football

Nutrition · Parents

Serving Holiday Performance Plates

Thanksgiving gives us the opportunity to spend quality time with our friends and families, and we tend to make some ‘temporary exceptions’ in our diets. That’s ok! Yet we can still learn how to manage our plates to enjoy these times without getting too much out of track. That’s what this webinar by Amanda Turner is about. Hope you enjoy it!

Amanda Turner is a Sports Dietitian at the Sports Medicine Center at the Children’s Hospital, in Colorado.

The holidays come and there are so many tasty things to eat that it is easy to get a bit out of track. Well, this webinar from Amanda Turner is not really about avoiding all treats but to learn about what our bodies need to perform and how we can combine nutrients for great holiday plates.

The first takeaway from this webinar comes from understanding that macronutrients are necessary nutrients that provide energy for normal metabolism and there are three types of them:

Carbs (examples: Crackers, pasta, bread, granola bars, fruits)
Protein (Chicken, turkey, beef, eggs, Greek yogurt)
And Fats (avocado, nuts, coconut, oils)

All three of them are important as they provide different levels of energy and energy availability. In the post 7 Nutritional Tips For Soccer Players, we compare macronutrients to three jars of cookies at different hand reach.

As Amanda shows, the level of activity has an impact over the plates that we serve. If we are completely off during the holidays or doing very little, our plates should be mostly equally balanced among veggies, grains, and lean protein, but on the contrary, during a high intensity period, you would increase the proportion of carbs to half of your plate.

One of the most common mistakes that Amanda describes, is plates that have protein and salad but no rice or bread or fruits – “You definitely don’t want to miss the carbs, as they’re your main source of energy in sports practice” – She comments.

Variety to ensure consumption of minerals is also highlighted by the presenter, and so is timing to optimize performance and recovery – “Those who eat every three hours approximately actually show the best recovery rates among all different profiles of eaters” – Amanda mentions and adds – “Before exercising, it is best to eat carbs, and after the workout it is best to consume carbs and protein for muscle synthesis and rehydration, especially within the first hour after the effort concluded”.

On a different note, Amanda highlights the importance of hydration. “It really depends on the person but it is important to drink water. How much? Eight 8-oz glasses might not be enough but also a gallon is generally too much for a soccer player”. Urine color tends to serve as a measurement of hydration and Amanda provides a color scale. Thirst, on the contrary, tends to be a bad measuring stick for hydration, you shouldn’t wait until you feel thirsty to drink water.

Lastly, Amanda offers a set of tips for the holidays and shows us some holiday plates examples:

Get In Your Fruits & Veggies (3+ Servings A Day)!
Stay Hydrated!
Don’t Skip Meals!
Enjoy Your Favorite Foods!

Watch the webinar and learn more.

November 22, 2023

Coaching · News · Rush Way

The Rush Way: 11v11 Scrimmage To Train “Up A Goal, Down A Goal”

Reaching the final moments of a match can be a team’s relief… or its worst nightmare. Whether winning or losing by a goal, there are aspects of the game that are essential to face the last minutes and succeed.

As you know, it is part of the Rush curriculum to coach our players on adopting different behaviors when the game is coming to its end and the team is up a goal or down a goal.

The Rush Way considers it a virtue of its players to recognize and use the ‘moods of the game’ in their team’s favor. Adapting our game to the current score to either maximize our team chances to come back (when losing) or preventing the opponent from getting in rhythm (when winning) is a skill that can be learned.

Find the ‘Up A Goal, Down A Goal’ Guide with Coaching Points on The Rush Coaching Manual, where you can also check the following activity, with specific tactics and strategies that your team can apply when either up or down a goal and reaching the final 10 minutes of the game:

ORGANIZATION & DESCRIPTION

First segment is open 11v11 game, at 10 min. Team A is down a goal to Team B. The next 10 min. constitute the end of a game. After 10 min. teams reverse roles. These 10 min. also constitute the end of a game. Coach over play and stop if necessary. After those initial 20 minutes, make a water break and discuss.

The following two 10 minute halves mimic the same of the first stage, with Team A starting down a goal, and then in the second half up a goal, but now the coach is on sidelines and there’s limited coaching. Add referee if possible. After this 20 minutes, we make another short water break and we discuss with the teams.

The last 20 minutes of the session are played normal, with a referee. Coaching is purely on the flow and limited. As the teams score and time passes by, encourage players to readjust as a team depending on their situation.

DOS WHEN WINNING

Tip #1: Always sustain a +1 situation in the back. This does not necessarily mean defending next to the goalkeeper but making sure we are outnumbering the opponent in dangerous spaces.

Tip #2: It’s an obvious statement, but we want to keep possession, preferably in the opponent’s half.

Tip #3: If you lose the ball far from your goal, try to kill the counter right away. If the counterpress works, that’s great. If it doesn’t, consider a tactical foul.

