A different take on warm ups.

This fall finds me once again coaching high school soccer. The team I am working with is young, inexperienced and coed playing against boys teams.  The odds are definitely stacked against us.  I m having a blast!

I have pretty much a blank canvas to work with.

If focused on results, this could definitely be considered a negative. If we take an approach of this being an opportunity, then the challenges we face are a blessing. I choose to see this season as a blessing of amazing proportions.

My assistant and I have no choice but to teach. What we teach is every single aspect of game and team. Why we teach it is not solely based in pursuit of better on-the-field results. No, both what we teach and why we teach are grounded in helping the young men and women we work with to learn the value of confronting adversity, learning from mistakes and working cooperatively together to solve problems encountered in the process of becoming a better team and through the experience, better people.

 A favorite saying of mine is "Failing to prepare properly is preparing to fail."  This quote is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin who was by all accounts a pretty accomplished man. When applying this quote to soccer most will think of practicing well and warming up properly in front of playing a game. This, especially the warming up part, is usually equated to physical preparation.  In practice players perform repetitions of technique and tactics to develop muscle memory that allows them to play instinctively. Warm ups are often about perfection or striving to be as perfect as possible in preparing for the game.  This is where I find fault with standard warm ups that involve stretching followed by performing well rehearsed routines. It reduces warming up to finding a rhythm and getting comfortable before playing the game. The problem here is not in what you do, but is found in what you do not do.

A soccer match is a exercise in problem solving ability - that of individual players and the collective team. If we accept this to be true, then should we not include adversity and problem solving in our preparation to play the game?

A wise old coach once told me he could spot an American soccer player in the first few seconds of watching them step on the field.  American players step on the field and immediately begin whacking the ball at the goal.  Players from other countries step on the pitch and immediately have a ball at their feet working on individual ball handling skills.

I love watching professional athletes warm up, especially the stars.  Invariably they begin small and work their way up to the act required to put points on the scoreboard.  Watch Tom Brady warm up.  He gets his body warmed up and then begins with simple ball handling tasks like taking snaps from his center. He progresses to handing the ball off to running backs and moves on to throwing the football to receivers. Kyrie Irving comes out early and does ball handling exercises. These include the now famous two ball drill, dribbling and passing with either hand.  The last thing he does is practice his shooting. He takes care of all the things that will get him to taking a shot before actually working on taking the shot.

I firmly believe failing to warm up properly is one reason the United States has yet to produce a world class striker.  We warm up to get comfortable instead of warming up to problem solve in the game. We need to address our problem solving skills as much or more than establishing our comfort.  Game environments are rarely comfortable so I'm a bit mystified by the emphasis on establishing comfort in our warm ups. We need challenges in warm ups to prepare our problem solving skills.

Light intensity and conserving energy for the actual game is another aspect of traditional warm ups that leave me scratching my head. When one is about to play a contest should one not prepare for the intensity of the contest?  Rest and restoring energy can take place in the moments before kickoff - during the captains meeting, last minute instructions, playing of the national anthem and player introductions.  Pre-creating game-like intensity cannot.  This must be done as a gradual build up from the first step onto the pitch until active warm ups conclude prior to the pre-game festivities outlined above. Ramping up intensity should be a designed component of warm ups.

Warm ups, especially the individual components of warming up should be fraught with challenges. Working on simple ball handling to attempting more complex combinations and moves. Failures in warm ups are okay for the simple reason that failures are part of every game. A critical component of every game is learning from in-game failure and overcoming in-game adversity. Should not  preparing to do this be a part of our warm up?

By now a new vision of warming up should be emerging. At least it should be if I have written well.  Warm ups are an opportunity not just to prepare for playing, but to learn and improve.  It's not just about "perfecting" things worked on in practices leading up to the match. No, warm ups should be a continued exploration of your capability's and evolution of your abilities.

Empower the Players

I want you to consider for a moment the term "my team."

It is an oxymoronic term, is it not?

Team by definition is a group of people who strive for a common goal often in competition with a different group striving for the same result.  Teamwork is stressed and thought of as being the difference between success and failure.  We are all familiar with the adage there is no "I" in team.  But as coaches, do we practice what we preach?

Most typically American sports are coach driven.  It is the coach that dictates how a team will deploy its assets, the coach calls the plays, the coach decides when to use timeouts - in short, the coach is the key decision maker and as such it is his team. The coach has ownership of the decision-making and by extension, "the team."

One of the most important lessons I have learned as a coach is to think of any group I work with as being our team...  even going so far as to refer to the collective as your team.

