There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.

Just after the first of the year I was hospitalized for an infection in my thumb. My stay lasted a week and involved multiple antibiotics, a lancing and finally an operation to cut the infection out. A month and a half later I am still on antibiotics and still in recovery mode. I have yet to return to work.  I share this with you that you will understand I have had a lot of time on my hands. A fair share of that time has been devoted to evaluating the performance of last fall's high school team. It was my first losing season as a coach in a very long time.

To be fair, I began this evaluation process even as the fall season wound down. I knew the one problem area we never solved was leadership. I was disappointed and frustrated in player leadership almost from the start.

As I considered all that went wrong last fall I found myself narrowing focus to specific individuals whom I had identified as being so toxic that they were preventing their teammates from being successful. Some time ago I had come across the phrase "frustrated genius" to describe such a person. Being a typical coach, I appropriated this phrase for my own use. In short, a frustrated genius is a rogue element who makes excuses, assigns blame and rarely if ever accepts any responsibility for negative results. I had dealt with such before. Sometimes they see the error of their ways and make the 180 degree turn around to become productive members of winning teams and sometimes they must be culled from the herd before success for the team can manifest itself. Last fall neither occurred and there is only one person responsible for that, me.

I am to blame for last falls losing season.  It was a challenging situation but I failed to properly lead. I had become comfortable and complacent as a coach. I had my system that worked well season after season for years. I lost sight of the details of the process. I did not bring the energy to the team that it required.  As a leader goes, I failed miserably.  I let the players down.

It was not until the first scrimmage that I had a full team together. Even then we were missing a player who was on extended summer vacation.  We only had 14 players in the program at that point. I feared not having enough to field a team were I to enforce my usual standard of zero tolerance when  it came to unexcused absences.  This was my first and worst failure of the season.  I set a standard and then by not enforcing the standard lowered said standard to such a degree that we could not be successful.

Captains are a coach's sub-leaders. I placed the onus on the captains to enforce the attendance standard. Two of the players most often absent from training were captains.  I focused early efforts on turning around these frustrated geniuses and eventually just gave up on them.  I failed. I should have removed them as captains upon their first unexcused miss from training.  Because I failed, the team failed. The blame for that is on no one but me.  Period.

There are other sub-leaders on a successful soccer team.  Each line must have one of these.  The GK, must be a sub-leader. The back line, midfield and forwards must all have sub-leaders to help coordinate and execute the game plan.  These leaders did not emerge to anywhere near the extent we needed them to and I am to blame for this. It was a trickle down effect stemming from my failure to hold two captains accountable to the attendance standard.  The chain of command was faulty and this was my fault.

And I can trace each failure within the team back to standards. The source of the team's poor performance was not the standards that were set, but the standards that were accepted. Standards are empty when not enforced. Ours were and I am to blame for that.

A renewed energy is beginning to boil within me.  The program I was put in charge of deserves better than last seasons poor performance. I have set my aim on bringing a winning performance to next falls team.  I'm not necessarily speaking of a winning season, but a winning performance. I need to get this thumb healed up so I can return to work and begin the process that will bring this about.Lots of work to be done and it's time to get started.

Why do you pay so much money for your kid to play sports?

I am giving credit for this article to Mark Wolpert of Southhampton, PA.  A friend shared it on Facebook and I found it to be a wonderful glimpse into what parents should be thinking about youth sports.


Mark Wolpert

January 18 · Southampton, PA · 

One of my friends asked "Why do you pay so much money for your kids to do all their sports”? Well I have a confession to make; I don't pay for my kids to to do sports. Personally, I couldn't care less about what sport they do.

So, if I am not paying for sports what am I paying for?

- I pay for those moments when my kids become so tired they want to quit but don't.

- I pay for those days when my kids come home from school and are "too tired" to go to their training but they go anyway.

- I pay for my kids to learn to be disciplined, focused and dedicated.

- I pay for my kids to learn to take care of their body and equipment.

- I pay for my kids to learn to work with others and to be good team mates, gracious in defeat and humble in success.

