Friday, March 2, 2012

U13 - We need a game

On Thursday, our two U13 teams trained together for the first time since we split the teams up.  We mixed the boys together on two teams and let them play.

We used the session to gently guide their way to proper shape and positioning and keep the ball moving. But one thing was painfully obvious, we have to get our boys a game to get them back into soccer mode.

They've done well training this much, but they are young and a game would pick them up and get the intensity back into training.

Soccer purists will tell you it's very important to train a lot, and they're right.  But young players also want to play and it's good for the coach to perform a diagnostic type of evaluation to determine the path of the next set of training sessions.

We have two more training sessions before the boys head out on March break.   My intention is to have the proper registration complete so we can have some indoor competition and get one or two games under our belts.

We are also working with boys who are at the end of their winter sport seasons and we have to be conscious of that.   Hockey and basketball playoffs are underway so their training schedules have ramped up accordingly.

I am trying to keep what's going on in mind and trying to stay positive with the boys.  I do get short with them on occasion when they are not focused during technical work and I need to work on that.  I always try to provide as much useful information as I can, but I like technical work to be done correctly and the loosy-goosy attitudes can come out in the small sided games.  The season is still a few months away so the coaches have to ensure we ramp up the intensity accordingly.

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