2021

Coaching

What We Learned About Designing Player Centered Sessions

After a month of much discussion and analysis on how to design Player Centered Sessions, we found several valuable concepts that can be incorporated to the way we design sessions.

In simple words, if we want to discuss designing player centered sessions, we need to start by answering two questions: What’s a player centered approach? And why is it important?

What’s A Player Centered Approach?

In words of Juan Gonzalez Mendia, Director of Sudamerica Coaching (watch the full webinar here):

A player centered approach is about putting the participant at the center of the learning process. It’s about the decision making. Most of the environments in sports in the last 20 years have been related to education, and in the last 50 or 60 years (if not more) education has been related to somebody on a step, literally, telling the participants what they need to learn. If they were lucky, they would also hear ‘why’ they need to learn it. A participant centered approach is the opposite. This is a real story that serves as an example. I started teaching at a school years ago, in 2008, and the classroom had a step, so in my first week I turned that step into a stage. I moved my desk to the back of the room, and we turned the step into a stage in which the student would perform, express himself/herself, or present”.

As you can infer from this passage, in a participant centered approach the role of the teacher (coach) relates more to facilitating than it does to instructing.

Why Is It Important?

A Player Centered Approach is vital for us in it’s alignment with our core belief that the game is the teacher (or the best learning environment), and therefore the coach works as a facilitator. Quoting The Heart Of The Rush:

At Rush Soccer, we believe that the game is the teacher. It is in the complexity of the game where skills and creativity arise and develop, not in isolated, mechanized situations. These last can introduce a concept or a technique but can never be the core or the proposed channel for learning. It is in the game that the player discovers solutions and creativity arises, and it is the role of the coach to facilitate that environment and guide, when needed, through that discovery. It’s participant centered, not coach centered.

Building off of that base, the question that arises is how the Rush Way materializes this player centered approach.

The answer relies in the application of The Rush Blue Thread, a set of eight connected principles pursued in every session to ensure a top player centered learning environment is facilitated. That’s what was discussed by a panel on March 11th, when Pablo Toledo, Rush Soccer’s Coach & Player Development Director, was joined by several Rush Technical Directors including President Tim Schulz, Coach Education Consultant Megan McCormick, and Rush Canada’s Technical Director Slobodan Pavlovic, among others (Click HERE to Watch!).

“The question we were asking ourselves was: Knowing and respecting that every Rush club works on a different landscape and we are 100 clubs, how can we still be 1 and provide a similar player centered learning experience? That’s how and why we thought of these eight principles to design and execute training sessions that we call The Rush Blue Thread”, Pablo explained.

The Rush Blue Thread principles are:

“If we could get every Rush coach to do this, we would be miles ahead of any other club, maybe in the world”
Megan McCormick, Rush Soccer’s Coach Education Consultant.

OTHER LEASONS LEARNED ABOUT DESIGNING PLAYER CENTERED TRAINING SESSIONS:

1) Design Activities with Intentional Feedback: “It seems obvious that learning requires clear (and accurate) feedback. We knowing nod our heads when we hear that the more quickly the feedback is given after a decision, the more likely it will “stick”. Many coaches’ first instinct is to begin planning and considering coaching points and verbal information they will give during a session. However, the most consistent and immediate feedback in a training session comes directly from the activities (the game). Thoughtful session planning allows a coach to carefully tune the feedback loop for players, to ensure that the information is clear, accurate, and timely, even when the coach doesn’t verbally reinforce it”, Megan explained in her wonderful article ‘Key Considerations’ (Click HERE to read!).

2) When designing a session, ask yourself: Would I enjoy this? This might seem simple but it roots down to the core of learning. As Juan Gonzalez Mendia said in his last webinar: “For the longest time we thought that fun was important for learning, that if you enjoyed what you were doing you’d learn more and faster. We were suspicious about this, now science has proven it”. If you want to keep your players ‘engaged’ with the topic, observe if the session is enjoyable. Scott Mills spoke about this as well (Click HERE to Watch): “I think that the players respond to that and something they enjoyed it’s also teaching them. That’s the best part”, Scott stated. “We’ve all been kids and -I guess- we all love playing soccer, so imagine for a second that you will be part of the activity and self-reflect on how that session would be enjoyable”.