- I pay for my kids to learn to deal with disappointment, when they don't get that placing or title they'd hoped for, but still they go back week after week giving it their best shot.

- I pay for my kids to learn to make and accomplish goals.

- I pay for my kids to respect, not only themselves, but other athletes, officials and coaches.

- I pay for my kids to learn that it takes hours and hours, years and years of hard work and practice to create a champion and that success does not happen overnight.

- I pay for my kids to be proud of small achievements, and to work towards long term goals.

- I pay for the opportunity my kids have and will have to make life-long friendships, create lifelong memories, to be as proud of their achievements as I am.

- I pay so that my kids can be out on the field or in the gym instead of in front of a screen...

...I could go on but, to be short, I don't pay for sports; I pay for the opportunities that sports provides my kids with to develop attributes that will serve them well throughout their lives and give them the opportunity to bless the lives of others. From what I have seen so far I think it is a great investment!

Overcoming Adversity on the Path to Success

This article will continue my evaluation of the most recent high school soccer season.  We had a good year, one of the best in the program's recent history going 10-4-3 overall. On the face of it, that's not too shabby.  Closer inspection reveals the three ties and one of the losses all resulted from allowing goals with under 3:00 minutes left on the game clock.  In fact, one occurred when a goal was allowed with just :03 remaining in the match.  Allowing late goals in these matches produced a strikingly negative impact on our record.  Even more disturbing is the fact we completely and totally failed to compete in two of our losses, How can a team with 10 wins lose games by scores of 0 - 8 and 0 - 9?

MENTAL TOUGHNESS

More accurately a lack of mental toughness was behind those two lopsided losses and allowing late goals that robbed us of favorable results. This is what has been constantly on my mind these past few weeks. How do I help the student athletes develop better mental toughness?  I will explore this in today's writing.

I know where we stand and I have a clear vision for where we need to go.  The journey between the two points is the off-season's undertaking. I'm going to identify specific areas where our team is lacking and attempt to set a course that will develop or enhance each of these areas.

For me, mental toughness begins with COMMITMENT.  The more committed one is, the more difficult it is to relinquish one's goals.  In other words, the more invested one is in a process the more difficult it becomes to give up on the process until achieving what you set out to do. This process calls for a clear vision of what the desired result of a process is and a well defined plan to achieve the desired result.

I recognized the lack of commitment early on with this group.  It manifested itself in a variety of ways some of which I will identify today beginning with off-season opportunities that were missed by most of the team.

Sunday afternoon open gym futsal.  We had a small core group who attended all or nearly all of these sessions.  Sunday afternoon was chosen so as not to interfere with other extracurricular school activities. These were completely voluntary workouts and therefore an excellent indicator of an individuals commitment to the 2016 season.  The day and time of the weekly event were consistent and well established in advance so as to allow student athletes to plan ahead to attend.  Those who made an investment in a 2 hour weekly opportunity to improve would prove to be committed to the team. That group was much smaller than I anticipated with a few would-be key members of the team not showing to any of the opportunities afforded to them. I was alarmed by this and my concern would prove to be well founded.

As winter weather began to break and spring advanced upon us we began small group training. Again, Sunday afternoons were the day and time of choice so as not to conflict with other extracurricular activities. I also offered alternate times as participation lagged making myself available at their discretion instead of mine. Attendance at these voluntary workouts was so poor we eventually abandoned the process entirely.  This near total failure raised a huge red flag about the commitment level of the individuals who would comprise our team that next fall.

Recognizing a lack of commitment to the team was of concern, I set about establishing a visual commitment metric to encourage and promote greater participation and deeper commitment.  This came in the form of a "money jar."  I went to a local discount store and purchased a one gallon plastic jug with a lid.  Each time we gathered as a team each individual player was to deposit one penny into the jug.  As the jug filled with pennies it would provide a visible measure of our commitment to the TEAM and one another.  The proceeds would go to a needy family or be donated to a local charity. This project began well and initial momentum carried us through 10 days to two weeks before participation dropped off significantly and eventually stopped altogether.