DON’TS WHEN WINNING

Tip #1: Rushing set pieces, such as throw ins, corners, goal kicks, free kicks, etc, will allow the rival getting in a direct, fast rhythm that may decide the match. When killing the game, you need an organized defense, that prevents quick kicks, and protects dangerous spaces. Safety first.

DOS WHEN LOSING

Tip #1: Mentality is key, it is imperative that you stay focused. The opponent will do everything in its power to disrupt your rhythm. Stay in tune with the game. All you can do is control the controllable – yourself.

Tip #2: Adjust system but carefully: You don’t want to be down in numbers for the rival’s counter. Consider the risk of modifying the +1 in the back to equal numbers.

Tip #3: Play the Offside Trap. DO NOT underestimate this item, strikers aren’t always as aware as you think. This can be the solution. The GK becomes almost a sweeper.

DON’TS WHEN LOSING

Tip #1: First, desperation will not take you anywhere good. Remember to stay focus on the mission: scoring, that’s all that matters.

Tip #2: Your team will take some extra risks like we mentioned above, but careful, you don’t want the search of a goal into securing your team’s defeat.

November 3, 2023

News · Parents

Parents: How Does A Good Training Session Look Like?

I’ll speak openly and transparently about this topic. One of Rush Soccer’s core values is Empathy.

When it comes to soccer, it should take little effort to empathize with a parent. We know you love your kids, and we know your involvement is driven by it, by the desire of ensuring your child’s sporting experience is as good as it can be. Now, and I mean this with all due respect, that doesn’t necessarily mean you know how a good learning environment looks like.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Again, a bit of empathy suffices. Maybe you are a lawyer, or an electrician, or a real estate agent, and maybe you didn’t even play soccer growing up. In fact, sometimes the parents that did grow up playing soccer are the ones with the most misunderstandings about how a good learning environment looks like and what they should be looking for when assessing a training session. “I didn’t know that to be a good horseman you needed to be a horse first” replied the legendary Italian coach Arrigo Sacchi when a journalist inquired if his far from remarkable playing career could be an obstacle for his coaching one. It is very different to be a coach than to be a player. Very, very different, and the fact that we work with children adds another hundred layers of complexity.

Please don’t think this post is geared towards a reflection on parents’ sideline behavior. Far from it, what we actually want is to protect you because there are times in which business eats it all and the drive to make money intoxicates the honor in the duty.

Let’s start with a little experiment: If you had to pick one of the two following passing sessions for your child to be a part of, which one would you choose?

Disclaimer: This is our opinion based on our developmental philosophies and beliefs and by no means we intend to disrespect any colleagues with a different approach. Moreover, we are not implying that any of the activities presented are wrong or mistaken as these are presented without an encompassing context.

Option 1:

Option 2:

I would go with the second one, hands down, and I’ll explain why in a minute.

Did you pick the first one? Don’t feel bad about it, so do a lot of people. You know why? Because it looks pretty and organized. So controlled. So clean. There’s success. And in the second one (if we actually applied it in a real session) there would be so many mistakes, it would look so chaotic. There would be a lot of failures, and it would look so basic. Hardly any cone, any equipment, nothing. But you should remember that soccer is naturally a pretty chaotic sport, especially at these early stages, and that the sport is pretty basic (two teams, two goals, one ball, delimited space, period).

How does the game look when you see it during the weekends? Like what we see on TV or a bit more like this?

So now let’s rethink the session that we would pick by asking ourselves which one seems to replicate the game best.

That’s where the key is. In the first session, there’s ‘technical work’, and there’s nothing wrong about it (it can be useful if well applied within a specific need), but it can also be irrelevant if there’s no transference to skill.

Let me explain that further.

‘Skill’ means that a technique can be applied effectively within a game situation. Then, purely using common sense, wouldn’t it be impossible to learn to apply a technique within a game situation if the session itself doesn’t present the game situation?

The second session, in that sense, is pretty realistic. The only thing that altered the game was to remove the goals. Why? So the players focus on passing instead of shooting, but the rest is there: Teammates, opponents, space, ball.

So here you have a couple good tips as far as what to look for on a training session:

Enjoyment: The most basic and important aspect, when observing a session for children, is to think: Is it FUN? Is this enjoyable? Please remember that playing is the work of children (Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori).
Realistic: Does it look like the game of soccer you observe on the weekend?
Safety: Is my child comfortable and feeling safe in the environment to explore the game? This goes beyond the session itself.
Is it dynamic? Are the players constantly playing or is it slow, interrupted, and full of wait periods?
Are they making decisions? Independently of that decision being right or wrong.

If these are there, you’re off a good start.

Here you have some red flags (don’t take them as black and white rules please, of course):

An excessive number of cones.
An excessive number of teams in different colors.
Excessive lines that lead to long waiting periods.
No smiles.

October 18, 2023

News · Parents

How Can I Help From The Sideline?

This article was writte n by Pablo Toledo, Rush Soccer’s Sporting Project Director.