Russell Earnshaw linked many of these concepts as well in what he summarizes as seeing the session from children’s eyes. Rusty’s story about how he spent a day shadowing a child to understand their perception and feelings around the daily activities he participated in, to conclude that it was a really, really boring day added a bit of humor. “If we are really player centered, then why aren’t the children running lessons and sessions or at least being part of it?”, he wondered during his interview with Chris P. (Click HERE to Watch).

3) Ask players to provide their own objectives/goals for a game, or coach providing objectives: We took this one from Scott Mills, and I struggle to find an even more participant centered idea: “Each of our players have a pentavalent plan and define objectives for short, medium and long term for them. You (coaches) then help them, for example, if one player said ‘I really want to improve my speed and agility’, we will see the design of sessions that suits that goal. We also ask them to set an objective for the match, so we’ll ask them ‘how are you going to achieve that?'”.

4) Plan Your Response to Failure: It’s normal for players to struggle in training. In fact, we expect (and want) some failure to take place. Quoting Juan Mendia again: “If I watched a session and the players were always succeeding, I’d invite the coach to review that session, because something is not working”. The question that really matters is: What will my specific and purposeful response be when the player(s) makes this particular mistake?

5) External Focus of Attention: Megan highlighted this one (note how important we think it is that it is part of the Rush Blue Thread). This is about visual cues. It is our responsibility as coaches to make sure players have the tools to evaluate their own success or failure by observing the external outcome. Without thoughtful guidance, players might rely solely on the final score of the game to judge their performance. As coaches, we are constantly taking in so many visual cues and often leave them out of our verbal feedback. Taking the time to plan how you will help players watch for the things you see as a coach can pay tremendous dividends.

Please note that we are talking about literal things to observe, the focus is in what you can SEE. “Great pressure! Did you see how the attacker kept her head down and wasn’t able to look up?” That could be a great way to teach a young player about distances for the pressuring defender, or “she was able to pick her head up and survey the field which means you need to close more space”. These simple phrases will help the player self-evaluate her action every time she is required to provide pressure.

Using two simple questions before training can help make sure we are aligning a player’s external focus with our own: What actions/behaviors am I trying to teach? And, What specific things can a player SEE if they do this well? If they fail to do this well?

6) Building Mental Engagement & Planning The Conversation (Click HERE to read): Updated coaching education programs have introduced us to guided discovery and the use of questions to share our coaching points. However, the skill (or lack thereof) of crafting and asking questions can dramatically increase (or decrease) player engagement. If we are interested in putting the player at the center of the session, it’s time we all revisit the way we use questions. The goal is to have EVERY player in the session thinking deeply about EVERY question you ask as a coach. A loft goal to be sure but one well within our grasp with the right techniques.

Check the Chart below:

7) Random vs Block Training: We stated at the beginning of this post that a Player Centered Approach has it’s roots in decision making. Sean Connors, our Goalkeeping Global Director, presented as well about how this approach materializes within Goalkeeping specific training. That’s what the Random vs Block Training Webinar was about.

“Block Training is a traditional approach, it’s what you’ll see in most fields. A defined number of repetitions, repeating them over and over, so that the focus is on the execution”, Sean explained (Watch it HERE!). “Random, on the other hand, means different activities, don’t do the same thing twice, and the key is to read the situation, plan the situation and then do. Adding those two steps (reading & planning) is the main difference between Random and Block Training. Random not only focuses on technical execution”, he added.

Below, a brief and informative example of both types of GK training:

“So often we think about ourselves as Goalkeeper coaches training technique and execution, that tends to be the focus. But it doesn’t matter if you can catch a ball if you are not in the right place, if you haven’t made the right choice to catch the ball. That situation has got to become the focus”, Sean stated.

A lot to digest coach, we hope you enjoyed the learning this month. Stay tuned for April’s!

March 30, 2021

Coaching

Player Centered Session Design: Planning the Conversation

This article was written by Megan McCormick, Rush Soccer’s Coach Education Consultant and Lead on the Rush Female Coaches Alliance.

As coaches, we recognize the importance of designing activities that replicate the game and “paint pictures” to help players translate technical skills into well timed actions on the field. I would propose that the planning of “the conversation” between coach and players throughout the session is of equal value. Updated coaching education programs have introduced us to guided discovery and the use of questions to share our coaching points. However, the skill (or lack thereof) of crafting and asking questions can dramatically increase (or decrease) player engagement. If we are interested in putting the player at the center of the session, it’s time we all revisit the way we use questions.

