Let Players Touch the Ball

As a coach and spectator of many games, there is very few things less settling than seeing players who receive a ball in a game, and their automatic reaction is to kick the ball away! This is very frustrating to watch because the majority of times these players have many different options to either dribble or to make a pass to help maintain possession of the ball, yet this doesn't seem to happen as often because often time players are afraid to make a mistake or even worse they lack the confidence to control, dribble, and take players on because they weren't taught these fundamentals from a young age.

A way to avoid this in players and helping them build their confidence on the ball can start at a young (u4-u12) and it comes down to coaching. At the younger ages it is very important that players are doing things that constantly involve them having a ball at their feet, or leaning to control a ball in many different passions, so that when it comes to games they are comfortable to deal with that situations. From the ages of u4-u7 every player should have a ball at their feet during training sessions with the focus being on using different surfaces of the foot, different movements of the feet such as turning, step-overs, stopping and accelerating, throwing the ball up in the air and having them control it with other parts of their body (bringing it down with their chest, feet, thighs, or head) will help build their confidence of getting the ball when they face such situations during games. As the players get a bit older (u8-u12) drills that focus on players dribbling at defenders and then taking them on trying to beat them should be encouraged. Things such as receiving the ball with their back to goal and a defender on them, which then you encourage the player to try to turn and beat that defender, receiving the ball  going directly at the defender trying to beat them, and even teaching players how to dribble out of the back because for defenders that is a great asset to have if they have the confidence to join in the attack or start the attack in a manner other than just punting a hail-marry up the pitch.  Even as the kids get older (depending on how many training sessions they have a week) one should be completely focused on ball mastery.

With that being said one of the most important things I've observed as a coach to help change this attitude of fear players may have is during different types of games at the younger ages is instead of putting a maximum amount of touches a player may take, coaches should set a minimum amount of touches. With me I often like to set the minimum amount of touches for players at 3. The reasoning behind this is so that the player can receive the pass, take a touch with their head up, and then make a decision by seeing the field as to whether they should dribble, make a pass or have a shot. I find this to be very successful as players tend to become more comfortable with the ball, and as mentioned before (and most importantly) they observe the field in front of them to make their decision. If they realize they have space to take the ball no matter their position (including keepers) should be utilizing that space to go forward. If they have been taught there is nothing wrong with taking a player on and they have had a lot of practice of doing  so you will see the confidence build in them.  

Sessions or Actually Coaching?

As some of you may already know, I just successfully completed my provincial pre-b assessment this past Sunday. It was unique as it was just myself and two other individuals (who I help coach the u12 boys program with) who were in the course. The course was hosted by Huw Morris and he was aided by Terrol Russell. Although I was successful with the course, I was still able to learn a lot from these two individuals as they had a wealth of knowledge to pass on to myself and the other two coaches.

One of the most interesting comments that myself and the other two coaches taking the course took in was made and then demonstrated by Terrol, and what he said was "There are many coaches out there who can run sessions, but they don't actually coach". When I thought about this, and then Terrol in action, it became evident what he meant by that. When a lot of coaches go to run a session, they have their drills prepared, and then all they do is just go out and run those drills, and if the drill isn't going well they then just make corrections to that specific drill.

What Terrol showed is that simply explaining the drill and then carrying out is beneficial to players often times as coaches we over look a lot of things that are going wrong. As drills are going on, us coaches are often quiet and watch the drill with very minimal coaching taking place during the drill (instructions being given are different from actually coaching). What he also also asked us to do was get the players more involved in the training session by constantly asking them questions. Often times as coaches when running sessions, we spend our time just giving instructions to players instead of actually testing their knowledge. I know when I was working with my former team at North Mississauga along with other teams in our COE program I would ask players questions about things they think they could change to enhance the drill, but Terrol showed us how we can ask these questions in a better manner.

Terrol was able to incorporate form of coaching right away into his training session during the warm up. He had the players dribbling around in a small area and as they were working he was vocal and motivating to the players. He then stopped them, and did something that a lot of coaches don't do... Most coaches have a tendency of just telling players what do for the drill and may offer a demonstration of what to do. What Terrol did though was instead of telling the players how to change the dribbling technique that they were doing, he asked them "how many parts of the feet can we dribble the ball with?" After the answer was given (5), he then again asked a player what was a technique they could do to incorporate 2 parts of the foot to dribble, and as the answer came he then got them to continue in that fashion. While the players were performing that task, instead of stopping them get them to use their other foot, he was coaching them and told them to incorporate both feet. Although it seemed simple to do so, many coaches (myself included) wouldn't take this approach, but instead would stop the drill completely and then tell them to use their other foot, this kept the flow and intensity of the the drill going.

Although Terrol only briefly ran two quick drills, the intensity and change from how the majority of coaches tend to run their sessions was very evident. This was good for me to learn as I believe that taking this approach to my training sessions from now on will not only help me, but will also help maximize the development of the players that I am working with. I look to implement this style of coaching into my next session this coming Saturday morning, where I want to become more of a coach than an instructor.