I want to be clear, we never did have 100% participation in this endeavor. From the start some made the conscious decision to not participate.  Others wanted to participate on a limited basis preferring to donate a lump sum to cover a week, month or the entire season.  Obviously, these individuals completely and totally missed the point of publicly renewing their commitment to the TEAM on a daily basis. By the end of the second week even the captain in charge of the money jug had fallen off course as he quit bringing it out of his car and into the presence of the TEAM so people could add a penny each day.

Towards the end of the season, after the two devastating losses mentioned earlier, I made a point of the missing money jar. I drove home the concept about lack of commitment to the team - more precisely to the underclassmen on the team for the seniors had already squandered their opportunity, and therefore their season  The money jar made a brief reappearance although few if any actually contributed. First another senior took the money jar with a proclamation that he would bring it to every team function. He failed to bring it to the very next team activity, I kid you not.  Next another senior took charge of the money jar and to his credit he did bring it to every team function the rest of the season and even to his exit interview.  One player, allow me to repeat that, one player brought a penny to their end of season interview to be placed in the money jar,

So, obviously our commitment to TEAM and one another must be strengthened before we can even begin tackling mental toughness. We must change how we think about TEAM before we can change our approach to preparedness and eventually change how we confront adversity and define who we are.

RATIONAL THINKING

I have questioned myself concerning the level of commitment I am asking for from the members of our team.  Am I asking for too much? I do not believe so as past experiences have proven to me what it takes to be a successful program. Obviously a significant number of players believe other wise and that difference of thinking is where the challenge lies.

The question I will put forth to each individual team member concerning their commitment level is this; how will continuing to approach soccer and the soccer team as you have in the past help you to feel good about yourself, your performance and to achieve our stated goals?  Were you satisfied with the season just completed? If not, what changes are you willing to make so as to achieve more success?  Of course, in asking this question I will run the risk of individuals acknowledging they were quite satisfied with the season just completed.  That is a risk that must be taken if only so the answer more precisely defines the challenge being faced.  For a program that had not won 10 games in one season in many years, it is quite possible the players rational thinking is that what they did in preparing for last season is good enough. It wasn't, but focusimg on 10 wins over six poor results could cloud their thinking.

This is where RESPONSIBILITY and ACCOUNTABILITY come into play. Part of being mentally tough stems from taking responsibility for our approach to the TEAM and the game of soccer. Are we accountable for our thoughts, words, deeds and the rewards or consequences that stem from them? We will encounter adversity. That is a fact. To survive adversity we need to focus on things within our control. Elimination of adversity is not a possibility. We will face adversity, so the key becomes how we handle adversity. Nothing and no one can bother, distract or upset us without our granting them the ability or permission to do so.  This is, in part, the reasoning behind my mantra of Next Play! Whatever the adversity we encounter we must focus on our RESPONSE to it.

We might blame officiating or bemoan poor performance by teammates or coaches, but the ultimate responsibility will always remain the domain of each individual player or coach and by extension the collective of the TEAM. The referee misses a call or makes a poor decision - do we respond by arguing with the referee or by staying involved in the game and moving on to the next play!? When a teammate makes a mistake that adversely impacts the game do we chastise him continuing a chain of negativity or do we "pick him up" and help him to refocus on the things still under his control?

Dealing with adversity often involves ADAPTABILITY which is in and of itself about our response to the adversity encountered.  Adversity, by nature, removes us from an established comfort zone. We have certain expectations for how things will play out and when they don't go exactly as planned we need to be adaptable. This is true in soccer and in life.  Change is uncomfortable as it removes us from an established comfort zone, but we must accept some level of discomfort and pain in order to learn, adapt and advance. If we fight change we will soon be left behind which is exactly what happened in each of our poor results last season.

RESILIENT people do not see themselves as victims of adversity or change. They do not complain "why me" and lament their "bad luck".  Resilient people recognize bad events as a normal, if unwanted, part of life then adjust or adapt to the new reality of the situation. Dynamic individuals and teams are relentless in their adaptability, creativity and ingenuity to not just survive adversity, but to adapt and overcome adversity in continued pursuit of their vision.

