After our first season in Premier league, Les Bleus are Champion for their League. For our first tournament, we went to Topeka and finished second.
It was an incredible season!
Thank you all.
It was an incredible season!
Thank you all.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Comments during a game
By primarily coaching the team game coaches are teaching the predictable. It is a disciplined rote approach to developing players. Players who use only one and two touches have to be programmed to get and give the ball very quickly. There is much to admired in a quick incisive passing game but ball sharing and player interaction should no come before, or at the expense of, developing individual creativity and deception. In life the complete individual goes from dependent to independent to interdependent, to self-centered leadership and finally to mentor ship. As we can see independence clearly comes before interdependence. Yet most soccer coaches put the interdependent stage, team game, above the independent stage, development of a great individual dribblers and finisher. It should be obvious that the greatest players in team sport history developed the independent skills, dribbling and shooting, before the interdependent skills, receiving and passing.
So "by yourself" means that the player can beat an opponent or create space with a fake will penetrate more often. Critics of this method claim that creativity is developed at the expense of the team.
I believe that until the kid doesn't have a confidence on his/her skills to beat an opponent on 1 V 1 that doesn't make sense to make a pass.
"A team needs to be a solid unit, but like most Brazilian players, my instinct are to express myself, to get forward adn play with panache. That is my blood. For me, technique and intelligence are more vital than physical strength"
Robinho
So "by yourself" means that the player can beat an opponent or create space with a fake will penetrate more often. Critics of this method claim that creativity is developed at the expense of the team.
I believe that until the kid doesn't have a confidence on his/her skills to beat an opponent on 1 V 1 that doesn't make sense to make a pass.
"A team needs to be a solid unit, but like most Brazilian players, my instinct are to express myself, to get forward adn play with panache. That is my blood. For me, technique and intelligence are more vital than physical strength"
Robinho
Friday, October 3, 2008
Weekly Les Bleus News
Philosophy and Commitment
As independent coach, I am trying to establish my own culture free from local club politics. Families involved in youth soccer are being asked to pay a lot of money, travel a lot and we don’t even sure that the coach will develop the player.
MOTIVATION
As today, our kids are young and need to get the proper techniques in soccer. We are still developing a player. Players must love the game and want to play for themselves not their parents or siblings. Players and parents should appreciate that to fulfill individual and team potential it will require a willingness to learn, a commitment to practice, and a desire to work harder than our opponents. Players should acquire the right technique before the age of 12-14 years old. After it is too late to correct it. It is almost like golf!
MEASURING PROGRESS
Short term success will not be measured by winning games, or scoring goals. Individual skills, proper technique used at the right time, effort and combativity will create a complete athlete. The team will learn a style of passing, movement and team possession play that will require a great deal of thought and patience and that will create complete all round players.
Finally
Have fun practicing and playing together
Help each player reach their full potential
Develop individuals who respect each other, rules, officials and opponents
Create well balance players who understand the game
Develop a positive and supportive parental group who have fun together
As independent coach, I am trying to establish my own culture free from local club politics. Families involved in youth soccer are being asked to pay a lot of money, travel a lot and we don’t even sure that the coach will develop the player.
MOTIVATION
As today, our kids are young and need to get the proper techniques in soccer. We are still developing a player. Players must love the game and want to play for themselves not their parents or siblings. Players and parents should appreciate that to fulfill individual and team potential it will require a willingness to learn, a commitment to practice, and a desire to work harder than our opponents. Players should acquire the right technique before the age of 12-14 years old. After it is too late to correct it. It is almost like golf!
MEASURING PROGRESS
Short term success will not be measured by winning games, or scoring goals. Individual skills, proper technique used at the right time, effort and combativity will create a complete athlete. The team will learn a style of passing, movement and team possession play that will require a great deal of thought and patience and that will create complete all round players.
Finally
Have fun practicing and playing together
Help each player reach their full potential
Develop individuals who respect each other, rules, officials and opponents
Create well balance players who understand the game
Develop a positive and supportive parental group who have fun together
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Relax
Relax...
Sam’s Blog will be a weekly addition to the US Youth Soccer Blog. Sam Snow is the Director of Coaching Education for US Youth Soccer.
While observing youth matches over the weekend I was reminded of the over-coaching that so many youth coaches do during a match. Micromanaging a soccer game is very difficult to do as the action changes so fast that by the time a coach finishes a sentence of instruction the situation has changed. The ball has moved and so have all of the players, so the information is likely now useless. A coach yelling out general reminders, such as move up to support or recover to defend, is fine. It is the step-by-step instruction coming from coaches and many spectators does that is in fact harming the players.
