The 10 Commandments for Attacking Soccer

1) Thou shall not spectate when thou should be playing. It is impossible to support your teammates on attack or when defending if you are watching play instead of adjusting your positioning each and every time the ball moves. A coaching phrase I use to remind players to do this is “When the ball travels, we travel!” It can be called, ‘When the ball travels” by a coach or player and answered “We travel” by the remaining team members

2) Thou shall check to the ball when winning loose balls and receiving passes. Waiting for a ball to come to you is inviting an opponent to win the ball. Perhaps even worse is running away from a ball thinking you are played through and allowing an opponent to step in behind you to win the ball. Inexcusable. We should never lose a possession due to not checking to the ball. Never.

3) Thou shall position yourself so your hips are open to as much of the field as is possible. If your hips are closed to the direction the ball is coming from, your play is predictable. Open hips to as much of the field as possible is a secret to successful possession. In this manner thou shall receive the ball across your body whenever possible. We call this being a back footed player. Receiving in this manner allows the player to stay in compliance with Commandment #3. Failure to comply with this commandment makes you a predictable player and one easily defended and dispossessed of the ball.

4) Thou shall make a safe pass upon winning possession of the ball. It is senseless to win the ball and attempt to advance into pressure. Make a safe pass and allow that receiver to establish the rhythm of the attack.

5) Thou shall not stop the ball between thy feet when receiving it. The path of the ball must be changed away from pressure when receiving it. This forces any defender in pursuit of the ball to change course thus buying the receiver space and time to play the ball. Failure to do so changes the pressure to make the play away from the defender and onto the receiver.

6) Thou shall support your teammates at proper angles. It is extremely difficult to make a straight pass, especially if the teammate is running away. This type of “vertical” support can devastate an attack. It is just as critical not to support the 1st defender in a vertical line as you offer virtually no support in doing so. The rule of thumb is 45 degree angles when defending and 45 degree angles or bigger when on the attack.

7) Thou shall not pass square in your defensive third nor in the middle portion of the field. Square passes are the easiest passes to cleanly intercept and immediately transition to attack on. Square passes tend to happen when there is a lack of diagonal support for the passer.

8) Thou shall play the way you face. This is a rule of thumb so there are exceptions. It holds especially true when you are under pressure. Drop or back passes are okay to relieve that pressure. Maintaining possession is what we want to do.

9) Thou shall not shoot from impossible angles. Intelligent defenses seek to deny shots in general and especially those from in front of the goal. Many defenses seek to limit shots against them to coming from a line that extends from the goal post to the corner of the 6 to the corner of the 18 or wider. Shots from those angles leave the goalkeeper with a greatly reduced goal to defend. You must seek to cross the ball when in this deep or take the ball to and along the end line for a cut back cross. Thou shall go to goal each and every time you get your inside shoulder in front of the opponent defending you. When you are breaking free and have the opportunity to eliminate the closest opponent to you, do so. It is not an option. It is mandatory.

10) Thou shall shoot the ball whenever in position to take a quality shot. When in front of the goal and from 25 yards in there should be no hesitation. No extra touch to set the ball up just right. No extra passes. Just put the ball on net. Toe pokes are fine. Knees are fine. Love headers for goals. Strike at the midpoint or higher on the ball to keep it low. Whatever it takes to get the ball on net. Just do it and do it at the first available moment.

Experience.

I have this general idea for an article based loosely on gaining experience in coaching. It's not completely formulated so, we'll see where this goes.  lol.

As I watched a new coach conduct a training session my mind drifted back to my first solo practice sessions as a coach. I remember having spent the night before preparing. The head coach would be absent from practice the next day and his instructions were short and sweet - "We need to work on off-the-ball movement."   Well, okay then.  This was pre-Internet days and I was reliant on the coaching books and videos I had for ideas. I selected a basic three team transitioning drill that I felt fit my needs, I tweaked it a bit to better fit the team I was working with.  I know I put in at least 3 hours planning for the next day's one and half hour practice session.  I wanted to be prepared.

I have fond memories of that day in part because the smiles on the players faces told me they were having a good time and the exercises I had chosen, including the featured 3 team transition game, went smoothly. I had an idea of what I wanted to accomplish in the training session and prepared to achieve it.

(Hit the jump for the rest of the article)

Tryout Season for Club Soccer is Upon Us.