Education expert, Doug Lemov, skillfully explains how to harness the power of questions to increase engagement (and learning) during a session. His blog post on the subject is well worth the 7 minutes of your time.

CLICK TO READ: Building Mental Engagement Among Athletes Through Questioning

The video Lemov highlights in the post above shows a coach well versed in using questions to keep players highly engaged. He is also a coach who clearly planned the questions he would ask and participation techniques he would employ. The goal is to have EVERY player in the session thinking deeply about EVERY question you ask as a coach. A loft goal to be sure but one well within our grasp with the right techniques. The chart below can serve as an introduction to some easy ways to implement these ideas into your own sessions. I would encourage you to choose one or two and give them a try this week in training.

Click HERE to Download the Full Scale Chart.

March 25, 2021

Goalkeeping

Goalkeeper Session Design Approaches: Random vs Block Training

Sean Connors, Rush Soccer’s Global Goalkeeping Director, hosted a very pragmatic and informative Webinar in which he discussed common approaches used by GK Coaches to run their sessions, analyzing Random vs Block in detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzPvOb4acQI&ab_channel=RushSoccer

What do we mean by ‘Player Centered Session Design’? This month’s Educational Campaign focuses on designing sessions based on a player centered development approach. How is that done for goalkeeping training?

In this webinar, Sean Connors, Rush Soccer’s Global Goalkeeping Director, explained and compared the two most common approaches utilized for goalkeeping session designs: Random vs Block Training.

“Random, on the other hand, means different activities, don’t do the same thing twice, and the key is to read the situation, plan the situation and then do. Adding those two steps (reading & planning) is the main difference between Random and Block Training. Random not only focuses on technical execution“, he added.

Below, a brief and informative example of both types of GK training:

“So often we think about ourselves as Goalkeeper coaches training technique and execution, that tends to be the focus. But it doesn’t matter if you can catch a ball if you are not in the right place, if you haven’t made the right choice to catch the ball. That situation has got to become the focus”
Sean Connors

Pablo Toledo, Coach & Player Development Director, joined the discussion and inquired how a goalkeeping session would normally progress within a random approach. The answer came right away: Simple to Complex is fine, but always keeping the decision making aspect included. “I think it allows you to build your warm up as well, because we usually have a limited amount of time. We don’t see the kids every day, so you’ve got to maximize the efficiency when you have the opportunity, but you have to get to a place where they can make decisions, because when you run an activity with decisions, that’s where the communication relationship between a GK Coach and a player can build. If you run a static drill, you don’t ever have the player asking ‘should I’ve stepped forward?’. And when you run an activity with multiple layers, that level of communication is going to spark”, Sean stated.

March 23, 2021

Webinars

8 Tips From Scott Mills To Design, Execute, And Reflect On Training Sessions

Focusing on our Monthly Educational Campaign on Player Centered Session Design, we present eight takeaways from the fantastic Webinar in which Chris P., Rush Soccer’s Developmental Director, discussed with Scott Mills, former Club Coach Officer for the Scottish F.A., ways to plan, analyze and change the way we prepare our sessions.

Designing a Player Centered Training Session can be a challenge. With almost two decades of experience, Scott Mills is an expert on the subject, and shared with us some key insights. His Resume includes a key position on Coaching Education as Club Coach Officer at the Scottish Football Association (Working as a mentor to local coaches in order to up skill and help progress their development. Involves analysis, 1to1 communication, designing and evaluating a curriculum) and Coach at Partick Thistle U17s Youth Academy.

Below, 8 Tips From Scott Mills To Design, Execute And Reflect On Training Sessions:

1) Using another Coach to guide the opposing team during training: When we are executing a session that requires two -or more- sets of players at the same time (for example, defending team versus attacking team), having a second coach will help us concentrate on what we want our players to do. “He/She will be coaching the ‘other’ players -Scott explained- and he/she will be challenging me and my players, so we won’t coach the same thing“.

2) Benefit from the warm up portion of the session for personal interaction: Coaching isn’t just giving players tactical and technical tips. Having a two-way communication with the team is key, even more when we coach young, developing players – they can be looking for someone who listens to them. So, we must use some time (warm up is just one option) to ask them how they are, what’s going on with their lives, etc.