The Rush Way, for all three participants of a game, states the following about sideline behavior:

Coaches’ Sideline Behavior

From the outside, the conduct of the coach on the sideline can be perceived as a reflection of the conduct of all coaches within Rush Soccer. Coaches are a reflection of their players and should conduct themselves with respect for the officials, the opponents, and the game of soccer. Remain positive when at all possible but motivational throughout. Coach actively but don’t misunderstand that with constant narrating and interventions. Actively means engaged. Education and being a first class role model are the paramount reasons that a coach has been given the honor to coach for Rush. It is always important to remember this.

Parents’ Sideline Behavior

Rush parents are expected to be positive, motivational and supportive to all players and officials. Learning the Rush chants is encouraged. Parents are expected not to coach from the sidelines but enjoy the experience of the game.

Players’ Sideline Behavior

Players are encouraged to support other Rush teams and give their full-hearted support. Learn the Rush songs; be as loud but respectful as possible and help educate the rest of the country in the way soccer should be supported, as it is in the rest of the world.

I wanted to include the three paragraphs here because all three of them mention important aspects. Beyond the obvious goal of encouraging all parties to be role models of education, I think it matters to differentiate that from being quiet. We said it before, quoting Jorge Valdano, isn’t football just an excuse to be happy? Then chant, cheer, celebrate! What makes football the most beautiful and popular sport in the world is people’s emotions and passion. As a player, it is no different. To remember those games in which the supporters couldn’t stay seated and every play was cheered and clapped are memories that stay with you forever.

Now, on the other hand, we shouldn’t confuse that with coaching. A rookie yet very common mistake that we coach the coaches on is to avoid making comments to the player on the ball. The reason is simple, soccer is a game in which situations tend to be chaotic and solutions are multiple, so when we tell the player on the ball to do something or to look for something, we are making at least three mistakes. One is assuming that our solution is better than what the player might have already thought. Two is that we add confusion, because now the player hesitates between his/her own thoughts and following instructions from an authority figure, and three that we are trying to solve the problem for them when the overall objective of coaching is that they learn to solve those problems autonomously. If you add now a parent as well yelling at the player another different idea, we are truly confusing the player, who in addition to analyzing the situation and trying to decide what the best solution is in seconds, now he/she is also hesitating which of the two authoritative figures he/she should obey.

That’s why we ask families to support the players vividly but avoid coaching from the sidelines. It is not even a matter of thinking that ‘the coach knows best’. Soccer is a game in which, quoting 1978 World Cup Champion coach Cesar Luis Menotti, there are very few absolute truths but definitely a lot of evident lies. What the phrase means is that there are many ways of doing certain things and frequently picking one or the other is purely a context specific choice, a decision, an agreement.

Let me give you an example that is seen very frequently on the fields. The coach might have chosen to lower the pressing approach to mid or low block and communicate that to the players. That means that the team will let the opponent have the ball in certain areas close to their goal and start pressing aggressively once they cross a certain spatial reference of the field (can be the top of the center circle, or midfield line, or bottom of the circle, among others). The opponent plays out of the back and the center backs dribble the ball for seconds, our forwards wait. The audience misinterprets this with passiveness from our forwards that seem to not be making the effort to win the ball back, so the word “pressure” starts being yelled at them. Now the forwards don’t know who to obey. Does it sound familiar? This ‘coaching’ wasn’t directed to the player on the ball but was still damaging.

These are just some of the many reasons why it is better to avoid coaching from the sideline and leave that to the coach, who has the responsibility of educating himself/herself to learn to do this effectively to favor one objective: Accelerating the learning process.

When we spoke to Richard Shorter from Non-Perfect Dad about Performance Environments, he referred to the need of uniting all parties to create an environment in which there’s safety but not necessarily certainty to encourage creative exploration. The full webinar below for anybody interested.

“If we are going to get genuine unity, we need to create a safe space where everybody feels like we have an identity, and in which we are willing to explore the new together.”
Richard Shorter.

Moreover, we truly encourage you to laugh and enjoy the experience. Watching our kids play sports is a remarkably beautiful thing, don’t let it turn into stress.

In the article about developing growth mindsets, you’ll also learn why praising the effort is way more beneficial than praising the ability.

October 9, 2023

Webinars

Starting Your Season The Right Way: Tips & Tricks From The Rush Soccer Development Department

Chris P. and Pablo Toledo, Rush Soccer’s Developmental Director & Sporting Project Director, share this enriching discussion in which Pablo takes Chris through two of our exclusive tools: The Rush Coaching Manual and the Rush Soccer Development website, while they discuss key aspects to start season with the right foot.

Start your season with the right foot and make the most out of the services Rush Soccer Development offers you. That’s what this article and webinar is about and why we asked Chris P. and Pablo T. to get together.

Understand our curriculum in further depth. Learn to use our season planner, and maybe most importantly, learn to be effective at planning these cycles of training!

RUSH SOCCER’S CURRICULUM & THE SEASON PLANNER

“My obsession has always been to present a curriculum that reflects who we are in everything that we do, that’s why developing it was (and is) such a big, important project, because we want a reason in every little element as to how and why they fit the big picture” – Introduced Pablo.