This will be a 4 part series.  In today's posting we will look at tryouts in a general sense. There's something here for player, parent and coach alike.  Following installments will look at things from a player / parent perspective followed by a look at the process from a coaches perspective. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome.

See also The Coach's Perspective on Tryouts and Tryout Questions for Parents and Players and College Soccer Scholarships: The Facts

What You Need to Know About Tryouts

When true tryouts are held there exists the possibility of jubilation or heartbreak for players. There can be much agonizing for coaches or the selection committee as well. Such is the struggle to organize competitive youth soccer teams, be they of the club or high school variety.

What separates the good from the best?

Conducting  team camps throughout the summer months gives me exposure to a great many athletes. Each week a different location with a different team. I love the variety but at the same time each week can be much the same as the last.  Each team has a hierarchy within the player ranks. Over the years I have come to appreciate what separates the good players from the best players on any team can be summed up in one word - preparation.

There is, of course, a minimum level of ability within any team that sets a standard. For many teams this standard is remarkably similar. The difference in both individuals and teams is found in the intangibles  It is the intangibles that separate good from great and are the difference between a win and a loss.

Every team works on the same sets of fundamentals. Every player knows the basics. Not every team brings the same dedication to preparation.  Not every player will exhibit the same level of dedication to preparation.  Not every team or individual will define preparation in the same manner. We are talking about STANDARDS.

An individual player may spend countless hours on his own  preparing himself as a player but devote very little time towards being a teammate. He might shine on the ball but provide very little to his team off the ball. A talented group of individuals might never achieve to its collective potential because they lack team oriented intangibles. It is the intangibles that make the difference and this is especially true when teams are closely matched or when a coach must decide between which players make varsity or start games.

So it is that coaches should work to develop and accentuate the intangibles of both individual players and the collective team. When talent level is comparable it is the intangibles that make the difference.  And it's often not about the quantity of preparation or the quantity of effort given, but rather about the quality of the work being put in.

Every week I see players arrive early to camp sessions. It is  always the same individual or small group of players that arrive early for each session. In fact, as a rule of thumb, individuals of a team tend to arrive in a regular and specific order.  Early arrival itself does not make a difference. What one does upon arriving early can make a difference. 

Some arrive early to put in extra preparatory time before practice. This might be working on their individual game. It might be to work with a teammate or group of teammates on improving a specific facet of the team's game. It might be to help set up for practice so actual practice time is devoted to practicing.  

In the end, the players that stand out each week are those who  best combine talent and intangibles. These are the players who tend to win starting assignments and play the most. They are the ones who separate themselves from the pack largely through an intelligent dedicated approach to preparation. 

When excellence becomes tradition greatness has no limits.

Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

In 1954 legendary football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant was in his first year as coach at Texas A & M when he decided the team needed to get away from every day distractions on campus in order to concentrate on football. Off they went to what we would today refer to as a branch campus located in Junction, Texas. The area was in the midst of the worst draught in recorded history. On each of the 10 days of camp temperatures climbed to over 100 degrees. The conditions were brutal. Each day Coach Bryant demanded perfection and continued practicing those young men until it was achieved to his satisfaction. A group of over 75 young men began the camp. Only half of them completed the entire 10 days.

Fear has two Meanings

FEAR has two meanings

 

1) Forget Everything And Run

 

or

 

2) Face Everything And Rise

 

The choice is yours!

If you can't pass, you can't play.

(originally published August 4, 2012)

I have at times referred to Graham Ramsay on this site. "If you can't pass, you can't play" is a phrase I have heard him utter often during the camps he has conducted for us. I have myself repeated it to players and teams I coach. It is a basic and simple truth of the game, but I have come to realize it is also much more and that players tend to receive different and varying messages from the phrase.

Technical excellence
Vision
Soccer IQ or Game Intelligence
The Will to Prepare
TEAM First attitude

The ability to pass begins with mastering proper technique and maintaining it at the highest level. "Toes up. Heels down. Strike with the ankle bone." is a mantra echoed during training sessions around the soccer world. Unfortunately for many coaches and players alike the process of passing begins and ends here when there are actually several other significant elements that go into being able to pass the soccer ball.

"Vision" is another word commonly associated with passing. Left to stand on its own "vision" implies "seeing the pass" within the context of the game about you. At first glance this seems like another basic and simple truth, but once again there are layers of complexity involved.  Every player has "vision" but what separates good passers from the rest is what they see and when they see it.

Soccer IQ or Game Intelligence are terms that apply to a players decision-making process.