3) When designing a session, ask yourself: Would I enjoy this? It is important to focus not only on teaching, but also on maintaining the players ‘engaged’ with the topic. “I think that the players respond to that and after something they enjoyed it also teaches them. And that’s the best part“, Scott stated. We’ve all been kids and -I guess- we all love playing soccer, so imagine for a second that you will be part of the activity and self-reflect on how that session would be enjoyable.

4) Get feedback on the session, from fellow coaches and players, consider how you may alter the design to make it better. Video or record the session so you can reflect: Soccer is in constant evolution and so is coaching. It is almost an obligation to keep an open mind for changes and accept advice from other coaches or even find room for improvement after a simple question to your players: ‘What was your favorite part of the session?’. During the next session, implement the change: this will show you have heard the players voice and implemented their thoughts.

5) Players should experience all aspects of the game by playing multiple positions until 11v11: As we can find on our Rush Way Guides by Age Group, we must provide our players the possibility to evolve not only from a small sided field to a full sided, but also by making them play on as many positions as we can. Scott Mills seconded this: “I think it is really important that players get the example of both sides of the game: attacking and defending, right, left and central“. To ensure that players fully develop and are exposed to different perspectives, we must try and teach them to exploit time and space. This will inevitably increase their capacity, vision and, why not, may help them realize which is their favorite position.

6) Even if you’ve spent a lot of time designing a session, alter it if it isn’t working with the players: This comes as a continuation of the previous point: keep an open mind to make changes or replace some aspects. Don’t force it. You can create a great session, but it may not be what the team needs at that point or what they need to improve the most.

7) Ask players to provide their own objectives/goals for a game, or coach providing objectives: “Each of our players have a pentavalent plan and define objectives for short, medium and long term for them. You (coaches) then help them, for example, if one player said ‘I really want to improve my speed and agility’, we will see the design of sessions that they think can make. We also ask them to set an objective for the match, so we’ll ask them ‘how are you going to achieve that?‘”, Mills argumented. That way, the player will set his/her own goals, as well as receive precise coaching while feeling part of the session design.

8) Players sharing objectives can help each other achieve their goals: Soccer isn’t an individual game. So, why forbidding the players the chance to share an objective? “If you’ve got your goalkeeper who’s been playing out of the back -Chris P. explained- and you’ve got your fullback and wants to to receive the ball across the body and go, they can work in tandem, and that’s huge“.

March 18, 2021

Webinars

Webinar With Russell Earnshaw: Seeing Sessions From Children’s Eyes & Looking For Behavioral Change

Former Rugby European Cup Winner and current Magic Academy Director discussed with Rush Soccer’s Developmental Director, Chris P., how we plan, perform and evaluate player centered sessions.

As part of our Monthly Educational Campaign on Player Centered Session Design, the newest episode of our Webinar Series -hosted by Chris P.- counted with the stellar presence of an expert on the subject: Russell Earnshaw. ‘Rusty’, who currently works on the Magic Academy, is a former Rugby player who won the European Cup and played for England and also worked for England Rugby and developed CARDS (Creativity, Awareness, Resilience, Decision Making, Self Organized) for the players.

‘What should Player Centered Sessions look like?‘ was the cornerstone on this fantastic interview. ‘Rusty’ explained how he spent a day shadowing a child to understand their perception and feelings around the daily activities. The conclusion? It was a really, really boring day. So, Russell came up with a simple, yet not always acknowledged concept: We must see sessions/lessons through children’s eyes.

“If we are really player centered, then why aren’t the children running lessons and sessions or at least being part of it?”
Russell Earnshaw.

Self-Reflection concepts started to arise during the following minutes. How do we, as coaches, find out what are the players needs? Are we empathetic to their needs? Are we noticing, using pauses, replays and finding different things within the coaches tool box? “Behavioral change is what we are looking for“, Chris stated.

What challenges a player? Finding ways of supporting players in line with their needs, and changing the game to get the best out of that player by placing demands on the players that meet their needs. Those are our challenges as coaches.

What makes them wobble? Can we build in our planning what makes the player wobble (stressed out) and help him/her by co-creating coping mechanisms? Even with simple things, like pulling up socks or smiling! We want to be able to challenge players, but we need to be able to figure out ways to help them through those challenges. We can’t just put them in those hard situations and not know how to help them.

“Players will be as good as the problems we set them”.
Danny Newcomb, quoted by ‘Rusty’.