“It’s great that by responding to seven questions you can plan an entire season. However, the recommendation would be to plan 6-8 weeks cycles and then reassess: What’s working? What’s not? That’s why it matters to do this with the curriculum in hand. One of the worst mistakes we can make is to stop thinking because we have this tool. It’s on the club, director, and coach to periodize this to make it fit to your specific team and players. We can’t anticipate that part, there’s no one-size-fits-all”, Pablo commented in reference to the season planner feature through The Rush Coaching Manual.

“We can always assess the plan if it is not going well -Chris P. added-, reflect and reevaluate and adjust accordingly to the children. Is it transferring from training to the game? Repeating sessions (topics) to reinforce and reminding players. We have to account for what children forget”.

“Planning and adapting to your team and player needs is crucial. Have ‘checkpoints’ in the process. One of my favorite practices is to include activities in my sessions that I run for several minutes with little to no interventions. What I look for here is to present activities that might not be too familiar to the players and that require the application of the concepts previously seen to be effective at them. This way, I get to see if the players are retrieving concepts presented in other instances to solve the new situation. That’s what learning is about“.
Pablo Toledo, Rush Soccer’s Sporting Project Director.

TOP TIPS TO START SEASON WITH THE RIGHT FOOT.

Start with the end in mind and define what success will look like: It is frequently a good starting point to project how you would want the end of the season to feel like. This is something you can share with the players. I always do. Have them reflect on it. Oftentimes, their first response will relate to performance (“we won the championship” or similar). I normally respond that we would all like that but it is unfortunately not entirely under our control, so I rather focus on those aspects that I can actually manage, like our effort. This can be a good way to set an ‘anchor’ on your team’s culture and encourage adopting a growth mindset from the first day.
Communicate clearly with the team and ‘the team behind the team’ (Parents): It is instrumental to understand that the learning process crumbles if the message is not replicated at home. Parents want to help their children, but that doesn’t mean they know exactly how. You might be surprised of how supportive the families can be, even if the immediate results are adverse, when they’re aware of the overall plan. A plan in which the possibility of ‘failure’ (in terms of losing at least) was considered as well, naturalizing it. Now, it is on the coach to take the time to explain it.
Have a plan: In line with the paragraph above, lack of communication and/or planning can be stress generators along the season. Don’t act randomly or always based on the last match. Plan ahead, have a base structure. A good plan incorporates flexibility too. By experience, I’ve learnt that is best to have a yearly plan to frame the process but only focus on the details of the next 6-8 weeks, especially when it comes to training. Why? Because you need checkpoints, and because life happens and sometimes you need to readjust. That’s normal, but the base plan sustains the direction. And as said before, it will definitely help you communicate better.

Have a great season, coach!

September 5, 2023

Parents

What Can I (Should I) Expect From The Pre Season Period?

This article was written by Pablo Toledo, Rush Soccer’s Sporting Project Director.

If there’s one moment of the year in which I see many misunderstandings and overall confusion, it probably is the ‘pre season’ period.

Soccer is a conservative sport. What I mean by that is that there are many ‘best practices’ done in certain ways ‘just because they’ve always been done like that’ and many professionals can be reluctant to challenge or question them, even if it’s pretty evident that they are (to say the least) questionable practices. Coaches, unfortunately, are frequent victims of this biased thinking because they tend to use practices and approaches that they’ve experienced as players without questioning their validity in depth. The phenomenon sinks deeper when there’s a level of success associated with it. What I mean by it is that the validity of the practice tends to be even less questioned if there was a positive sporting result associated with it: “We were doing that and we were a great team, so it worked” is frequently the way we judge these experiences, when in reality we might be misplacing or misjudging how impactful that actually was in comparison to other variables, especially when we relate it to physical development, as we’ll see later. Fernando Signorini, one of the world’s most renowned soccer conditioning coaches, refers to this stating that

“The conditioning coach is actually the least important member of the coaching staff. I can assure you that if we had switched the conditioning coach from Pele’s Santos team that won absolutely everything with the conditioning coach from San Cristobao, the team that ended up in last place, the results would’ve been the same“
Fernando Signorini

When we met with Juan Gonzalez Mendia from Sudamerica Coaching, recording for The Rush Podcast Network (in Spanish, sorry!), he referred to this phenomenon as ‘resilient popular beliefs’.

The pre-season period is, unfortunately, packed with these. One of them, and maybe the most damaging one, is the idea that the period should focus on physical development. It is very frequent to see teams and players returning from a long competitive break to be led into a set of ultra demanding fitness based training sessions in which they hardly ever touch the ball. People hardly question the validity of this practice because ‘it’s always been done like that’ when actually the number and severity of misconceptions of that practice is truly alarming. It is very frequent to hear comments, even from players that are also mislead into thinking there’s value in this practice, saying:

Coach is great, he’s killing us physically right now.
The first month we hardly touch the ball, first we gotta get in shape.