With young players, 12-years-old or younger, the comments made are actually a mental distraction. This means the player no longer is focusing on the match but instead is trying to hear and act upon what is being yelled by the adults. Move this to the teenage level of play and now the tactical reaction by the players is too slow.
If they have come to rely on instructions from the touchline then they must be able to hear the instructions, filter out the extraneous parental comments from the coach’s comments, process the information, make a decision and then act upon it.Odds are very high that this process is too slow for that player to now make an impact on the match.
Players must be able to think for themselves in order to act fast enough in a match. The player who is hindered by the coach to rely upon the coach during a match is doomed to never be more than a reaction player. A reaction player is the one who just reacts to what just happened.
We want the American player to be an anticipation player. This is a player who can read the game and can then anticipate what may happen next. This is the player who can think one or two moves ahead of the action. This is a player who is now more likely to become an impact player!When a coach yells frequently during a match the coach then doesn’t know if the players are communicating among themselves. That intra-team communication is crucial to success. Players that do not talk to one another will always be one step behind the opposition. A coach who is quiet during the majority of the match is one who can hear
IF the players are talking.Then the coach can asses what the players are saying. Is the talk positive and tactically useful? If not then the coach can address that to a small extent at half-time or the end of the match and then more thoroughly in the next training session. Some coaches who make the change from over-coaching to a match appropriate level of coaching will find initially that the players do not talk because they are not accustomed to doing so. The coach had been doing all of the talking and the players were largely silent.Now that the coach is saying less, the players need to fill in the blanks and most will not be in the habit. Here the coach must show patience and allow the confidence to speak up during a match to grow with the players. This begins with the coach saying little during the scrimmage at practice so that players may take the lead in communication. Too many of our players do not speak up during a match, but many have not been able to get a word in edgewise over the monologue from the coach.
So here’s the bottom line… I don't think being quiet is good neither. But I realized that it is impossible to resolve everything during a game. That is my job to encourage them, motivated them and push them during a game but to try to coach during a game, it is too late in my eyes.
What do you think?
Sam’s Blog will be a weekly addition to the US Youth Soccer Blog. Sam Snow is the Director of Coaching Education for US Youth Soccer.
While observing youth matches over the weekend I was reminded of the over-coaching that so many youth coaches do during a match. Micromanaging a soccer game is very difficult to do as the action changes so fast that by the time a coach finishes a sentence of instruction the situation has changed. The ball has moved and so have all of the players, so the information is likely now useless. A coach yelling out general reminders, such as move up to support or recover to defend, is fine. It is the step-by-step instruction coming from coaches and many spectators does that is in fact harming the players.
With young players, 12-years-old or younger, the comments made are actually a mental distraction. This means the player no longer is focusing on the match but instead is trying to hear and act upon what is being yelled by the adults. Move this to the teenage level of play and now the tactical reaction by the players is too slow.
If they have come to rely on instructions from the touchline then they must be able to hear the instructions, filter out the extraneous parental comments from the coach’s comments, process the information, make a decision and then act upon it.Odds are very high that this process is too slow for that player to now make an impact on the match.
Players must be able to think for themselves in order to act fast enough in a match. The player who is hindered by the coach to rely upon the coach during a match is doomed to never be more than a reaction player. A reaction player is the one who just reacts to what just happened.
We want the American player to be an anticipation player. This is a player who can read the game and can then anticipate what may happen next. This is the player who can think one or two moves ahead of the action. This is a player who is now more likely to become an impact player!When a coach yells frequently during a match the coach then doesn’t know if the players are communicating among themselves. That intra-team communication is crucial to success. Players that do not talk to one another will always be one step behind the opposition. A coach who is quiet during the majority of the match is one who can hear
IF the players are talking.Then the coach can asses what the players are saying. Is the talk positive and tactically useful? If not then the coach can address that to a small extent at half-time or the end of the match and then more thoroughly in the next training session. Some coaches who make the change from over-coaching to a match appropriate level of coaching will find initially that the players do not talk because they are not accustomed to doing so. The coach had been doing all of the talking and the players were largely silent.Now that the coach is saying less, the players need to fill in the blanks and most will not be in the habit. Here the coach must show patience and allow the confidence to speak up during a match to grow with the players. This begins with the coach saying little during the scrimmage at practice so that players may take the lead in communication. Too many of our players do not speak up during a match, but many have not been able to get a word in edgewise over the monologue from the coach.
So here’s the bottom line… I don't think being quiet is good neither. But I realized that it is impossible to resolve everything during a game. That is my job to encourage them, motivated them and push them during a game but to try to coach during a game, it is too late in my eyes.
What do you think?