“Are the coaches ready to release control -Chris P. wondered-, or will ego continually get in the way? We as coaches always want to show them what we know as opposed to meeting them at the bus stop as they are getting on and off at different stations”. We can squeeze every drop out of players by using whiteboards, which gives permissions for conversations to occur. We want more players thinking, developing themselves, coaches having better conversations and kids approaching to them.

Having an Individual Development Plan (IDP) and finding questions that help connect players to coaches and coaches find out where the players are will be helpful. As coaches we have to know who is in front of us and it is our job to know what they are motivated by. We can teach motivation by involving players in the session. A few examples: Putting different numbers on the ball and making those goals worth more, or using one ball like the golden snitch that wins the game! We can also assign players secret missions in line with their IDP and see what they accomplish with this. There are infinite options and new ways to connect and motivate our players, wouldn’t you agree?

March 16, 2021

Nutrition · Players

7 Vital Soccer Nutrition Tips For Players – By Pablo Toledo

Pablo Toledo is the Director of Rush Soccer’s Coach & Player Development Department.

HEY ROCKY, YOU CAN CUT OUT THOSE SIX RAW EGGS EVERY MORNING IF YOU DO THE RIGHT THING.

Train — EAT — Rest.

That’s the foundational triangle of sports performance, and the best athletes in the world know it very well.

You can watch Rocky I, II, III, IV, V, VI and its spin offs 16 million times and love that eternal training and think that you have the eye of the tiger, so training more and more makes your preparation better and better, but it doesn’t. If you want to perform, you need to learn what, when and how much you should rest and EAT.

If you’re the type of person who thinks that nutrition is just an equation-based matter “you just need to burn more calories than you consume” please get out of this article. If it was that simple we wouldn’t have these nutritionists studying for years and years at school.

Now, this is obviously a very broad subject so I’m just going to focus on giving some basic insights and tips to help you and your teams perform better at playing soccer. Out of Train — Eat — Rest, we will only pay attention to the EAT.

Soccer Nutrition Tips

In simple words, I want you to imagine that your body is like a hybrid car that can be fueled in three different ways: by ATP-PC (Phosphocreatine), carbs and fat. Now, using a different analogy, I also want you to think of a shelf in your kitchen that’s slightly too high and too deep for your reach. In that shelf, your first jar (the closest to your hand and easily reached) is the ATP-PC, the second is the carbs jar that’s much bigger than the first and the third is a heavy, far, hard-to-reach, huge jar that has fat.

These three jars represent sources of energy for your body and you pick stuff from all of them at the same time, but clearly the first jar is easier to reach than the second and the second than the third. When we talk about this, for your body, we are talking about the immediate availability of energy. ATP-PC is the fastest, carbs is the second and fat is the third.

Why is this important? Because if you get up off your chair right now and sprint five yards to the kitchen or the bathroom, your body needs quick energy to fuel such request. That fuel will comes from ATP-PC, as the effort required is not enormous and we need immediate energy, so why pick the third jar when the first is enough and easier to reach, right? That’s the logic. The problem is that if you had to run four miles to the bathroom, that little ATP-PC jar would not have enough cookies to fuel that challenge, so you’ll need to use energy from the other two jars, that are not so immediately available.

That’s how your body works, and you are obviously wondering how all of this relates to playing soccer. Fair question, man.

The answer relies on pasta.

Why is it that soccer players eat pasta before games? Because pasta, among other foods, has a high content of carbs and this type of carbs is easily digested. Then, by eating pasta, what players intend to do is overload their second jar. Carbs are extremely important for soccer players because their availability of energy is high and they provide enough energy to support the physical demands that the game implies. Even if they tried to overload the first little ATP-PC jar, it wouldn’t ever be enough to support such demands, and the third jar has lots of energy, but is harder to reach, so its energy is not as immediate as the one coming from carbs.

That’s why soccer players eat pasta up to about three hours before the match.

Now that we understand these very basics, let me give you a couple of tips that will help you perform on the field.