I once had an athletic director whose background was in team sports. Ron had played football in college and coached basketball on the middle school level.  To say we had different ideas about coaching would be an understatement.  A couple of different discussions we had really drive this home and emphasize the point I am making here.

One discussion involved Ron chastising me for not using my timeouts.  Now, I do not relate this to you with the intent of portraying Ron as being uneducated or uninformed about the sport of soccer - there are obviously no time outs in soccer - but that was not the real point he was attempting to make either.  No, what had prompted the discussion was my encouraging players to coach one another on the pitch and my relaying adjustments through substitutes to players already on the pitch.  Ron was aghast that I asked high school athletes to interact in this manner. He thought it was the coaches role to communicate directly to players what adjustments needed to be made. His idea seemed to be that in allowing players to interact in such a manner placed them in conflict with one another?

There was also an instance where a player exiting the field asked a question about a problem she was encountering in the game.  I responded by asking Shayna to explain the problem and then asked what suggestions she had to solve the problem.  This exchange made its way back to the athletic director and another lecture ensued centered on a coaches responsibility to solve the in-game problems encountered by players. I realized then and there the athletic director was still thinking in terms of using timeouts to communicate with players. His perspective was that the coach should be solving the problems the opponent was presenting in the game, but the sport of soccer does not readily allow for this except at halftime. The reality is, soccer is a player driven sport unlike most "American" sports which are coach driven..

At the time of these exchanges I had long ago realized the necessity of empowering the players. This revelation took place after I had experienced the game from the perspectives of a coach, referee, player and parent all within a rather short period of time.  Each perspective is different than the others.  I can only relate this to a group of people who are involved in or witness an accident - each gives a slightly different version of what happened and offer different interpretations of why it occurred.  Are any of them wrong?  Not necessarily.  This is why investigators deem it so important to gather as much information as necessary. They need as complete a picture as can be obtained in order to render their findings

The following is an excerpt from an interview given by renown basketball coach Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs.

"I can’t make every decision for you. I don’t have 14 timeouts. You guys got to get together and talk. You guys might see a mismatch that I don’t see. You guys need to communicate constantly — talk, talk, talk to each other about what’s going on the court.

"I think that communication thing really helps them. It engenders a feeling that they can actually be in charge. I think competitive character people don’t want to be manipulated constantly to do what one individual wants them to do. It’s a great feeling when players get together and do things as a group. Whatever can be done to empower those people.

 

"Sometimes in timeouts I’ll say, ‘I’ve got nothing for you. What do you want me to do? We just turned it over six times. Everybody’s holding the ball. What else do you want me to do here? Figure it out.’ And I’ll get up and walk away. Because it’s true. There’s nothing else I can do for them. I can give them some 'bull,' and act like I’m a coach or something, but it’s on them."

 

Although this interview occurred rather recently it is a coaching philosophy I have  followed for some time now.  At half time of our matches I allow the players to talk about the opponents strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes I have to prompt them with questions. What problems are they presenting to us that we must address and how do we address those problems?  What matchup can we isolate and seek to take advantage of when we are attacking? 

 

What I have found is the players are very astute in their observations and often identify different issues or identify issues differently than I had from the sidelines.  The real key in these short half time discussions is the solutions and suggestions the players offer.  When we heed their input and implement their suggestions it not only empowers the players but it also makes them responsible for their play. In short, it gives them ownership of their team.

 

Just as we coach or teach fundamentals of skill and tactics in practice we must also train the players ability to identify problems and find solutions in the game.  To this end I often give the players a poorly constructed or incomplete practice game to play.  The premise is sound and purpose is clearly identified, but the way we are going about trying to achieve the desired result is faulty.  After allowing them to play in this manner for a few minutes I call them in and ask them to set it straight or put it right.  

 

Invariably before we ever reach that point suggestions have already been floated on the pitch.  These tend to be knee jerk reactions - we need more space so let's make the grid bigger is a common one.  Our discussion then becomes about whether a larger grid is needed OR if we can better utilize the space that is available?  This coaching tactic forces players to identify the problem and then discuss the problem in a group setting.  They offer possible solutions, discuss these and then implement the consensus they reach.  Again, it gives the members of the team ownership.

 

It says to them that this is not my team, it is your team and even better yet, our team.

 

It might be that we have to stop the game again, and even again, before we put it right but we always get it resolved.  And that is the key consideration in this process for when the players can solve the problems presented in practice it provides then with the hope that they can do so in a match. Once they do so in an actual match, confidence soars and so too does the quality of their play. 