An individual or team vision is defined by goals set.  What does the individual and or TEAM seek to accomplish. Again, I had encountered adversity in coaching last seasons team when the seniors set their goals both during the summer and once again when goals were revisited just before the regular season began. Almost all conceded losses to the "big three" of our conference and established a goal of winning the remaining 13 regular season games and at least one post season tournament game. We were defeated in 3 matches weeks before we actually played those matches. We had no chance to be resilient in losing to these teams for we never allowed ourselves the opportunity to engage and overcome the expected adversity.

Having goals and being resilient in overcoming adversity, difficulties and setbacks in pursuit of said goals means we will persevere while tolerating short-term frustration, discomfort and pain for long-term success.  Persistence and Resiliency are key; many people decide to simply give up and seek an easier route to a lesser goal or result. Due to a lack of commitment, most people lack the ability to be adaptable to setbacks that force an adjustment to the process  they have defined to achieve the goals established for themselves and their TEAM. In short, CONFIDENCE is missing.

The words confidence and belief are inseparable; you can't have one without the other. Our confidence will endure certain ebb and flow according to different circumstances or events (adversity) we encounter. Mental toughness or our resiliency depends on our ability to remain steadfastly focused on the goals we seek to achieve. These goals are not always tangible as in the number of wins we seek to accumulate in a season or the winning of a championship. In fact, the most important goal to focus on is a simple one - to improve every time we step on the field. This will allow our confidence to continue to grow and expand.

I have often spoke and written of comfort zones. I firmly believe the game (and life) begin at the end of your comfort zone. In speaking with a fellow coach recently I remarked that some our athletes seem afraid of success.  Individual athletes and or their collective teams come to the brink of real success only to fail to achieve said success. When faced with the prospect of persevering to actually overcome adversity and claim success / achieve their goals they crack under pressure and retreat to a previous comfort zone. Their established comfort zone becomes a comfort trap.

I have given this deep consideration and believe a failure to accurately assess the threat to our comfort zone inhibits the ability to establish new comfort zones. If we look upon the challenges adversity presents as unrealistically dangerous or threatening to the establishment of a new comfort zone we choose to remain where we are.  In a sense, it is amazing what we can become comfortable with when we choose a course of unchanged action.

IF WE AVOID FAILURE, THEN WE ALSO AVOID SUCCESS.

I have described this avoidance as a fear of success. Each degree of success brings with it new challenges. If we think of each degree of success as a newly established comfort zone we can begin to sense the amount of work involved in being committed to success.  Our Rational Thinking in pursuit of success (or living life to its fullest) must focus on taking calculated risks designed to purposefully move us up the comfort zone ladder. We will likely fail before we succeed. Through our adaptability, our ability to adapt to and over come circumstance and events, new confidence is found. Being resilient is about being accountable and responsible in facing failure, learning from our failures and moving forward from our failures.  We must shrug off the shackles of self-imposed limits and our restricted views of reality to open our minds to ever greater possibilities and ever greater success. This is what being mentally tough is all about.

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.

 

Once failure leads to change,

 

change will then lead toward success.

 

 

Failure is on the road to Success

 

You can take the exit at Failure

 

OR

 

You can keeping on driving toward Success

 

It's a choice

 

And the decision is yours to make.

Each day brings dozens of opportunities

to demonstrate your commitment.

Each individual decision you make

defines your success

or failure.



"You haven't taught it until they've learned."

John Wooden

 

 

As I reminisce about this summer's camp season the above quote of legendary basketball coach John Wooden has often been on my mind. In a team environment one will find not all players learn in the manner. Something I have discovered over the years is that not all teams learn in the same manner either.

 

 

I am a student of the game. My soccer library consists of over 100 books, hundreds of magazines, over 250 videos and mountains of notes I have taken while attending camps, clinics, symposiums and even from my own practices and games.  My wife is very tolerant of my studies.  LOL. When I find something that I really like I latch onto to it and use it over and over be it a coaching phrase, terminology, a warm up, small sided game or game related activity. A recent example of this is the phrase "making offers" that refers to players making purposeful off the ball movement in order to receive a pass.  I truly am an old dog learning new tricks!