The first tip you want to consider is creating an overload of your carbs jar before the match, and to that you can’t eat two pounds of pasta the same day, so you need to start working on that overload at least 36 hours before the competition. Eat carbs and drink water.
If you enjoy a cup of coffee or mate, why not drink a quick cup half an hour before the competition? Coffee and mate are stimulants, so it will help you get in mood and feel energetic.
If you weigh yourself before and after the game you’ll see you’ve lost a lot of weight. That’s because you’ve burnt a lot of calories, but mostly because you’ve lost a lot of water, so you need to rehydrate right away. When you do so, drink water, eat something with carbs and add some protein to it. Water and carbs will help you recover, and protein will work on the muscular adaptations to the efforts made, so that next time it becomes easier to do.
If you enjoy eating something bad every once in a while, always eat it during the morning or right after your training/competition (within 45 minutes of completion). Your body will absorb it right away.
If you want to lose weight, reduce your carbs on the days you are not training so that you force your body to reach the third jar of the shelf and use fat to provide energy. Forget about this when you’re close to game day; that’s time to perform.
Don’t try new foods on game day. People are strange … and different, so you don’t know if what’s great for Johnny is good for you as well. No time for experiments on game days.
Nuts have a lot of calories, true, but no studies relate a moderate daily consumption of nuts with gaining weight, and they are also great providers of stable, day-long energy, so if you enjoy them it would be wise to eat a handful every morning.

There are many more tips and explanations we can give about sports nutrition, but it would be never-ending. What I can tell you is that if you follow these seven soccer nutrition tips, you’ll feel it on game day.

Good luck!

March 5, 2021

Players

Building Mental Toughness To Take Your Game To The Next Level: Meet Rush WI West’s Mallory Meighan!

It’s been fantastic to see the dedication that our Rush players have to not only become BETTER, FITTER and SMARTER but also with the launch of the new TOUGHER Train @ Home Track, it’s obvious that they are ready to take their game to the next level by building mental toughness and increasing overall performance.

Among the many who have set big goals and taken the challenge to step up their habits to reach them, Coach Michelle Weimer chose Mallory Meighan from Rush WI West U14G as the very first featured player for the new TOUGHER Track.

“Mallory not only set some great goals but she has already started implementing new practices, including mental cues, to help her excel to the next level”
Coach Michelle Weimer.

Here’s what Mallory had to say about the new TOUGHER Training Track and how it’s already helping her think and behave differently.

What do you like the most about the new Tougher Training Track?

“I have watched a lot of really good players that make a mistake during a game and you can tell that they just become more and more frustrated and continue to make mistakes. Training usually focuses on physical skills but if you don’t learn to take control of your mental game even the best players won’t perform well. The mental part of the game is something that we don’t often talk about or work on improving in practice but it’s a big part of the game”.

As someone who is working to become a high performance athlete, how do you think building your mental toughness will benefit you?

“Nobody is perfect. We are all going to have times where things just don’t go the way we want them to. I hope building mental toughness will help me turn these situations into learning moments and continue to improve. It’s easy to become frustrated and let emotions negatively impact your game. I want to learn to quickly recover from mistakes and put my focus back on making a positive impact”.

How has what you’ve learned about mastering your mindset, managing your emotions and maintaining your behaviors affected your performance on the field already?

“I haven’t had much opportunity to use the training from last week yet. We are hoping to start our spring outdoor season next week. I have been able to think of times when I have lost my focus in the past and can see where some of the things discussed in your session could have helped”.

What high performance habit have you implemented so far that you feel is helping you the most?

“I like the roadmap idea. I know where I want to go or what I would like to do, but if I don’t write it down and have to look at it I don’t work as hard to do it. Seeing it on paper makes me want to work harder so I can mark it off”.

What is your favorite way to remember your mental cues and keep you taking action to be your best?

“I think using notes will be good. Being able to see it will keep reminding me of what is important. I get busy and think about other things so a note will make me stop and remember what I should focus on”.

We can’t wait to see the fast development and growth of Mallory and the enormous amount of great players that keep working hard at home.

Keep going Mallory and all!

February 18, 2021

Webinars

Coach Ed Webinars: Sam Snow & Vince Ganzberg On Coaching The Bantam Division (U9-U10)

Chris P., Rush Soccer’s Developmental Director, interviewed our guests to discuss ways and concepts to coach U9-U10 players.

Sam Snow and Vince Ganzberg are two big names within youth soccer and their fame is well deserved. Sam has served as the director of coaching for US Youth Soccer and now runs US Soccer Consultants, which offers Coach Education and Mentorship Programs, among others. Vince currently serves as the Coach Education Content Coordinator for the USC, and is a long time member of the USC Academy Staff, as well as a U.S. Soccer’s National Staff and CONCACAF instructor.

