Friday, December 2, 2011

Thursday Clinic 5 of 8

On Thursday nights I deliver a clinic to boys and girls U12-14. There are up to 30 players in attendance and we run this on the indfoor field at the Welland Soccer Club. Most aspire to play travel soccer the following summer. The skill level spectrum of this group is very wide.

The way I have this organized is:
-Warm-up related to the session
-Introduce or rehearse a concept
-4v4 games
-Introduce another concept progressing from the first
-4v4 games
-7v7 full field to finish off

Last night we reviewed and stressed first touch away from pressure and opening-up when receiving. It's basic, but many do not do this as a matter of habit.

The gentlemen who work with me on this are great guys. I stress to them to let the kids play, only coach what they see and try to keep the coaching focused on the topic of the night. it's very tempting to coach everything, but that kills the session. Too much talking, too much info, not enough playing.

If it was my team specifically I would do more technical work but these players are all training with their respective teams already.

Young players rehearse and develop specific techniques but very few of them actually know how to "play". My goal for this 8 session clinic was to give them more ideas to try during games.

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