 

At a team camp a couple of weeks ago I was going through my standard coaching methodology using tried exercises in an effort to improve a tams speed of play.  First day went well as did the morning session of day two. The afternoon session of day two we hit a brick wall and hit it hard.  I had utilized a type of non-directional transition game to reinforce the concept of organizing early and taking advantage of an opponent before they got set up.  It was working beautifully, in part because we were playing in a large area with adequate time / space available.  When I attempted to use the same theme of transition in a directional, smaller and therefore faster paced environment is when we hit the wall.  Everything we had worked on, strove for and had begun to have success with was abandoned as the players reverted to old habits.  An exercise that had worked well with my own teams and for other team camps just wasn't going to get 'r dun this time. I knew I was going to have to change things up for the next days sessions.

 

On the way home that afternoon I thought about the wonderful success we had had the first 3 sessions of the week and pondered why things fell apart during that 4th session. I had made a comment to their head coach that I would have to approach things differently in the next session and would think on that before returning the next day.  I defined the problem as how to move the team from success with non-positional, non-directional play towards playing in a more game like environment.  Lucky for me, I am a member of an email group of coaches from around the country that exchanges ideas on all things soccer. On of the members had the perfect exercise to segue from non-directional play to directional play with purpose. He calls it Possession with Positions.  It is brilliant variation on some standard attacking exercises I had previously used but never fully embraced... likely because I never fully appreciated how they might be employed. Here was my colleague teaching me a new approach to an old coach tool. 

 

The next day I returned to the foundational work we had previously done with the team before quickly progressing to Possession with Positions. Voila!  It all came together in rather quick order. A different approach for a different team. It was that simple.

 

As I traveled home afterwards the question I asked of myself is how to recognize the need to adjust my teaching approach before hitting the wall as we had in this camp?  I found myself admitting there were red flags in the early sessions to indicated the exercise I employed that eventually broke things down would not work with this group.  Primarily, one of the better players and dominant personalities was never going to "buy in" or play the practice game as it was intended to be played.  My mind was drawn back to helping one of my sons solve a math homework problem. We got the right answer and I'm feeling pretty good about things only to have my son return from school the next day and informing me we did it wrong. What?  The answer wasn't correct?  Oh, the answer was correct, but we had solved it wrong. ????  Evidently they were teaching "new math" and I helped him solve it the old school way.  That was the case with the transition game in question here. They were solving the problem, just not as I had intended or wished for them to. Thus the need for a different approach.

 

A few days later I watched the team compete in a pre-season tournament. To my delight, and I think that of the team and their coaches, much of what we worked on was in evidence in their play. They looked quite good in their play and went on the  championship game.  John Wooden's quote came to mind as it was apparent I had some success in teaching them because they were enjoying success with what they had learned! 

 



Decompressing in order to change gears.

I will be taking a few days off from posting as I decompress from the spring soccer season. Our U17 Boys team had an extremely successful campaign and this was one of the most enjoyable seasons I have had in some time. Great group of young men who happen to be pretty good soccer players as well. The bonds they formed with one another off the field were instrumental to their success on the field. This spring season was quite simply a wonderful experience for me.

That's not to say we had fair seas and following winds the entire season. No, there were a few issues that arose over the course of the season, but the focus remained good throughout. I made mistakes as a coach / manager and will learn from them. It can be difficult to know what approach to take with individual players as some require and respond to tough love, others require a lot of positive attention to boost self-esteem and confidence, some are seemingly low maintenance, but actually require the most work.

Carrying a roster of 18 players can be a difficult task.  Even with unlimited substitutions playing time issues can arise. Positions played can be a source of controversy and even conflict. We strove hard to establish a TEAM first attitude. Sacrificing for the greater good is a huge part of building a such a culture and we did very well in this regard.