We got together with them to discuss characteristics, ways, and concepts to coach what we call the Bantam Division, comprised by the age group U9 and U10.

This webinar guides the coach onto the topic as an evolution of coaching the previous age groups, recognizing similarities and differences. These notable guest speakers give along the session practical examples of activities that exemplify the concepts illustrated.

Must watch.

Don’t forget to join us on our next educational events of February to continue to learn about coaching U9-U10 groups.

*FEB 10th: Benefits of Starting with ‘Play’: Play-Practice-Play – Megan McCormick, Rush’s Coach Education Consultant, will present an article on why this method is preferred for the age group.

*FEB 15th: The Rush Coaching Manual: Chris P. will share a field session, available on our timeless online coaching education platform-, to put in practice with U9-U10 players.

*FEB 18th: (Spanish) Building a U9-U10 Curriculum – Pablo Toledo, Coach Dev Director, will interview Rubén Rossi, one of the most influential and well recognized youth soccer educators in Latin America (don’t worry, it will also be available in English!).

*FEB 23rd: Parent Engagement Strategies: Megan will also bring to the table a massive topic while interviewing an expert on the subject. Stay tuned for the details!

*FEB 26th: Lessons Learned: As we did in the last few months, we will finish February with a recap of all the concepts we discussed and learned during this campaign.

February 5, 2021

Coaching

Lessons Learned On Leadership: Know your Why, and why the One Size Fits All… Fits Nobody

This article is based on January’s Educational Campaign On Leadership.

Leading as a soccer coach is a huge responsibility and not an easy task. As such, you are an incredibly influential figure to the youth that surrounds you. That’s why we take the study of leadership seriously, and we dedicated the month of January to humbly meet with top professionals of our industry (and others) and some of the best leaders we know to dig deeper into what it means to be a good leader and how we can do it more effectively in our environments.

These are some of our takeaways:

– You Need A Holistic Approach: International Swimming Hall Of Fame member Jonty Skinner focused on this aspect during a fantastic webinar with our Developmental Director, Chris P. Jonty highlighted the importance of coaching the person as a whole, beyond the specifics of the sport, beyond the “X’s and O’s”. In his words, if coaches gave the holistic side the same importance as the other aspects of coaching, players would inevitably get better.

“If you can improve the holistic side of your athletes on the field, they are going to perform better on the tactical and technical level as well” – Jonty Skinner.

– Know Your ‘Why’: This was a common theme across all events and publications shared. To lead, you need to deeply know yourself first. Know your why, your vision, your strategy, your core values. Develop your team culture based on the values that are common ground between you and your players. It needs to be authentic to who you are, or your players will tell sooner than you would expect, trust me.

– The One Size Fits All… Fits Nobody: Rita Pierson’s remarks this aspect in her Ted Talk: Besides leading a team -whether is a sports team or not-, connecting at an individual level is key. Jürgen Klopp seconded this concept framing it in a soccer specific context: “I don’t give all the information at the same time and to everybody”. The core of these statements relies on the fact that great leaders know that people are not the same, so they look for discovering each person, what it is that gets the best out of them. We see way too often coaches leading teams with many rules and demands. Be careful with that, because what is fair for one might not be fair for another. The one size fits all tends to fit nobody.

– Be Selfless And Lead To Have A Legacy: Tim Schulz, Rush Soccer’s President, repeated this on several occasions during the webinar that had him as guest speaker.

“I don’t want people to follow me and I wouldn’t want to follow someone, because when he’s gone or quits there’s nothing left. Follow the mission, follow the vision, and work and lead for it, selflessly, for something that is bigger than yourself. When you do so, people follow”

This message also came across when we presented James Kerr’ All Blacks based book Legacy, in which the author describes this as the core of their incredibly successful culture:

Empower others to be exceptional, to ensure it won’t stop with you.

Or, as expressed in other words of the book,

‘Be a good ancestor, planting trees you might never see’.

This selfless approach seems to be a virtue of great leaders, offering themselves as custodians of the future.

