Second practice report
Our second soccer practice consisted of us again using our time to test the players, teach them some basic skills, and at the same time try to make sure we were having fun where it made sense. We are still out of pads and practice time is 2 hours. It was in the low 90s with around 80% humidity so quite hot.
Second practice report
We were able to get our dynamic warm ups and angle tackling down to about 12 minutes, we’ll get that down to about 10 minutes by the end of next week. The short training clinic for our trainers really helped as most of them have a pretty good idea of the exercises we are using. I’m still having trouble keeping up fast enough. At the rate at which I train, I can do 2-3 times the number of repetitions that the other trainers do during an exercise. We have to improve that, but it seems to happen every year and is fixed in weeks 2 and 3.
Coaches also need to do a better job of seamlessly holding kids accountable to training points that kids can control. I’m still rotating from station to station to run each for a few minutes so the trainers understand the correct pace and perfection we need. Like many coaches, some come from a “practice makes perfect” mentality, when in reality it is “perfect practice makes perfect” that develops good youth soccer teams.
After our approach angle dynamics and shape, we set up the following stations:
Splash Block (to landing mat): To teach proper blocking technique, acceleration through contact, and to help us assess aggressiveness.
Instant Progression Drill – We didn’t get as far as we wanted in Practice 1, so we worked on the transfer portion and “tight run” in this replay.
First Two Step Block Drill – Primarily an offensive line drill, this helped get our boys attuned to how our base blocking steps work. It is also used as an evaluation tool to determine the listening skills and quickness of offensive linemen.
3-Slot Freeze and Fit Challenge Tackling Drill – Just like our regular 3-Slot Challenge Tackling drill, but running back and tackler snap at the point of contact. It is used to assess quickness and lateral aggressiveness, as well as to teach tacklers to attack the line of scrimmage when tackling.
Rabbit Chase Racing – To hide some conditioning, have some fun and help us determine the relative speed of our players for position placement.
We then had everyone go through the Gauntlet Drill to help us understand the heart and toughness of those we are seeking for the various running back positions. Of course, we want our shooting linemen to perform well in this drill as well. I was disappointed that several players I was looking at for the fullback and blocking positions didn’t run with much authority in the younger team’s group. We don’t have a single descendant candidate for the blocker position and with very low numbers on this team (17) there isn’t much to choose from with only 3 having played soccer before.
The one player who seemed like a good candidate to block back won’t accelerate through contact, even after lots of spur and landing mat drills. The old nickname “looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane” can be applied to this player, something we often see in youth soccer. This looks like a very tough challenge for the younger group this year, sorely short on numbers, heart and experience.
The older team is the complete opposite, but with low numbers and by far the smallest team in the league and only 19 kids also presents challenges. We usually run 24 players, unfortunately with our success here over the last 3 years and only losing one game in that time period, many must feel they have to be a decent player to play for us and don’t bother to sign up. That’s certainly not the case, if someone came to watch us play they would see a lot of weaker kids on the team and playing. While for our younger team, I’m not sure why the numbers are lower, this is the first time the 3rd and 4th graders have been separated and we have a lot of very small and weak players on this team. . Nazi soccer moms are getting some of the kids to play flag football at younger ages. We even had a 130 pound fifth grader sign up and we were told he’s playing flag football this fall, what a waste.
After the gauntlet drill, we review offense, base formation, splits, lineup, and the perfection we require in lineup and stances. We put an offense on the field by sitting in their positions. We review and teach the numbering system according to the book to the whole group. This included many tests for each segment with the players touching the head of the designated ball carrier for each play, and then touching the ground where the ball carrier would run the ball. As with everything we do, we teach and test it in a progression. Our vets were perfect with him and about 80% of the new kids got him pretty good.
The younger kids got to watch our veterans zip through the Sainted Six football plays of our offense. We didn’t expect the new players to know what they were going to do yet, as we have yet to determine the positions. Just wanted to give you a 5 minute glimpse of what the Base Series and offense would look like in 2 weeks with some focused soccer practices.
We finished with the slam dunk game as detailed in the book. We did it with hand shields instead of tackles and put our best players on the shields as “defenders”. This game helps teach leverage, staying low and using consistent foot movement. It also helps coaches assess lateral quickness, heart, desire and determine which players dislike or love contact. We had several pleasant surprises in this exercise and also one or two big disappointments. One of our little sophomores on the senior team who has excellent speed, seems to be maturing and has become more aggressive. You often see that with the sophomores, they seem to make the biggest gains from year 1 to year 2. That’s why impacted teams full of freshmen like our youngest team often struggle quite a bit.
We have a pretty good idea of where all the pieces fit together, with plenty of holes in the younger team. My DC for the senior team emailed me this morning with their depth chart of who would play where and the kids are right where I would have put them with the exception of a backup. He has been studying the book and I was very pleased that we independently came to almost the same conclusions about player placement. Of course, the games and evaluations we do make it very clear who should play what based on the detailed position requirements written in the book.
We hand out gear at the end of soccer practice and will go 3 days a week for 2 hours each week next week in full pads.
For 150 free tips and ideas to practice youth soccer: Soccer Plays
Copyright 2007 Cisar Management and http://winningyouthfootball.com republishing this article are parts of it excluding this paragraph and links are a copyright infringement. Repost, just include the links.