to this particular group I began the session by asking the players names. I memorized them immediately and then asked each by name to demonstrate a basic foot skill. After a player introduced a foot skill the entire group performed the skill. This went on until no one had any more foot skills to share with the group. I did this to 1) connect immediately with the individuals of the group on a first name basis and 2) to bring myself up to speed with where the group was in terms of controlling the ball.

We next worked briefly on the speed dribble or running with the ball.  Again I demonstrated the proper technique. With this I provided a few visual cues to look for to be used by the players to coach themselves.

We then moved on to the basic push pass. I demonstrated the proper technique, then set them to working with a partner passing the ball back and forth. We had an odd number of players so I paired them up and then worked with the remaining player myself. Once again, I provided tips on how they could coach themselves by recognizing their own mistakes and how to correct these. I then rotated through working with each player. At a distance of 7-8 yards this went fairly well  Next we added passive pressure by having partners face one another at a distance of 3-4 feet. One player passed the ball through the legs of their partner who then turned, retrieved the ball and brought it back using the running with the ball technique. Then roles were reversed.  The passive pressure of performing a push pass in close proximity to another player added just enough difficulty to expose flaws in the players technique.

It was about this time, less that 1/2 hour in, that Kyra began asking about scrimmaging. This is a common occurrence as well. Kids want to play! Its what they do. 

We proceeded to a basic version on breaking lines while assuring Kyra that we were progressing towards playing a game / scrimmaging.  For breaking lines we focused on the push pass with only minor instruction on receiving the ball properly. In this case the added pressure was found in the demand for accuracy of passing. We discussed the necessity of preparing to play the ball in the sense that we had a designated player to receive from and play to.  I asked the players to play in the scan, touch, scan, play pattern to begin transitioning them from being ball watchers to becoming game watchers.

Again, Kyra asked about scrimmaging.

Were they ready to play a game?  From a skill perspective, no.  I knew before we started it would be bumble bee ball with a lot of mindless whacking of the ball. There would be more mistakes than correct plays. That's okay. Each mistake is a learning opportunity, a stepping stone on the way to success.

We progressed on to playing a basic version of the gates game.  It was bumble bee ball as anticipated. yet, with in the madness it could be discerned an effort to properly execute the push pass, especially at the start.  When the game began to really break down we paused and I asked the players to discuss what was working and what was breaking down the game.  They nailed it. They always do.  So, we set about putting it right. And they did in a relative sense.

We took a break and discussed the session / drills / game a bit more.  The discussion turned to playing fast. When allowed to figure things out on their own kids are amazing problem solvers. We discussed what was required to play fast. Physical speed was mentioned immediately, but Rose pointed to her head, her brain!  Soccer is a game played with the brain. We talked about Ronaldo being labeled fat and slow, yet how fast he played and how he is considered one the very best players in the world.

We played the numbers game to impress the need to be game watchers instead of exclusively watching the ball.  Slowly but surely they began to get the ideas associated with increasing the pace of their play. By the end of this portion of the session they were actually demonstrating some ability to play one-touch soccer with two ball active in the game.  When I stopped the exercise I had the players freeze where they were and look around. We had progressed from clustered bumble bee soccer to being spread out over the pitch.

Still Kyra wanted to scrimmage.

I finally asked her to talk about the session so far. Kyra began describing each exercise we had worked on. I asked her to grade our performance in each of these. The grades she awarded our group got better with each exercise.  I stopped her at one point to ask what grade she thought it would be necessary to achieve before we were ready to scrimmage.  The lights started to flicker on. When she arrived at evaluating the numbers game she decided we were ready to play.  I said, "if..."  and Rose spoke up to say if we don't slip back into bad habits. If we don't go back to being ball watchers and playing one decision soccer.  Bingo!

Again, in a totally different manner, the importance of technical excellence was brought to the fore.

As we finished the session with a shooting exercise that incorporated everything we had worked on today the pace of play was markedly improved and the kids were noticing this. They were recognizing their mistakes and beginning to correct themselves.  Not all the kids, but a majority for sure.

Quite the morning of emphasizing basic fundamentals to bring out spectacular plays and increase pace of play.  Soccer is a simple game with spectacular plays. The spectacular plays are based in the simplest of fundamentals.  Johann Cryuff said, "The most difficult thing to do is to play simply."