– Ingrain a Behavior Without Burning Your Players Out: This was one of our favorite takeaways from interviewing Daryl Brazeau, Iowa Rush’s Girls DOC, for The Rush Podcast Network. Daryl, who specializes in Leadership studies, highlighted that to develop a certain behavior in your team (using competitiveness as an example), you need to work on it as a process, demanding and pushing it at times but also letting it break down in other moments. Push, but don’t push harder than the player can take. Think of it as periodization or as Daryl exemplified with New Year’s resolutions:

“The problem about these resolutions is that people make commitments that are unsustainable. You hear people say ‘I want to get in shape’, so they start going to the gym 3 hours a day, but after a month they’re burnt out and give up. The same happens, at times, with the coaches approach to ingrain a team behavior”.

– Have A Growth Mindset: Many of our guest speakers focused on this aspect. This one is fundamental to me as well, especially because I’ve personally experienced the impact of changing my mindset from ‘this has to be perfect’ to ‘I’ll try to make it perfect, but it might not happen as such in my first try, and that’s ok because I’ll keep working on its improvement every day”. You have to be willing to fail and keep going. You can’t only play matches that you know you’ll win. There’s no progress there. The same happens with leadership. Our guest speakers were open about sharing their many failures, and we could always perceive, as a common thread in them, their attitude of ‘just learn from it and keep going’.

– Be Humble: This human quality seems to be the starting point of all other Leadership characteristics. Leaders know they don’t know it all. Leaders know they need others to perform, and they’re open to listening to them. Humility and Advice for good Leadership, three of our core values.

February 1, 2021

Goalkeeping

Goalkeeper And Coach Relationship: What Makes It Special – By Sean Connors

Sean Connors is Rush Soccer’s Global Goalkeeping Director.

The Goalkeeper Coach and Goalkeeper relationship is fundamentally different from other player/coach relationships in soccer. Based on smaller training groups and activities that are closer together, the GK Coach has the ability to develop a close relationship with their players. By being an active participant in a Goalkeeping session GK Coaches have the ability to gain trust and have fun with their players. These relationships are evident from youth level through professional.

Creating a close relationship is vital to the success of the Goalkeeper because they need someone to help deal with the highs and lows of the position. Youth Goalkeepers are especially at risk of falling victim to the pressures of the position because they are not equipped to deal with the mental difficulties. The reality is the Goalkeeper’s every mistake is out in the open. When they let a ball in the goal, teammates, coaches, and fans all know a mistake was made. This pressure results in many children shying away from the position, or quitting when the pressure of mistakes becomes too much.

Coaching Goalkeepers is more than just teaching the technical and tactical aspects of the position. Working to improve a Goalkeepers mentality is vital to their success. Goalkeeper Coaches must work to create an environment that is safe for the GK to train and make mistakes. All Goalkeepers will let in goals… Especially during training when they face shot after shot. GK Coaches must work with their GKs to be comfortable in those moments by focusing on learning from the goal, and then moving on and focusing on the next save.

Coaches need to work with Goalkeepers to avoid the highs and lows of their emotions. Highs being “I made an amazing save, I’m the best Goalkeeper in the world.” Lows being “I can’t believe I let that goal in, I’m terrible, I don’t know why I even play soccer.” The best Goalkeepers keep their emotions as EVEN as possible. Enjoy big saves, learn from mistakes, and always focus on THE NEXT SAVE!

• GK Coach must show constant resolute support for their Goalkeepers.
• GK Coach must communicate and provide feedback/insight everyday.
• GK Coach must be honest with good and bad news. Operate from a place of reality.
• GK Coach must care for them as people.
• GK Coach must be strong for them in their most difficult situations.

As we discuss making relationships with players I recommend watching the following video: “How to Connect With Kids: 3 Principles from a Principal” –

CLICK BELOW TO WATCH THE TED TALK

In this video Principal James Cowper speaks to his three principles: 1) Be Playful, 2) Be Present, 3) Be a Coach. This is great advice for parents, teachers, and of course coaches!

CHALLENGE: At your next GK Session focus on connecting better with your players. As you greet your Goalkeepers give them the opportunity to talk about their last game. Give them the opportunity to tell you about their success or failure. By talking the GKs about their game, and answering their questions, you allow them to start training with a blank slate focusing on getting better making the next save. Work on being playful with your GKs and start training with some fun! A simple tag game will bring a smile to your players faces. To make it even better join in! Take a turn being “it” and players will love seeing your playful side!

“A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional about of time on “x’s and o’s” as compared to time spent learning about people.”

~ Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University: Men’s Basketball ~