 

As coaches we are tasked with providing players with the tools to solve the problems they encounter on the pitch.  Technical skills.  Tactical awareness.  Individual decision making on and off the ball.  Identifying and solving the problems opponents present to them.  Let go of the reins and trust the players to be fully vested members of the team. Empower them to take responsibility for their play and the team will be greatly rewarded. 

Former Shawnee player Alex Clark came to our Grand Lake United team last spring.  Alex was a good player and a better leader for us from his center midfield position.  I will always remember the look on Alex's face they day I shared with him that he could make in-game changes to what we were doing on the pitch. I gave Alex and our other captains full control in-game decision making - formation, strategy, personnel.   They were not only an extension of the coach on the pitch, they were the coaches on the pitch. His expression was one of shock, glee and excitement all rolled into one. I briefly described the reasoning outlined in this article and ended with "What's the worst that can happen? We mess up and maybe it costs us a result. If so, we'll learn from it, put it right the first chance we get and move on being better for it." 

I am sure Ron would believe I was abdicating my authority as coach. I would counter with the idea that I was empowering the athletes by delegating in-game authority to them.  Given our ultra successful season, I'm not sure even Ron could argue with the results? 

The key to creativity.....

Remember that you are unique.

If that uniqueness is not fulfilled,

 

then something wonderful has been lost.

 

Coach, do you want robots or Robinhos?

 

Don't set your athletes up for failure by trying to make decisions for them.

 

Allow the athletes to do their own on-field problem solving within the framework of TEAM.

Why?

When our son's were young and learning to think critically and write extended response answers my wife and I came up with a little call and response game to help them remember the questions that need answering when solving problems. It goes like this,

Call: Who?
Response: What?
Call: Where?
Response: When?
Call: How?
Response: Why?
Call: Because.
Response: I
Call: Love
Response: You

Okay, the last parts are obviously an expression of our family's love for one another, but the first parts are the key to problem solving. I share this with you today because a coach of a team I conducted camp for this summer asked me for help in identifying why his team struggled to possess the ball and build an attack.

Why?

In analyzing play most coaches can identify areas of the game their team struggles with.  However, many coaches end up addressing symptoms of the problem they identify instead of focusing on the root cause of the problem. 

For example, this particular team struggled mightily with their first touch. As we watched the film together their coach described to me how they worked on first touch constantly.  One of the activities was to pair up facing one another with one person serving to the other. In this manner, they worked on every conceivable form of receiving or trapping the ball. Even though their technique was improving it didn't seem to be translating into better possession play in games.

I didn't have to wait :15 until I paused the film. What we saw was a perfect in-game example of the drill work he had just described to me. The technical execution of the first touch wasn't bad, but still possession was lost.

Why?

Anyone who has ever parented a toddler knows they typically go through a period of development that sees them ask "why?" constantly. It can drive the best of parents to the point of covering their ears and sing "la, la, la, la, la" to avoid having to hear the question repeated yet again.

We should all pay closer attention.  Kids are way smarter than we give them credit for.  In my opinion, "Why?"  is the most important question we can ask in problem solving and a primary consideration when analyzing game film. From the mouths of children ...

The film showed one teammate passing the ball to another teammate at a distance of approximately 15 yards. The receiver was lightly guarded, the pass was to feet, weighted properly and accurate. So, why did this sequence of play result in a turnover?  It was a text book example of the drill work they did in practice.

That was the problem.

The teammates, passer and receiver, were facing one another. This meant the options for play the receiver had, without turning into pressure on the reception, were in the general direction the ball had just come from.  Why was the ball being passed to him in the first place?  Because the passer was being pressured.

We discussed how the now identified problem could be solved. On the most basic level, what needed to be addressed was the receiver's preparation to play. There were other facets of play that would need to be addressed as well, but proper positioning to receive the ball was the first priority.  How could the receiver have been better positioned to receive the pass? 

By being sideways on and receiving the ball across his body to the back foot. This would position the receiver's hips open to the field of play and provide him with many more options for play while avoiding the one option for play most dangerous to his team - playing the ball back into the pressure it was just passed from. Receiving sideways on was the technical issue to address.

So, once we identified the problem and then identified why the problem existed, we were able to design a camp experience that would help equip the players to solve the problem. By the end of camp, the players were much improved in their possession play. Receiving sideways on was not the only correction we made in their play that week, but it was the starting point that we built all else upon.

Coaches, when analyzing play to identify problems remember to ask all the pertinent questions,

Who?
What?
Where?
When?
How?
And most especially, Why?