When do I shoot?
When do I dribble?
When do I pass?
Which direction - diagonally, forward, backward, laterally - should I pass?
What do I do after having passed the ball?

The correct decision is the one that scores the ball or maintains possession of the ball for your team. In terms of passing the decision-making process is all about possession and creating scoring opportunities. What is the longest secure pass I can make?  How many defenders can I defeat with a single secure pass? What is the safest pass I can make to relieve pressure and maintain possession? What is my next movement after having passed the ball.

Timing is also a critical element in Soccer IQ. The timeliness of a players decision making often determines the success of failure of the action take. Too early or too late breaks the rhythm and flow of the game and can lead to lost possession.

Hall of Fame basketball coach Bobby Knight stated "Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win."   Preparation is the king consideration to successful passing. Before your first touch on the ball, you need to have a plan for how you will play the ball.  EVERY option for play must be explored before your first touch - Do I shoot, dribble, pass? Which technique should I use to execute my decision? In what direction should my play be made?

A willingness to pass, a willingness to share the ball with teammates must also be in evidence. If a player is unwilling to pass he will soon find others are unwilling to pass to him. However, is a player truly unwilling to pass or is his decision-making process leading to the pass short circuiting? Is the player selfish or merely struggling with proper individual pattern of play?  It is important to analyze and work with the player to establish good on-field decision-making skills for these are the basis on TEAM play.

When any of the above facets are missing a players ability to pass is impaired. Aside from technical excellence a player must get in the habit of collecting all the information available concerning what is happening in the game.  Scan the field constantly and consistently, but especially before receiving or winning the ball. Secure the ball in a manner that leads into the play you will make based on your scanning of the game. Then look to the play you have decided to make and execute the correct technique.

What happens if part of the process breaks down or is skipped altogether?  

For instance, what if the player fails to scan the game before securing the ball?  The focus is on "winning the ball" and figuring out what to do with it after that fact?  "Win and whack" is often the result. A player "wins" the ball only to turn it over by creating another 50/50 ball when his winning touch is nothing more than whack the ball in whatever direction he happens to be facing. 

Or what if the player does win and secure the ball but has no plan for how to play it?  If he has space and time he may look up and find a quality play to make. If he secures the ball under pressure without a plan for play excessive touches will ensue as he attempts to find space and time to get his head up and find a play. Often times the player will eventually find the correct play but his excessive touches have broken the rhythm and flow of the game.  The timing that would have made the pass easy is lost. A success rate of late or mistimed passes is significantly lower than well timed, accurate and properly weighted passes. It is often the lack of preparation / vision / game intelligence that dictates success of a pass more so than a lack of technique. 

Once again, success is found in the details of the process.  No single detail of the process can be ignore or overlooked without impacting the quality of the process. "If you can't pass, you can't play" runs much deeper than imploring players to pass.  Is the player selfish, inept or does his thought  and decision-making process need a tune up?  As coaches we must be able to discern the root cause of a players struggles and do our best to help them fine tune their game. As it concerns passing, this can be a more complicated process than it seems at first glance, but since a player really cannot play the game without being able to pass effectively we must be diligent in improving our players ability to pass.

The best and fastest way to learn to play the game is to

 

watch and imitate a champion.

Discipline is the foundation upon which all


Success is built.

 

 

 

Lack of discipline inevitably leads to failure.

 

 

 

It is a wonder I have survived as a soccer coach.

The very first soccer team I coached was a group of U6 boys known as The Raptors who went undefeated in their recreational league.   

My training in soccer consisted of a brief lecture given by the local high school coach and a few handouts explaining basic rules and restarts. We were given 4 practices before a season of 10 games began and were told it would be a good idea to hold a pizza party at the end of the season to pass out trophies.

I used the four practices to teach kickoffs, throw-ins, goal kicks and corner kicks. 

On the first game day, I put the players in a 1-3-3-2 formation for no other reason than that is what the high school coach recommended. We proceeded to thrash the opponents and a budding career as a soccer coach began. 

What a train wreck.

The coach's foremost responsibility to the TEAM is...

In a world where professional and high profile sports dominate one might think guiding a team to wins is a coach's first priority.  In a bottom line economic sense this is probably true. However, I challenge this assumption in the context of the wider world of sports.  Here it is the coach's responsibility to properly prepare the team to put its collective best foot forward. 