As said before, the number and severity of misconceptions here is alarming. Let’s cover some below.

To start with, there’s a big problem in terms of managing training loads. The best, almost absurd example I can offer is to imagine that you’ve been inactive for a year, gained some weight, and have hardly worked out but you are truly ready to get back in shape and decide to start training again. Now imagine that you go to the gym the first day and I, as your personal trainer, have you lift 400 pounds in the bench press. The overload is clear, and most likely you’ll go home and feel a lot of pain in the upcoming days, unable to train again. That if you’re lucky enough to not get injured. So if we are so clear about the absurdity of that practice at the gym, why do we see it any differently in soccer training? Should we not ease the player into training again, start slower to recondition, reduce the risk of injury, and gradually prepare the person for higher intensity training?

The second issue, most of the time, relates to a misconception of goals and context. As we frequently repeat, the goal of youth coaching is to develop players, and that has deep implications in the decisions that we make, in comparison to performance stages like College or Professional soccer in which the objective is simply to win on Saturday. This is important because the main duty when coaching a training session is to teach players how to play football better (apart from the obvious goal of contributing in the development of a good, healthy human being), so physical development purely seen as an instrument to improve immediate performance is secondary. To exemplify with the almost absurd, once again, what matters is to understand that anybody can train at any time to be fitter. That doesn’t imply any particular soccer talent or ability, so what really matters is to develop the soccer aspects, because if you are a great soccer player with a few extra pounds, that’s an easy fix, but on the contrary if you’re super fit but you can’t make a five yards pass, that’s way more complicated to amend. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that every sort of physical training is pointless, this is not a black or white matter, but it’s important to recognize and be clear about priorities.

These are just two of many misconceptions related to the pre-season period. We could deepen in others like the absence of sporting specificity in the exercises generally proposed, for example. In the fragment below, part of the article What We Learnt From Former D. Maradona & L. Messi Coach, Fernando Signorini, our guest speaker, shares some stories and self reflections about his early days and how his mindset and ideas changed in reference to this topic.

So, what should I expect or want to see during pre-season?

In full honesty, something relatively similar to what you should be seeing during the season. Hopefully (and in the context of a post puberty team), training intensity and competition increases gradually in the first couple of weeks and the primary objective of the sessions is to develop soccer related aspects. A good sign of this can be that 11v11 scrimmages are planned prior to formal competition in gradual increments of total duration of the match or minutes played per player, or that the ball is present in most activities from the very beginning of the season.

August 9, 2023

Mental Health

Three Pillars that are Key to Unleashing Your Performance Potential

This article was written by Michelle Weimer, Rush Soccer’s Certified High Performance Coach.

As a high-performance coach, I have witnessed countless athletes with incredible physical abilities fall short of reaching their true potential. What sets apart the champions from the rest is not just their physical prowess, but their unwavering mental toughness. The ability to master mindset, manage emotions, and maintain empowering behaviors and habits is the key that propels athletes to new heights, both on and off the field. It’s these three pillars that I focus on when working with athletes, to help them amplify their potential.

So, let’s explore the significance of these three pillars and how they can optimize and level up your performance potential.

Mastering Mindset: The mind is a powerful tool, capable of shaping your reality. Your mindset determines whether you perceive challenges as obstacles or opportunities for growth. Cultivating your confidence with a growth mindset and a belief in your ability to learn and improve is essential. Being able to embrace challenges, view setbacks or failures as learning experiences, and maintain an unyielding belief in your potential, will benefit you greatly when you experience these obstacles. When you approach every practice, every game, everything – with a positive and resilient mindset, you create a foundation for success.
Managing Emotions: Emotions are a natural part of the human experience, and athletes are no exception. However, the key lies in how you manage and channel those emotions. Emotions can be powerful allies or formidable foes, depending on how you harness them. Developing positive emotional intelligence allows you to recognize and understand your emotions, enabling you to respond rather than react. Whether it’s handling pressure, overcoming fear, or staying focused amidst distractions, mastering your emotions grants you the mental composure needed to perform at your best.
Maintaining Behaviors and Habits: Consistency is the core of excellence. Your behaviors and habits directly impact your performance and overall success. Maintaining positive behaviors by establishing empowering habits and routines will help you create a structured and disciplined approach to training and competing. For example, prioritizing proper nutrition, quality sleep, and regular training will support your physical and mental well-being. Additionally, practicing deliberate focus and visualization techniques can enhance your concentration and mental clarity. By consciously and consistently maintaining behaviors and habits that support your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, you pave the way for long-term success.

Optimizing your performance on and off the field requires an approach that goes beyond just physical training alone. You must strengthen your mental fitness as well. Mastering mindset, managing emotions, and maintaining empowering behaviors and habits are the pillars upon which elite athletes are built. By nurturing a strong growth mindset, embracing challenges, and maintaining a positive outlook, you set the stage for success. Through increased emotional intelligence, you gain control over your reactions and utilize your emotions to your advantage. And of course, by consistently adhering to empowering behaviors and habits to support your overall well-being, you provide yourself with the foundation needed to level up your performance and achieve your highest potential.