Club soccer in the context of developing players for their high school team presents another interesting set of dynamics to juggle. The idea of purposefully playing "out of position" to strengthen a players overall game and enhance play at their favored positon can be a difficult sell. Yet there can be no doubt of a players need to understand the positions that link to his preferred position. Yes, even at U17 I intentionally and purposefully rotated players through a variety of field positions. Even goalkeepers played the field to develop a better understanding of what their teammates need from them as goalkeepers. Goalkeepers also must have the ability to play the ball with their feet and what better way to gain that experience than by actually playing the field?  By the end of the season we had established an extremely versatile group of players each of whom will be able to fill a variety of roles for their high school teams should they be asked to do so. Their experience this spring in positions that link to their preferred position will be immeasurably valuable this fall. It is important to know not only your role, but that of the positions that surround and link to your position in order to maximize your own play.

I am really looking forward to seeing these young men play for their high school teams this fall.  I firmly believe many will establish themselves as the best players on their respective teams. More importantly I expect them to provide a winning mentality and positive leadership based on their struggles and successes of both a personal and team nature this spring. I firmly believe each is taking a solid foundation for success back to their school team and am anxious to see their progress as players next fall.

Just to be clear, I am not taking a vacation from soccer related activities these next few days. The opposite is actually true as I will use this week to work on daily training sessions for the team camps and goalkeeper / striker camps I will be conducting the rest of the summer. Changing gears from coaching a team to training  a variety of teams and individuals is a more appropriate depiction.  The variety this offers me - team skills camp, to installing zonal defending, to working with goalkeepers and strikers - is a welcome change of pace from the season long process of installing a specific system and developing a consistent and continuous path of improvement on both team and individual levels based upon play within that system.

I am considering posting a weeks worth of camp training sessions this summer to provide an idea of what our camp experiences are like.  I think it might be helpful to see the depth of planning that goes into a successful training session. It might also be helpful to "witness" the flexibility a coach needs when their best laid plans go awry for any number of reasons. And as always, I know I will be learning as much from the players and coaches I work with as they hopefully learn from me.  I look forward to sharing these experiences with you beginning in about a weeks time.  Until then I will re-post some of the most viewed articles from the past.

Thanks for reading the Conceive Believe Achieve Soccer blog. I appreciate your support, kind words and suggestions.

Planning Challenging Practice Sessions.

In a recent conversation a young coach "Marc" expressed concern about training his team. It seems there exists a fairly wide disparity in the range of talent amongst team members and Marc was struggling to find activities that challenged all while not overwhelming some. He was searching for activites that all could participate in with a reasonable expectation of success. It was a struggle to watch the same couple of players constantly breakdown exercises challenging to the more advanced players and also to watch the more advanced players lose interest in activities "beneath them" that others found challenging.  He was looking for a magic activity challenging on a variety of levels while overwhleming  no one.

There's another way to look at this situation.

A team can only be as strong as its weakest player so it is in the best interests of the best player(s) to work with weaker players to help them improve their games. The challenge for better players need not exist on a technical or tactical level, but can exist on a leadership level.  Asking an individual to assume a leadership role can serve to move someone out of their own comfort zone providing an opportunity for success... or failure.

If not handled appropriately a situation with a wide disparity of talent can also see a degeneration of satisfaction spread throughout the team. There will be some that feel the talent gap should be closed by cutting weaker players and adding stronger players in their place.  Others will become disgruntled that certain players are ball hogs refusing to share the ball with (weaker) teammates. Relationships on the team and especially along the parent sidelines can become strained and quickly spiral downward.

I admired Marc for not giving up and fighting to make the experience as enjoyable as possible for all involved on his team. It was clear he himself was being overwhelmed by the situation he found himself in.  The good news is, he recognized the developing problems stemming from disparity in talent levels on the team and the seeds of discontent along the parent sidelines. The bad news is, Marc himself was struggling to find the right answers. And if truth be told, I'm not sure a great answer is always available in situations such as this, but I did have a couple of suggestions with the future in mind that I encouraged Marc to consider taking a look at.