Putting your best foot forward is not about winning every game.  It is not about playing mistake free soccer.  It is all about placing your team in position to give their best effort possible on a given day. Putting your best foot forward should be a steady march of improvement from day to day with recognition adversity will be encountered along the way. Positioning your team to put its best foot forward very much depends on how you teach them to react to adversity. Do you allow for excuses thereby empowering the adversity to determine your teams effort?  Or do you embrace adversity as an opportunity?

Properly identifying adversity is also an important aspect of allowing your team to put its best foot forward.  If your team will be facing a far superior opponent and you set the goal as upsetting them it will be difficult for your team to its best foot forward that day. If you identify obtainable in-game goals that could lead to an upset of a superior opponent chances of your team putting it's best foot forward increases against even the best of opponents.

In a sense, putting your best foot forward is about persevering along the road to success. Continuous Progress Improvement is a term that was used in schools when my sons were of that age. As coaches we are charged with preparing and positioning our team to constantly put their best foot forward and in doing so grow the program, the team and its individuals. 

Another way to look at this is to say we should never be satisfied.  Complacency is destructive to progress and greatly hinders the ability to put our best foot forward. Keeping a team hungry and focused can be a challenge and is a primary reason coaches work so hard to limit distractions, utilize team bonding exercises and preach "The TEAM!"  

Putting our best foot forward requires having a season-long plan for how to advance the team from it's starting point to a vision you have for them.  A firm hand on the rudder following a well charted course is paramount to helping your team put its best foot forward on a consistent basis. If you do not have a season-long plan but jump around from one topic to another attempting to fill each new leak in the dam your team is likely never to achieve full potential in any one area.  To put it another way, you are unlikely to establish a foundation strong enough to sustain real growth. 

Eleven Best or Best Eleven?

Each time I assemble a team questions regrading starting assignments and roles arise.  My standard reply is "We have a roster full of starters".   This is a true statement.  I do not keep you on the roster if I do  not believe you can play. As the head coach I will strive to determine the 11 who play best together.  Not necessarily the 11 best individual players.

That said, I do rank the members of the team 1 - 16 for field players and 1-2 for goalkeepers.  Players will move up and down in the individual rankings throughout the season dependent on their performance in training and ultimately their performances playing in matches.  I will strive to start as many of the top 10 ranked field players as possible.  This is where player versatility becomes important.  If starting is the issue, a back up DM might need to be willing to start as a center back, for example.

This ranking of players is for coaching staff use and is never shared with the players individually or collectively. Parents never see it and I will not discuss a players position in the rankings.  It is a subjective ranking with little in the way of empirical data to support it. 

The only statistic I am mindful of is attendance and promptness - a players commitment to the team.

So, why rank the players?

For me it serves as a reminder for use in late in the game situations.  If we are up a goal and need to hold the lead. If we are even or down a goal.   I might refer to the rankings to make sure I have best personnel available in the game. 

The real value I derive from the rankings stems from the associated notes I make about each player.  From the tryout process through the early preseason I will formulate seasonal plans for each player.  These seasonal plans will focus on accentuating strengths and improving weaknesses.  Players will move up (or down) the rankings based largely on how they address weakness in their games.

I will also use the individual seasonal plans collectively to discern a team seasonal plan. When certain themes repeat themselves amongst a number of players, we will add this to the teams seasonal plan as something we want to address.  By the same token, when a strength manifests itself repeatedly in individual seasonal plans, this is an area we will seek to accentuate in our teams system of play.

The preseason rankings are a starting point.  It is the final rankings that I have the most interest in.  Did the player progress?  Sometimes a player may not move up in the ranks but progress will be obvious through the final notes associated with his rankings when compared to those early season notes. 

And, yes, there are rare occasions when a player remains stagnant and drops down the list.  These players rankings and associated notes are of particular interest to me.  Did I fail this player as a coach and if so, why?  Sometimes, a player self-selects.  That is, he is overwhelmed by the talent that surrounds him.  He will realize his passion for the game doesn't measure up to that of his teammates. He will discover that while his teammates have a ball at their foot away from team activities he would rather be playing video games, working or devoting more time to his studies - he has other activities higher on his priority list than soccer is in relation to where soccer falls on his teammates priority lists.

There are times when we as coaches just do not connect with a player though.  It might be personalities. It might be a coach teaches in a manner that does not fit how the player best learns.  It might be any number of reasons.  If we want that player back for another season, we must do all we can to uncover where the disconnect has occurred.  The alternatives are to be up front with the player and suggest he move on to another team or simply cut him from your team.