***Want to hear what others have to say about how working with Coach Michelle has improved their performance? Check this out!

“Our son’s competitive drive and performance expectations were leading to some negative behaviors on the soccer field. Michelle recommended us to try to help our son work through these negative emotions. Within a couple of months, we began to see some positive behavior changes on the field. He was already working on his positive mental state as well as holding himself accountable for his actions. While it was a slow process, we have been extremely happy with the way he has been able to use the tools she taught him to focus more on the things he can control, like his own attitude. Michelle has always been a bright spot for our son and her positive outlook easily helps reassure all of us. She is very flexible to work with and understands the busy life of a family and athlete. Her session communications help keep us informed on how we can best support our son as well. He went from getting a yellow card most games to not receiving any in a season. We are very proud of his dedication to working on his mental game and can’t thank Michelle enough for her help!“

***Are you ready to build your mental toughness and rise to your highest potential? Check out the trainings in the Rush Soccer Development site or schedule a Discovery Call with Certified High-Performance Coach, Michelle Weimer today.

Connect With Michelle Weimer

June 28, 2023

Parents

Are You Helping or Hindering Your Child’s Performance on the Soccer Field? The Dos and Don’ts to Empower Your Athlete to Thrive

This article was written by Michelle Weimer, Rush Soccer’s Certified High Performance Coach.

As a parent, you play a vital role in your athlete’s soccer journey. And I have no doubt you want your son or daughter to succeed. But what you might not realize is that your behaviors and actions can greatly impact their performance on the field. So, let’s take a look at a few essential dos and don’ts when it comes to being a positive influence on your athlete’s soccer success. Then be honest and ask yourself… Are my behaviors and actions empowering or hindering their performance?

DO:

Be a Supportive Fan: Cheer enthusiastically for players during games. Show them you’re their number one supporter. Celebrate accomplishments and efforts, regardless of the outcome. Your encouragement will boost their confidence and enjoyment of the game.
Promote a Growth Mindset: Help your child develop a growth mindset by emphasizing effort, practice, and learning from mistakes. Encourage them to see challenges as opportunities for growth. Celebrate their progress and remind them that improvement comes with time and dedication.
Provide a Safe and Nurturing Environment: Create a safe and nurturing environment where your child feels comfortable expressing themselves on and off the field. Avoid excessive pressure or criticism. Instead, focus on constructive feedback and positive reinforcement. Let them know that mistakes are a part of learning and that you are there to support their development.
Encourage Healthy Competition: Promote healthy competition by teaching your child to respect opponents, play by the rules, and exhibit good sportsmanship. Emphasize the importance of fair play, integrity, and teamwork. Reinforce the Rush Way and teach them to appreciate the value of competition, but not at the expense of respect for others.
Support Their Soccer Journey: Support your child’s soccer journey by providing them with the necessary resources and opportunities to succeed – from making sure they regularly attend trainings so they can utilize the knowledge and expertise of their coach, to being certain they are participating in additional Rush programs such as the Rush Soccer Development Train @ Home Program. Attend their games regularly and engage in conversations about their experiences. Show genuine interest and ask open-ended questions to understand their perspectives and feelings.

DON’T:

Behave Overly Critical: Avoid being overly critical or focusing solely on the mistakes your child makes on or off the field. Negative criticism can damage their confidence and hinder their performance. Instead, provide constructive feedback that focuses on improvement and highlights their strengths.
Live Vicariously Through Your Child: Resist the urge to live vicariously through your child’s soccer achievements. Remember, it’s their journey, not yours. Encourage them to pursue their own goals and dreams, rather than fulfilling your own unfulfilled ambitions.
Use Excessive Pressure: Avoid placing excessive pressure on your child to perform at a certain level or achieve specific outcomes. This can lead to anxiety, stress, and a loss of enjoyment in the game. Let them set their own goals and support them in their personal growth and development.
Interfere During Games: Avoid interfering or coaching your child during games. It can distract them and disrupt their focus. Trust their coach and the training they have received. Instead, be a supportive spectator and save the coaching for practice sessions or discussions outside of the game. Just don’t forget all the above points when you do have those discussions.
Compare to Others: Comparing your athlete’s performance to that of their teammates or other players can be demoralizing. Everyone has their own unique strengths and areas for improvement. Focus on their individual progress and provide encouragement based on their personal growth.

Remember, your role as a parent is to provide support, encouragement, and a nurturing environment for your child’s soccer journey. By following these do’s and avoiding the don’ts, you can be a positive influence and help your athlete improve their performance and thrive in soccer and beyond.