Instead of separating the team in terms of advanced players and weaker players, separate them by placing a couple of the better players with weaker players in one group (A) and leaving the "middle" group (B) intact to work together.  Then have them run the same exercise.  I love watching the advanced players problem solve when working with weaker players. How long until they recognize the biggest challenge they have been presented with is one of psychology and leadership instead of one involving technique or tactics? 

The players in group "B" will almost always progress through the exercise more rapidly than the those in group "A" who will struggle on technical and tactical levels, but both groups will eventually get it. In group "B" the challenge is received on a technical and tactical level with a component of leadership involved. The physchological aspect is focused more on being disciplined in their thought process and execution of technical and tactical aspects of the exercise.

The weaker players in group "A" also have these challenges present albeit on slightly different levels. The advanced players have a stronger psychological component involved from the perspective of how they receive being placed in this group.  Will they view it as punishment? Will they feel they are too good to be in this group, that the weaker players are beneath them?  Will they rise to occasion and embrace the opportunity to be a mentor, a facilitator, a leader in their assigned group?  Sometimes an "advanced" player will become angry and pout resulting in poor mental performance that sees them actually become the ones to break down the exercise time after time.  It is discouraging when this happens, but it is also revealing.

What we hope to see is the advanced players recognize and embrace the different and all so important challenges they have been blessed with. Can they set good technical and tactical examples for their teammates?  Can they grab the reins of leadership and facilitate play within their group?  Do they encourage their teammates?  Do they inspire their teammates to raise the level of their play?

Marc raised a good and valid question - Should he address the advanced players in group "A" prior to beginning the exercise so they have an understanding of why they have been placed there and what the expectations for them are?  My reply was that would be like giving them the answers before the test.  Personally I think it much more practical and certainly more revealing to allow the players to identify the problem / challenge they face and to observe their thought process / problem solving skills on the fly. This is after all what they are tasked with in playing the game. It might be necessary to "debrief" someone who struggled to rise to the challenge, but allowing them to fail can lead them to change and change can lead them to improvement and success.

Challenges, whether naturally occurring or contrived are always revealing, but they are never an end point. How we respond to challenges encountered, what challenges reveal about us, define a new starting point. Sometimes we need to step back and take on the same challenge again... and again, until we successfully negotiate it.  Even then a challenge met and conquered merely leads to future failure and the opportunity to grow again through new challenges.

In conclusion, my advice to Marc was to design practice sessions with a variety of challenges on several different levels instead of attempting to come up with an exercise that challenged all players in the same manner. Different challenges for different players.
 
 
 

We need to develop a better development model.

I was listening to Bill Russell as he related being a 5'10" 150 pound high school player and the last man on his team. This is the same Bill Russell who grew to be 6'10" and went on to become a two time NCAA Champion, an Olympic Gold Medalist and win 11 NBA World Championships in 13 years with the Boston Celtics.

This set me to thinking about youth sports and soccer in particular. We've all heard stories of the great profssional player who was cut from travel or high school teams, but persevered to make it as a college and professional athlete. Those are inspiring and motivational stories to be sure. I found myself wondering who in their right mind would cut a future professional athlete from a travel team?

I have conducted tryouts in a couple of different sports either at the request or behest of others. I have watched my sons participate in other tryouts. I have heard the speeches of keeping only the "X number of" best players.  I know each time I walk off the field and am asked to identify the "best" players I find myself thinking a more appropriate categorizing would be "the least worst" players. At youth sport tryouts, they all stink. There's not a refined or polished player amongst the lot of them!

A lawn care specialist, a bank manager, an accountant, a school teacher.... these were among the people evaluating young athletes at a recent tryout. I looked around at the group and wondered what qualified them to judge the athletic ability of  6 - 14 year olds?  I know for a fact two of them never played the sport they were conducting tryouts for, yet there they were with clip boards and stop watches "evaluating talent". They held the athletic fate of these kids in their hands.

I then watched as tryouts concluded and discovered exactly what I thought I would - each of those conducting the tryouts had a son or daughter trying out.  Want your kid to make the travel all-star team? Become the coach of the team! Not about to cut the kid of your best friend or your childs best friend either are you? If your child is not part of the coach's inner circle, the chances of making the team go down dramatically unless your child is physically advanced. You know, big, strong, fast, but not necessarily skilled in a technical sense.

