I watched a lot of soccer this weekend. Some at a college showcase event and other at a training session for club athletes. One particular match at the college showcase event featured two excellent U15 girls teams in a 1-1 draw. The talent level was way above average as were the collective soccer IQ on these two teams. Such a joy to watch really good soccer in a club setting. This was most definitely not direct kick & run soccer. The ball was rarely in the air. Lots of possession and lots of team defending. In my opinion, a beautiful game! It was quite evident these girls understood the "why?" behind their actions.
Later in the weekend I observed a training session with a group of U14 - U16 boys. The exercises they were put through were very good to excellent insofar as they went. The drills were explained and demonstrated so all participants could perform what was being asked of them, but it was never put in context as to "why" they were being asked to learn these skills. About half way through the session things moved from a focus primarily on individual skills to a focus on combination passing. One led smoothly into the other with individual skills just practiced being incorporated into the combination passing exercise.
The more astute players, I am sure, recognized the progressions of exercises all tied together. Others, I am equally as sure, were quite clueless about this aspect of the training. That was part of the issue I had with the guys conducting the session. The other part I took exception to was the instructors allowing for improper touches on the ball throughout the combination passing exercises with no attempt to correct or teach the proper way to execute those drills. Because a clear picture was not painted of how the exercise applied to in-game situations the players just went through the pattern of the exercise without emphasis on the proper techniques required to execute the pattern successfully.
The net result of an activity allowed to go on in this manner is the reinforcement of a lot of bad habits the can effectively negate any successful completion of the individual skill performed in the warm up portion of the session sans any form of pressure. And to be clear, there was no active pressure in the combination passing sequences being worked on. Only passive pressure was applied through being asked to successfully coordinate movements with a teammate. The technique of the movements required were never fully explained resulting in the freedom to move very inefficiently thereby allowing the effectiveness of the drill being performed to be compromised. As I commented to the another coach observing with me, "they are practicing poor habits which someone else (me as the U16 coach) is going to have to break down and correct.
I have wrote of the dangers of coaching courses and clinics before. Too many coaches go to these events and come away enamored of the drills or exercises they witness there. They return to their teams and immediately introduce these new drills to their own teams. Kind of. They can get their teams to perform the correct patterns but the exercise never runs as smoothly as it should. The reason for this is found in a lack of understanding of the purpose of the drill in the first place. The details. Why are we asking players to perform this drill? How does it apply to the game. As coaches, we must paint a complete picture for our athletes. This has to include an understanding of why we ask them to do something and an insistence that what we are asking them to do is done a specific way.
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Showing posts with label soccer drills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soccer drills. Show all posts
Sunday
Coaches' Clinics vs Coaching Courses
When I first turned my coaching attention towards soccer over 20 years ago I knew I needed help to do justice to the young players placed in my charge. Although I had coached various sports for a number of years I possessed a rudimentary knowledge of soccer in general. So, I set about educating myself about soccer.
One of the first things I did was to attend a "clinic" presented by the local high school coach. This clinic was part of a coaches meeting for the local recreational league and lasted all of about 30 minutes. Thus armed, I began my career as a soccer coach. We won the league championship that year with a 6-0-1 record! This had little to do with my coaching acumen and much to do with the fact the biggest, fastest, strongest player in the league played for our team. As a coach, I knew to get the ball to the kid who couldn't be stopped.
What I did not know was how to teach technique. So I went looking for that information. I looked at the local library for books on soccer - there weren't many. So I went to local books stores to look for books only to discover there were none. Not a single book on soccer. I searched out stores that specialized in soccer and found The Soccer House in Ft. Wayne Indiana. It was, at that time, a mom and pop store offering all things soccer. They didn't have many books or videos but what they did have was a gold mine to me! From there I learned some of the large national chain book stores carried soccer books and videos, As the Internet was just becoming a thing, I learned about sites like Reed Swain, Championship Productions and Kwik Goal which all had educational offerings, As I have reported before, today I have an extensive library of soccer books and videos.