***Want to know more about how you can support your athlete’s performance and success? Schedule a Discovery Call for you and your athlete with Certified High-Performance Coach, Michelle Weimer today***

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June 6, 2023

Parents

Parenting Tips For Before, During, And After Tryouts

Pablo Toledo -Rush Soccer’s Sporting Project Director- was joined by Asia Mape, Founder & CEO of ‘I Love To Watch You Play’, and discussed Dos and Don’ts for parents to help and encourage their children throughout this process.

Tryouts are stressful for everybody, dah, so we wanted to help. That’s why Sporting Project Director Pablo Toledo got together with Asia Mape, founder & CEO of ‘I Love To Watch You Play’, to discuss the topic. How can we help our children before, during, and after tryouts?

Simple question, important answer.

“Once I had my own kids, I started to go through the youth sports cycle, and I realised not only did I need a lot of help and guidance, but a lot of parents out there too. And they felt the same kind of ‘out of control feelings’ that I had”, commented Asia.

You can also find the full interview on The Rush Podcast Network! Check below:

Was there something that triggered ‘I Love To Watch You Play’? “I like to laugh about this. I was not a good sports parent. I still grow and learn everyday. I still make so many mistakes, it’s really hard. I thought I had everything figured out. My mindset was ‘oh, how to be the best’, I was basically going at it from this approach, which is completely counterproductive in the end, so we started ‘I Love To Watch You Play’ in 2015. We are basically a platform to help parents raise happy, healthy, successful athletes. I do it by researching, writing, interviewing, all the topics experts, athletes, newsmakers. Then, I bring all that information and share it with parents, coaches, and administrators”.

Through this introductory question, the first tip arised:

“Kids should not be treated as mini adults. And I think that a lot of us parents, with good intentions (I never try to make parents feel bad about it because I’ve been there), want to help our kids but we end up doing the opposite”, she added.

“If I can add one little thing that I do a lot in my coaching. We always say ‘you reach a point in your sporting career that you have to GET serious, but that doesn’t mean that you have to BE serious. Just take what you do seriously’”, Pablo explained.

What advice would you give for parents throughout this stressful period? “Kids are already feeling stressed, so the last thing you want to do is add stress -Asia pointed out-. You want them to feel happy, confident and prepared, not at all worrying. There’s no point in saying ‘don’t forget to X‘. You really just need to prepare them, get them there early, make sure they sleep well. Why stress them out? Why make this huge thing in the house?
If there’s any, what is the homework for parents prior to tryouts? As said above, it is key not to stress your child out. As Asia explained, “you want to create an atmosphere that is not stressful, talk to them only about things they can control: attitude, effort, making eye contact. You just want them to be at their best”.
What do we do if we notice that our child is having a negative experience during tryouts? “During tryouts, if your child is having negative experiences, or if he/she is feeling bad, because sometimes children are very hard on themselves, so parents throughout the process need to help them reframe these thoughts. You need to be continually giving them positive feedback, not holding onto bad moments, and even if they mess up during a game or tryout, let it go”.
What do we do if things don’t go well and our child doesn’t make the team? “What happens a lot of times, if a child doesn’t make the team and a parent starts criticizing the process, criticizing the coach, is that all you are really doing is minimizing their ability and their chance to grow and learn to have accountability. The main thing after the tryout is to not minimize the process, what your child just went through, and make excuses of why they didn’t make it. Failure is the greatest teacher. This was a learning process, ‘what did you learn? What do you have to do next?’. That initial hurt feeling because you just wanna solve it for their kids: ‘They didn’t know what they were doing’. That’s really counterproductive for them.

It is also important for parents not to downplay it either. This is a big deal for your children. So, if they didn’t make the team and they are not going to be with their friends, let them express their feelings and get it out. Ask them questions, encourage them, ‘What do you think happened? Let’s reflect on it’. Sometimes it can be hard, not every kid wants to talk about those situations, but we should recognize it as a hard moment and honour their feelings”.

And what if it’s the other way around, your child succeeds and his/her teammates don’t? “There is a tricky situation if your child does make the team and their friends don’t. Just be thoughtful about what the others are feeling, and remember what it feels like for all those kids who didn’t make it”.
Why is it so important for parents to encourage these aspects and respect the children’s sensations and emotions? “These tools we are talking about are not just ‘sport tools’, they are life tools. That’s not just when you are on the soccer field, but also when you have your first job interview or on your wedding day. That’s why sports are so amazing, we can practice so many different situations and scenarios in sports that are really going to be so important throughout their entire lives”.
From the parents standpoint, what are the main concerns during this stressful period? “I think almost all parents can relate to: Most of us want our kids to make the top team, so the stress is ‘are they going to make the team? Are they going to get the coach they want? Are they going to be on the same team with their friends?’, and I think a lot of times there is an aspect that relates to the child but there’s also an aspect that relates to the social life of the parent. You really create this sort of wonderful relationship with other parents and if we have kids who don’t make that team again, you can feel that you’ve been cut off. Some other times, there’s also this thinking of ‘if my kid didn’t make the top team at 9, he/she won’t make it at 10’, so you have the terrible feeling that your child is going to get left behind” and it’s not like that, development is not so linear, sometimes the best player at 9 is average at 15 or the other way around.