This brings us back to the tryout process where the final rankings from the previous season can come into play. Tryouts are about forming the best team possible. It might be a prospective new player would rank higher on your individual player rankings than the last returning player on your list. At that point, a change in the teams roster might occur.

A ranking such as we are discussing here should never be the "be all end all" in determining a teams roster, starting positions or any other spot on a team.  We all know at any given moment a player is capable of "getting hot" or "finding a zone" and we would be foolish to grant this more significance than player who performs consistently over a long period of time.

We have also seen the talented player who is a train wreck of a teammate.  While he might rank high in the individual rankings he is not one of the 11 who play best together. 

Team chemistry is so very vital to team success that it simply cannot be overlooked. I have had players who were clearly among the top five players of our individual rankings who we simply could not start or play on the field at "crunch time" because they had no clue how to fit their talents cohesively into the team. Chances are pretty good that would have been one of the points of emphasis in that players seasonal plan.

In the end, I use the player rankings and associated notes as part of my personal self-evaluation.  I identified strengths and weakness in each players game. Did I place the player into a position and situations on the pitch from where he had reasonable expectations for success?  Did I help the player address his weaknesses as I identified them?  From the final rankings and my self-evaluation springs the beginnings of a new season.

What position do you play?

I often think about "Greg" who came to us as a varsity ready athlete as a freshman. It just so happened the varsity had an opening for a wing defender that year. Greg was physically gifted enough to man that spot. Through summer workouts and team camps Greg was worked with to prepare him for the role. He played as our left back during scrimmages and acquitted himself well.  If I recall correctly it was after our first regular season match that Greg came to the coaching staff and proclaimed "I'm a forward. That's all I have ever played and that's where I want to play in high school." Greg spent the next 3 seasons toiling away as a forward on the JV squad. As a senior he played forward for the varsity.I guess he was happy with his decision even as his coaching staff and teammates were not.

One might think "Greg" is an exception, but that really isn't the case.  I see this attitude on a regular basis.  In recent years I have had a goalkeeper who believed she was a center midfielder until it became clear to her that she was the teams 4th or 5th best option as a center midfielder.  I have had a defensive midfielder who insisted he was a forward. I have had a center defender who insisted he was a attacking midfielder. The commonality between all these players and others like them is a "me first" attitude.

Other players are more than happy to fill any role asked of them. Perhaps they have a different type of "me-first" attitude, one that serves the team. These are the kids that sacrifice the position they want in order to play and help their team by doing so.  In exchange they have almost always expanded their game and become better all round players. If one looks at the youth playing expeience of our national team players you will discover almost all have changed positions as they advanced through the ranks. I have to wonder about those who refused to change positions or stubbornly proclaimed they were "a forward" as Greg did all those years ago.

To paraphrase John F Kennedy, "Ask not what your team can do for you, ask what you can do for your team." 

It's such a great quote.  It speaks to sacrificing for the greater good. I think it is an indicator of the quality of "team chemistry" that is present in the individual and by extension the collective team. I believe it speaks to embracing opportunities instead of blaming obstacles. It speaks to an open mindedness instead of a closed mind. 

As a coach, give me the kid that wants to play. Period.  One of my favorite players of all time was a starting defender / center midfielder who when the need arose to train an emergency goalkeeper volunteered without hesitation to fill that role too. "Kevin" worked with the goalkeepers every day in addition to working as a center defender and center midfielder. His goalkeeping abilities improved to a degree that he would have sufficed in a pinch. Thankfully the need never arose, but I love, love, love the attitude and spirit!

My advice to players is this, if a coach asks what position you play, your response should be "I prefer _____, but am more than willing to play wherever you and the team need me to play"  and mean what you say.

 

Improvement begins with

 

"I"

Improvement

As a group we talk about the concept of practicing with a purpose and not confusing effort with results. We can go out and exhaust ourselves with our effort thinking we accomplished something along the way, but maybe all we really accomplished was to tire ourselves out.

We have to go out and practice with a purpose. If we are going to improve our first touch today, then we must collectively and cooperatively work together towards that end. If that is our purpose, that is what we will achieve. It is the concept of progress, of making steady improvement each time we take the field. It is the knowledge we hold at the end of the day that through purposeful effort we have gotten better individually and collectively.