I also learned of coaching courses which I was greatly excited about. I thought, what a great way to learn how to (coach) teach soccer! The first caching course I attended was the State Goalkeeping Course offered by the NSCAA. It was to this date the best soccer coaching course I have ever taken. Tony Waiters, Tony DiCicco and John Murphy were the clinicians. Murphy remains my favorite clinician of all time. I learned so much from their presentations. My next venture into the realm of coaching courses was a USSF course which I still view as the greatest waste of money ever spent on soccer education. The USSF course tested what I already knew. I was not a novice coach, so had an understanding of how to coach. What I needed to learn about soccer was what techniques to coach and how to teach the properly. I was almost completely out of luck in this regard with the USSF course.
I understand today's NSCAA and USSF offerings, at least at the entry levels, do a much better job of teaching coaching fundamentals before testing your knowledge. They also do a better job of instructing how to teach the fundamentals of the game. They have listened to complaints and suggestions from the grass roots of the game. Kudos to both organizations.
Knowing what I do now, I wish I had availed myself of the coaching clinics that were available to me. Quite frankly, I confused the pursuit of knowledge with the pursuit of Diplomas and Licenses. I have numerous of both and ... well, so what?
I have not attended a coaching course in five years. The last being the NSCAA High School Diploma Course in Georgia which was quite good. Probably second only to the State Goal Keeping course referenced earlier in this article. I did help host an NSCAA Level III coaching course last summer as the DOC for a local club. Our coaches needed diplomas / licenses to meet league coaching requirements so it had to be done. It was a decent course focused more on how to prepare a practice plan and what to present in that practice plan. Good information for the level of coach targeted.
I have continued to attend (and conduct) coaching clinics. Yesterday I attend a small and short but sweet clinic at Ohio Northern University. It was a one day clinic consisting of 3 sessions. I came away with perhaps a dozen different things I will be trying out in the camps I conduct and with the team I will coach next fall. There is some different nomenclature that I believe will benefit the players I work with to better understand the input I am providing them. Despite specializing inn goalkeeping instruction for two decades I saw a different exercise I think is practical and functional that I will give a try. And I rediscovered a tactical consideration that I believe the teams I work with might benefit form. It was a productive use of 4.5 hours on a wintry day.
Today, I view the NSCAA and USSF as necessary evils in the sense most leagues are demanding coaches be "licensed" before they are permitted to coach. Real education in the game remains in the purview of coaching clinics.
At coaching clinics many coaches become engrossed in the drill or exercise being presented. Excitement builds and they want to rush right out to try out the new drill on their own teams. I do not have a problem with this as long as the coach understands the reasons for having the team perform the exercise - the coaching points involved. The good clinicians explain these things before, during and after their presentations. It is important to grasp these things otherwise we turn it into an effort to train monkeys, so to speak.
The elite clinics, in my opinion, will follow a day's practice plan. The warm up, individual, small group and eventual full-team or game phase of practice will be presented by a variety of clinicians. There is a flow and structure based around the theme of the sessions. A picture is painted for the coaches in attendance of what a well thought out and organized training session should look like. The exercises and accompanying coaching points are icing on the cake. The different ways of organizing a team and the nomenclature used are bonuses.
At yesterday's clinic they provided us with a nicely done written synopsis of the what was to be presented, I still ended up with 7 pages of my own notes. Most of my notes are of ideas the clinicians and or the exercises they presented prompted in my own mind. I diagrammed some variations of the exercises they present that popped into my mind while watching theirs presentations. I jotted down terms and phrases I think may convey my own ideas to teams better than what I have been using. And as noted above, I will be borrowing an exercise or two to use with my teams, if not in there entirety then certainly in there general intent. Hey, it's what coaches do!
So, my message to you is to know he difference between a coaching course and a coaching clinic. My personal experience has been coaching clinics are far more valuable learning experiences. They have met and continue to meet my needs better that coaching courses that award diplomas or licenses based on what you already know.
One of the first things I did was to attend a "clinic" presented by the local high school coach. This clinic was part of a coaches meeting for the local recreational league and lasted all of about 30 minutes. Thus armed, I began my career as a soccer coach. We won the league championship that year with a 6-0-1 record! This had little to do with my coaching acumen and much to do with the fact the biggest, fastest, strongest player in the league played for our team. As a coach, I knew to get the ball to the kid who couldn't be stopped.