Knowing what to correct is not enough. You must identify why it must be corrected and then design a proper activity for how to correct it. Falling short in any of these areas might result in exasperating the problem more so then helping with it.

Many of our problems are because we act without thinking.

"I play very simply. That's what it's all about. Playing simple football is the hardest thing".

- Johan Cruyff -

 

I coach / watch a lot of soccer. Keeping track of how many matches I have seen this calendar year alone I am already at 273 matches - More than one a day at this point in time. Of course, the World Cup padded that total this year.  I watch different age groups and varying levels of play. I am a student of the game. There is always something more to learn.

 

While watching a high school match last night I had a lot of thoughts bouncing around. The teams were of average ability and it was an entertaining match. The opportunity to contrast and compare to other recent matches I have seen couldn't be wasted and an idea slowly began to coalesce in my mind. Certainly not a new or revolutionary idea. More an old idea revisited and eventually expressed in a new way.

 

"Soccer is a game you play with your brain."

- Johan Cruyff - 

 

The game of soccer presents a myriad of problems to be solved on both the individual and collective levels. High quality decision making ability is the single greatest skill for any player to possess. What came together in my mind last night was the merging of the two John Cruyff quotes referenced above.

 

In order to play simply a soccer player must be a good decision maker... and... limit the decisions he must make during competition. Players can create more problems for themselves to solve when they act (or react) without thinking. Perhaps a better way to phrase that idea is to say, players create additional problems when they do not play with a thoughtful purpose.

 

My soccer sermon in camps and clinics this summer was to "know your next play with the ball before your first touch on the ball."  For a majority of young soccer players this is a radical way of thinking as they tend to gain possession of the ball and then attempt to figure out what to do with it  - this usually involves going up the field toward goal defensive pressure be damned. Often a poor decision that self-inflicts pressure... or creates more problems to be solved than is necessary.

 

"Many of our problems are because we act without thinking."

- Coach Brown -

 

This is not entirely accurate, but it is a great attention getter at this point in the article. A more truthful statement might be to say, "Many of our problems stem from not thinking far enough ahead." In American youth and high school soccer there is a great premium placed on being first to the ball, but this is of little value if possession of the ball is not won and maintained. 

 

Years ago I kept defensive statistics for a high school team. We tracked Interceptions and Takeovers (50 / 50 balls won). The team had to maintain possession before either an interception or takeover could be counted.  This meant a lot of deflections went uncounted. One year a particular player was very adept at deflecting the ball but really poor in gaining possession of the ball. When the statistics were shared he was upset because he had so few. His parents were furious because they thought the lack of statistics would hurt their sons chances for post season awards. Lost in their thinking was the number of those deflections that resulted in lost possessions and 50 / 50 balls that had to be contested  to secure possession. Being first to the ball simply isn't good enough if your play on the ball is not meant to gain and maintain possession.

 

Another coaching phrase used often in our camps and clinics is, "We want game watchers, not ball watchers."  As I watched last night's match I was struck by how "active play" consisted of 2 or 3 players from each team in the area of the ball. The other 16 - 18 players were largely spectating. This is no way to play simple soccer!  In fact, being a ball watcher increases the problems on both the individual and collective basis - it creates more, and more difficult, problems to solve than does being an actively involved game watcher.

 

Ball movement is predicated on player movement.

- Coach Brown -

 

Players who camp with us know this expression well. There are often light hearted chuckles from former players / campers when they hear me inform others of this truth of the game. It is a knowing and appreciative chuckle. They have been there, done that and now understand its significance.  The appreciation is for the fact that when ball watching or spectating on the field the process can be described as thinking without acting.

 

Acting without thinking

 

and

 

Thinking without acting

 

produce the same results

 

In either case the athlete is self-inflicting pressure or creating more and unnecessary problems to be solved by himself and his teammates. Neither is an acceptable behavior or pattern of play if we want to play this simple game in a simple manner.

 

Failing to prepare properly is preparing to fail.

 

We think of this in terms of how we practice, how we train, how we warm up before a training session or a match.  It also applies to every gained possession, every touch, every pass or shot. The player and his team must have a plan for play.  Soccer is a beautiful game when played simply. Playing simply is all bout your approach to solving the problems presented to you in the game. If you are well prepared, have studied the game instead of focusing mainly on the ball, your chances for successfully solving those problems increases exponentially. 

Creative Problem Solving: Goal Scoring Edition.

I love it when players find creative ways to solve the problems they encounter on the field of play.

 

This is crazy!

 

 

 

Only those who attempt the absurd

 

will achieve the impossible.

 

GREAT GOAL!