This requires honesty and accountability to yourself and to one another. At the end of the day you must be able to look at yourself and know that you gave your best effort. You need to be able to look into your teammates eyes and have them know you cut no corners, that you paid attention to the smallest of details, that you gave them your best effort. Only when this honesty and accountability to yourself and to one another exists does true improvement occur.

Winning versus Development

There is growing sentiment in the United States Soccer hierarchy that we are producing young players who know how to win but do not properly know the game of soccer.  Parents spend thousands of dollars for their children to play club soccer with two major expectations in terms of return on investment, the prospect of a college scholarship and wins. Lots and lots of wins.

In terms of money for college, the money they spend on youth soccer would be far better invested in a growth fund or even a simple savings account. The NCAA allows for the funding of 9.9 scholarships for men’s soccer to be distributed over a roster of 30 players. That is not favorable math.  As parents begin to realize this an even greater emphasis is placed on winning.

In youth soccer, the teams with the most big, strong, fast kids often dominate in terms of wins and losses. They impose their will through aggressive strategies built around physical play.  The myth of this being the proper way to develop players was given some credence by Bruce Arenas 2002 World Cup team that used superior conditioning to somewhat level the playing field and produce the USA’s best tournament results ever. The United States sank back to global soccer reality  when the USA failed to sustain that “success” and failed to qualify for the 2012 Olympics.

After a bad result.

One of my weekend soccer conversations was how to help a team rebound from a bad result.  First of all, "bad result"  is a relative term. The team of the coach I was speaking with was coming off a 1-2 loss to a team he felt they should have beaten, easily. That's one end of the spectrum.  On the other end of the spectrum we would find both Van Wert and Bath.  So, a bad result really is a matter of perspective, but the way to move on remains a consistent - focus on positives.

Coaches of teams on the losing end of a bad result must find positives to hold onto. They need to examine the details of the process for positives to motivate and inspire their team to improve. These positives should hopefully be found in the outline of your season plan.  What are the points of emphasis you identified for your season?  Find positives there and identify them for your team. Discuss the improvement in these areas. Re-energize your commitment to continuous progress improvement in these areas. Then get to it with enthusiasm!

The mistake coaches will make is being disheartened and focusing on all the negatives they have perceived in their teams play. "Where do I start?"   I have been there. It's definitely not my "happy place."  It is a place fraught with danger for coaches.  If we allow ourselves to be swallowed by our frustration over poor play we have lost the battle ... and have probably lost our team as well. 

I walked off the pitch after our first match at the Galaxies College Showcase this past spring (a 0-2 loss, IIRC)  with "Where do we start to put this right?" racing through my head.  I had to go off by myself to calm down and think things through because we had two more games to play in the next 18 hours. I had a roster full of all-state, all-district, all-league players. These young men were highly skilled, intelligent soccer players.  Even so, my 3 points of emphasis in the season plan for them were fairly simplistic and focused entirely on the transitional phase of play moments:

1) When we lose possession, 3 players press and 8 get behind the ball ASAP.  We fill from the back forward regardless of what position an individual player was assigned to.

2) When transitioning to attack, we play to the targets feet.

3) Ball movement is predicated on player movement.

Within those three ideas we worked on technical aspects of the game that directly applied. When we came back for the second game I emphasized specific points in our play from the first match where what we had been working on was in evidence. We may not have executed well in those moments, but I applauded the attempt, the thought, the effort.  I gave the players positives from what we had worked on in training to boost their confidence, to motivate them to continue working hard in these areas and to inspire in them belief in our system of play.

The second match went much better.  Although we didn't, we certainly could have won it. It was one of those games where you walk away thinking "Dang, we were the better team out there, but it just didn't go our way."  In our third match we defeated a team that had previously beaten the first two teams we played. The keys to the turn around were two-fold.  First we were gaining experience playing together as a team.  Secondly I got a hold of my frustration, cleared my mind and stayed with our season long plan. We did not abandon all we had worked on indoors for the past 3+ months and go off on some other path. We stayed the course.