What I did not know was how to teach technique. So I went looking for that information. I looked at the local library for books on soccer - there weren't many. So I went to local books stores to look for books only to discover there were none. Not a single book on soccer. I searched out stores that specialized in soccer and found The Soccer House in Ft. Wayne Indiana. It was, at that time, a mom and pop store offering all things soccer. They didn't have many books or videos but what they did have was a gold mine to me! From there I learned some of the large national chain book stores carried soccer books and videos, As the Internet was just becoming a thing, I learned about sites like Reed Swain, Championship Productions and Kwik Goal which all had educational offerings, As I have reported before, today I have an extensive library of soccer books and videos.
I also learned of coaching courses which I was greatly excited about. I thought, what a great way to learn how to (coach) teach soccer! The first caching course I attended was the State Goalkeeping Course offered by the NSCAA. It was to this date the best soccer coaching course I have ever taken. Tony Waiters, Tony DiCicco and John Murphy were the clinicians. Murphy remains my favorite clinician of all time. I learned so much from their presentations. My next venture into the realm of coaching courses was a USSF course which I still view as the greatest waste of money ever spent on soccer education. The USSF course tested what I already knew. I was not a novice coach, so had an understanding of how to coach. What I needed to learn about soccer was what techniques to coach and how to teach the properly. I was almost completely out of luck in this regard with the USSF course.
I understand today's NSCAA and USSF offerings, at least at the entry levels, do a much better job of teaching coaching fundamentals before testing your knowledge. They also do a better job of instructing how to teach the fundamentals of the game. They have listened to complaints and suggestions from the grass roots of the game. Kudos to both organizations.
Knowing what I do now, I wish I had availed myself of the coaching clinics that were available to me. Quite frankly, I confused the pursuit of knowledge with the pursuit of Diplomas and Licenses. I have numerous of both and ... well, so what?
I have not attended a coaching course in five years. The last being the NSCAA High School Diploma Course in Georgia which was quite good. Probably second only to the State Goal Keeping course referenced earlier in this article. I did help host an NSCAA Level III coaching course last summer as the DOC for a local club. Our coaches needed diplomas / licenses to meet league coaching requirements so it had to be done. It was a decent course focused more on how to prepare a practice plan and what to present in that practice plan. Good information for the level of coach targeted.
I have continued to attend (and conduct) coaching clinics. Yesterday I attend a small and short but sweet clinic at Ohio Northern University. It was a one day clinic consisting of 3 sessions. I came away with perhaps a dozen different things I will be trying out in the camps I conduct and with the team I will coach next fall. There is some different nomenclature that I believe will benefit the players I work with to better understand the input I am providing them. Despite specializing inn goalkeeping instruction for two decades I saw a different exercise I think is practical and functional that I will give a try. And I rediscovered a tactical consideration that I believe the teams I work with might benefit form. It was a productive use of 4.5 hours on a wintry day.
Today, I view the NSCAA and USSF as necessary evils in the sense most leagues are demanding coaches be "licensed" before they are permitted to coach. Real education in the game remains in the purview of coaching clinics.
At coaching clinics many coaches become engrossed in the drill or exercise being presented. Excitement builds and they want to rush right out to try out the new drill on their own teams. I do not have a problem with this as long as the coach understands the reasons for having the team perform the exercise - the coaching points involved. The good clinicians explain these things before, during and after their presentations. It is important to grasp these things otherwise we turn it into an effort to train monkeys, so to speak.
The elite clinics, in my opinion, will follow a day's practice plan. The warm up, individual, small group and eventual full-team or game phase of practice will be presented by a variety of clinicians. There is a flow and structure based around the theme of the sessions. A picture is painted for the coaches in attendance of what a well thought out and organized training session should look like. The exercises and accompanying coaching points are icing on the cake. The different ways of organizing a team and the nomenclature used are bonuses.
At yesterday's clinic they provided us with a nicely done written synopsis of the what was to be presented, I still ended up with 7 pages of my own notes. Most of my notes are of ideas the clinicians and or the exercises they presented prompted in my own mind. I diagrammed some variations of the exercises they present that popped into my mind while watching theirs presentations. I jotted down terms and phrases I think may convey my own ideas to teams better than what I have been using. And as noted above, I will be borrowing an exercise or two to use with my teams, if not in there entirety then certainly in there general intent. Hey, it's what coaches do!
So, my message to you is to know he difference between a coaching course and a coaching clinic. My personal experience has been coaching clinics are far more valuable learning experiences. They have met and continue to meet my needs better that coaching courses that award diplomas or licenses based on what you already know.
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