What is the motivation behind tryouts like those described?  To assemble the best team possible in pursuit of winning the travel league and tournaments while lining the mantle with trophies, correct? What about development of the individual players that comprise the team? 

Individual development takes places when the individual works on his game away from structured team practice. In team practice the emphasis is on training in groups, developing teamwork, establishing team chemsitry. There is shadow play and pattern play with lots of match related games played. Team activities take up the preponderance of time in team practices.

It might be helpful to consider a players decision-making abilities at this point. Individual skill sets are the tools a player uses to solve problems encountered in the game, so individual work will help develop a players 1 v 1 decision making ability. It is individual skills that are the foundation of any players success.

However, when we consider that a single soccer ball is shared by 22 individuals in a game of soccer we quickly realize how precious little time any given player will have with the ball during a game. That time can likely be measured in seconds.  I have seen estimates that the average time on the ball for a professional soccer player is less than 2 minutes in a 90 minute game, substantially less. Let that settle in for a minute.

It would stand to reason that a significant amount of time should therefore be spent in traning the soccer athlete on what to do without the ball.  All youth teams, be they of a recreational or travel club level should have this as the basis of their training. The decisions a soccer athlete makes without the ball are what elevates a teams play on the field.

Now, if we refer back to tryouts and the people who often conduct tryouts for the "elite" or "premier" club travel teams a clearer picture begins to emerge as to why the US soccer development model fails so miserably. We focus on team when we should focus on the individual. The short-comings of the many individuals becomes the focus only when the overlooked players at tryouts catch up and pass the physically advanced youth all-stars.

I think back to my own development as a basketball player (we did not have soccer when I was young.)  and what I remember is countless hours spent on my own in the driveway, at the park, in the gym, in the garage or basement developing individual skills. Testing myself in pickup games against any and all comers. It is rather enlightening how few organized basketball games I actually played as kid.  The ratio of individual work to work done with a team is staggering. 

Not so for most United States youth in soccer today.  There is this belief that kids need to play on a team year round, that more games is better.  I see academy and club teams demanding a 10 month committment from players 10 - 18 years of age  and watch as those teams play 80+ games of competitive soccer in those 10 months. Is this really the best developmental model we can come up with?  Factor in recovery time from all these matches and when does an athlete have time to work on individual skills?

The scary part is the people at the grass roots of soccer in this country seek to emulate what they see the "big boys" doing. And so we have the mechanic, the attorney, the laborer and the accountant wielding clipoards, stop watches and whistles at "tryouts" for travel and club teams. The focus on providing their son or daughter a winning experience by surrounding them with physically advanced athletes. The result is an installation of what I refer to as a false passion for the game. True passion is found in those who have a soccer ball at their feet when no one else is watching. All too often the player with true passion is too small or too slow to make the cut at tryouts for youth teams and doesn't emerge until later in adolescence.  I see this all the time. The youthful physically advanced player fades away as others who have worked on developing skills to solve the problems big, fast, strong but unskilled players present take center stage.  They are often asked, "why did you not play club or travel soccer?  The answer is, "because I was cut from the team" or was never asked to play.

I recently had to cut players from a team I was assembling for this spring.  My basic criteria for making the team were demonstrated passion for soccer and a willingness to be coached. Potential players who showed passion as demonstrated by working on their individual skill sets on their own had dramatically better chances of making the team.  Those who demonstrated a willingness to be coached had a leg up over those who demonstrated an unwillingness to correct repeated mistakes. As we progress with our season I still wonder if I was correct in every decision I made.  Did I overlook a kid with passion for the game and a willingness to learn in favor of another?  I don't know for sure. I did my best to select wisely, but there is certainly room to second guess. I already have and there will be more of these moments in the coming weeks.  I hope I didn't cut the next Pele or Ronaldo, but I might have.  I am secure in my knowledge I did the best I could within the goal of developing individual players and forming a winning team. Time will tell.