Interesting side note to that weekend was we found ourselves in reversed roles the next weekend at the Early Bird Classic. We played the Croatian Eagles from Wisconsin. They came south to get out of the snow. Our match was their first outside last spring.  They came out and went up 2-0 on us by virtue of two of the best goals I have ever seen from high school aged kids. Absolute lasers from 35-40 yards out. I found myself thinking the rout might be on and just wanting to get to halftime without any further damage being done.  Our kids kept their poise and we got on the board just before half time to make it 2-1. Still, I held no illusion about who the better team was - that Croatian Eagle team was the best collection of teen aged athletes I had ever seen on a soccer pitch.  Our half time, run pretty much by the players, was as usual calm, confident and productive. We identified areas we had to shore up. Then we identified our successes. We then went out and scored two more goals to win that match 3-2.  The points of emphasis the kids brought up during that halftime were what we had been focusing on throughout winter training.  Their confidence was based in our training. They found their motivation in the successes that training was beginning to deliver to them.  They found their inspiration in being able to execute our system when down 0-2 and being on the verge of getting blown out.  That goal just before half time was the single most important goal of the season. It cemented the course our season long plan set for us.

Not every team, not every program, can measure success the same way our Grand Lake United team did. Not every team is going to win the vast majority of their games as we did.  Every team can improve upon their season long goals. Success can be measured by improvement made. In fact, this must be the cornerstone for building your teams platform for success.

You're a much better coach than you used to be.

I recently ran into someone I coached back in the day. He's been reading this blog and has arrived at the conclusion I am a much better coach than when I coached him.

For goodness sakes, I should hope so!

My first experience as a soccer coach was in 1993. I knew next to nothing but was put in charge of a group of 5 year olds. Among that group were some boys who went on to become very good high school athletes. One in particular was David Monteleone. He was the best player in the area and scored goals at will for that team. We went undefeated and my soccer coaching star shone brightly.

Yeah, right.

I still knew next to nothing about the sport of soccer.  I did recognize the need to learn more about it though and so began a process of accumulating knowledge about the beautiful game. Today, I quite literally have hundreds of DVD's, books, coaching manuals, and materials saved from over 20 coaching courses and countless coaching clinics, symposiums and presentations. 

This process began by going to the local bookstore and buying anything and everything I could find on the sport. Some were an absolute waste of good money. Others were most beneficial. Three of my all-time favorite books on the subject are The Complete Book of Coaching Youth Soccer, the NSCAA's Coaching Soccer and Zonal Defending: The Flat Back Four. These were among the first books I purchased on soccer.  I look back upon them as being the beginnings of my foundation of soccer knowledge.

Still, it wasn't until I began observing the local high school team that pieces began falling cohesively in place. And the process did not truly gain momentum until I was offered the opportunity to attend their team camp conducted by Mr. Graham Ramsay. It wasn't long before I accepted a position as an assistant coach with that high school team and was put in charge of goalkeepers. 

Goalkeepers?

Yikes!

I new next to nothing about goalkeeping.  Back to the bookstore and the emerging Internet in search of knowledge about the art of goalkeeping.  A stroke of blind luck saw me in my first ever coaching course, the old State Level NSCAA Goalkeeping I Course held in Columbus, Ohio and conducted by legendary goalkeepers Tony Waiters, Tony DiCicco and an up and coming star by the name of John Murphy.  They lit the fire and my passion that has carried me ever since.

Still, as a high school goalkeeper coach I had a steep learning curve. I had to work at it and it wasn't always smooth sailing. By continuing with and completing all the NSCAA goalkeeping courses, buying virtually every book and DVD about goalkeeping I could find and learning to analyze (Thanks to John Murphy!) goalkeeping play I became better over the course of time.

It was while working in this capacity that I had driven home to me how little I still knew about soccer in general. Yes, I was becoming a good goalkeeping coach, but there was still so much to learn and especially about the game in general.  One lasting memory I have is of a coaches meeting where we were discussing how to penetrate our biggest rivals defense.  They played a diamond stopper / sweeper man marking system and did so really well.  It was the strategizing that went on that day that brought new light to my inadequacies as a coach. Not that the other coaches were so far ahead of me and talking over my head. No, it was the obvious absence of knowledge in that room of how to deal with the opponents defense that woke me to the fact I had so much more to learn.

Looking back on that day now, I wish I knew then what I know now.

And that's the point.

No, Brian, I am not the same coach I was back in 1993.  I am not the same coach I was when I first began coaching high school goalkeepers back in 2001. I am not even the same coach I was last spring in club soccer.  I continue to seek knowledge. I continue to evolve. I am getting better at coaching soccer each and every day because I continue to pursue and share knowledge and insights about the beautiful game.

Persistency to Consistency.

I believe it is important not to worry about the numbers when striving for consistency.  I do not speak to my teams about winning or losing.  I do not keep individual statistics for players.  If we dwell on numbers, we tend to become shortsighted about other things including the big picture.  If we strive for consistency, the numbers and wins will take care of themselves.