Thank you for a fantastic interview, Asia! Visit I Love To Watch You Play to learn more about raising Happy, Healthy, Successful Athletes. Thank you for reading!

May 9, 2023

News

Can I Coach To Win The Game While Still Focusing On Development?

This article was written by Pablo Toledo, Rush Soccer’s Sporting Project Director.

I normally tell our Head of Content that it is not necessary to add my name on fragments that I’ve written. I do that for two basic reasons: The first one is that I don’t want people to think that the Rush Way is ultimately ‘Pablo’s way’. I didn’t come up with it, I learnt it. The second reason is that I really don’t care about the credit. I’m pretty good at managing my own ego, and among many flaws I do think that’s one of the best qualities I have as a coach.

I break my own rule in this post because the opposite happens: This is Pablo’s Way, not the Rush Way, and I mean to be honest about that because there is absolutely no science behind what I’m about to say, I did not learn it from anybody but simply came from self reflection, and I’m pretty sure there are better ways to do it, but this is mine and maybe by sharing it I can trigger some good thoughts on you.

The role of the coach in youth soccer is to facilitate environments that accelerate learning. That’s a statement. That’s why we talk about development in coaching and not so much about performance. That’s why we have a 6-3-1 philosophy, and that’s why another two million things.

Now, what I frequently see and I also experienced as a novice coach, was a conflict between the idea of developing and the idea of winning (or trying to win, because it’s not really a choice). When I first started, even if this embarrasses me now, I just wanted to win and all of my decisions were secretly based on that. I’d say appropriate things in terms of development but my actions were not always congruent with them.

When I realized that I felt hypocritical and that I was really missing the ball, so I evolved into a sort of Himalayan coaching monk, and all I was focusing on was learning aspects, not caring about results, whether positive or negative.

There were some good improvements over that period, in which I learned to be more methodical in my observation, less reactive in my coaching, more rational, more thoughtful and purposeful, but over the years I realized that was also wrong. I was still missing the ball.

When I observe others coach, a large percentage of the time I think they are also going through one of those two phases.

What I realized over the years (it is important to put in the following context: I’ve been primarily coaching U16+ boys for years now), is that I needed to care about winning, because my players cared about it. I need to honor their desire to win the game and they need to feel that I care about it to sustain a top coach-player relationship. I needed to bring my emotions back, but control them, use them wisely. As you get close to performance stages, players will love you for the human aspects of the relationship but those relationships are firstly built on knowledge. Your players build the relationship with you over the foundation that they feel that they can learn from you and you can help them win, otherwise you would just be a great guy/gal to them but they would probably prefer somebody else to coach them.

Once again, this might be very different for younger age groups as we get further from performance stages. I’m saying this in the context of my current U17 Boys MLS Reserve team, so the reference is specific.

All of this said and this personal journey covered, I started wondering how I could coach a game in a methodical way and balancing both aspects instead of constantly battling them and placing them as opposites when they’re not. That way, I came up with this very, very simple approach that has been very effective to me.

The approach is simple and it organizes my coaching during the game to remain focused, purposeful, and avoid randomness and constant reactive behavior.

The game starts and I observe our performance for at least 10 minutes. If I feel like the competition is even or we are better than the opponent and there are no major problems, I immediately switch my attention to favoring learning. What I mean by that is that I place my focus on aspects that we’ve been training and trying to improve. Let’s say it’s been playing out of the back. There we go then, all I focus on is how we are doing there, reinforce concepts, praise when we do it right, etc. If we make a mistake on the attacking third, I don’t care, that’s not the topic today. If see it repeatedly, I’ll just write it down to work on it in the future, but I don’t allow myself to get wrapped up on it, avoiding randomness. This sounds basic (and it is) but can be very useful, because in most games you will see fifty million mistakes (and virtues).

On the contrary, if within those 10 minutes of assessing performance I conclude we are having problems, it is my job to fix it. I can’t focus straight on learning unless it’s directly correlated. Imagine that learning today refers to bouncing the ball on the striker to attack the goal and we are having major issues defending on the flanks or with our pressing approach. The players would look at me like saying “coach, what are you talking about? Do you not see that?”. Again, I can’t focus on learning without first honoring their desire to win the game and putting them in a good spot to do so. And trust me, as you start training good older players, they know football and what they’re talking about. If you say something stupid twice or you miss a couple big problems that are obvious to them, you lose the group because that initial foundation breaks. So the approach is simple in that way, focus on fixing the problem, take some actions, observe again and then question yourself the same initial question: “Are we better than them?”. If the answer is yes, you know what to do, and if the answer is no, keep your focus on fixing the problem.

I’ll wrap this up with an initial comment. This is not scientifically proven but purely an approach I’ve developed through experience. Far from rocket science (does it need to be anyway?), but if you ask me that question: “Can you try to win the game while focusing on developing players?” I’d say absolutely yes, and this is how, at least I, do it.

April 25, 2023