In this regard, our competition is not the opposing team, but our previous performance. Can we be consistent in good performance? Can we improve our performance on a consistent basis? I cannot measure myself against someone else for I am not that person. I can only measure myself against me. Am I consistent?  Am I better today than I was yesterday?

The key is Consistency is Persistency.

Progress or Regress?

Like so many of the articles I write the impetus for this one was a conversation with a coaching colleague. When Barry called the frustration was clear in his voice. He was struggling with what he interpreted as a lack of progress with his team. I think it a generally accepted idea that all teams progress through the course of a season. Some to a higher degree than others, but does any team actually regress? I suppose one devastated by injury or suspensions might? Even then the players who remain will continue to progress won't they?

Barry ended up sending me 3 video clips of his high school team for me to review. I have done this and somewhat to my dismay ended up agreeing with Barry. His teams first game was their best game and its been a backslide ever since.  Now, quality of opponents might factor into things, but from what I could discern that isn't the case here.

I have access to a few different teams Hudl accounts so I have gone back to take a look at segments of an early season and mid-season match for a few of these teams.  I discovered that Barry's team is not the only team who it could be said has regressed from their early season play. I do not believe this depicts a complete picture of what is happening though.

A few thoughts ran through my mind as I considered this idea that a team might actually regress instead of progress as a season proceeds.

1) Because many high school teams will see stretches of playing 3 games in a week, practice time is at a premium. Recovery becomes the primary focus with maintaining skill and tactical awareness a secondary consideration.  Many teams will do nothing more than stretch on the day after a match. Perhaps get a few touches on the ball.

2) The mental grind of playing 3 matches in a span of 6 days is grueling.  How many teams allow for mental recovery between matches?  And how do they manage mental recovery?  I actually think wears on young teams more so than older experienced teams, but it is a consideration for any team.

3) Do teams peak too early?  I can remember certain teams at Shawnee where I was an assistant coach that certainly did. One team in particular comes to mind. They secured the teams first ever league title and that was it. The last 3 weeks of the season were terrible. 

4) So, setting goals might be a consideration. Set them too high and have them realistically out of reach due to a couple early season losses might see a drop off in quality of play. Or setting them too low and meeting the goals too early in the season might leave a team without a clear path to move forward on.

5) Team chemistry or lack thereof might be a consideration. Maybe to start the season everyone buys in, but as the season progresses and adversity is encountered that togetherness falters.  It might be friction between players. It might be a loss of confidence in the coach. It could be any number of things that cries out for something to reunite the team.

I imagine there are other reasons as well. As I stated earlier, these are thoughts that quickly came to mind. And frankly, reviewing film in the wee hours of the morning when I should have been sleeping doesn't lend itself to completely cognizant or cohesive trains of thought.

Today I have reviewed segments of game film from the matches of my son's team. Yeah, they looked really good that first match. Decent in their second match against a very good opponent. Then there has been some slippage in their play. Missing starters in one game was certainly a factor. Their most recent game... maybe it was just a bad game. Those do happen from time to time.

6) And I think that has to be a consideration here.  We are talking about 14-19 year old young men.  Consistency is something they strive for, but in truth performance actually often more closely resembles a roller coaster ride.  Nothing new or startling to see here. This is a teenagers life. Sometimes they are 16 years old going on 26 and other times they are 16 years old going on 6.  It's who they are ... and what they do.

7) This is why consistency in the coach is so very important. If the coach is prone to inconsistency - in his practice planning, game management, player relationships - he really cannot expect consistency from the players, can he?

This was the foundation of my advice to Barry - Be consistent with your team. Be consistent in planning practices. Do not stray from your season plan.  Be consistent with players.  Be consistent in your game management. Be that beacon your players can look for in troubled waters.

That's not to say you should not make necessary adjustments. No, what I caution against is making unnecessary adjustments. Do not panic for if you do your team will follow your lead. Trust yourself. Trust your plan.  Believe... in yourself and your team.

I have written before about the necessity of a coach to give his players his confidence. If a player knows you believe in him, he is much more likely to believe in himself.  When a player senses a coach's frustration or comes to believe the coach no longer trusts him to play, that players performance will reflect this.

Bad games... like mistakes... are opportunities to learn, to grow, to improve and become better.  Do this and then put the poor performance behind you moving forward with confidence to the next match.