Players

I am constantly bombarded with parent and player questions about attaining goals of “making it” in soccer.  Whether the goal is Professionalism, College, or making the All-Star team, decision-making more often than not hamstrings most players.  Players can spend countless hours honing their touch, becoming a physical specimen, and developing ball-striking techniques, but how do we create better decision makers? 

In order to make better decision makers, we need to place players in environments at an early age where they are constantly asked to solve problems.  This does not occur with private training or repetitive pattern drills that are far too common in youth soccer.  Most coaches that I speak with all agree that players need to play the game more often.  Unfortunately, they lack the conviction to practice what they preach mainly due to parental influence.  Parents enjoy the compartmentalized training that we see a lot of.  Kids working unopposed with a ball performing certain tasks is easy for them to understand.  A small sided game or a possession session looks like chaos to them. 

The 4v4 game forces all players to be involved and will guarantee plenty of repetition and decision making. Defensively players will no be able to “hide”, it will alow a team to press immediately and allow the players to understand the basi defensive principles and will repeatedly allow teams to deal with frustration.

What may look like chaos is actually what players need massive doses of while their brains are developing.  This is the type of equation that the player can wrap their head around.  Before long, the visual cues repeat, and the player begins to anticipate the next action.  For instance, those of us who have been involved either watching or playing the game at a high level, know the cues to recycle around the back.  We see the right fullback with the ball.  The player pulls the ball back to play a deeper right center back.  Almost immediately, the left fullback anticipates the ball being recycled and creates space to receive the ball, before it is played to the left center back.  These small instances occur all the time in the game and force players to make decisions based on the information that they are acknowledging.  The quicker they can see the cues, the faster they can respond.

An easy way to give more time in this environment is to set up small sided, 4v4 games as players arrive.  I like to have the fields set up a half hour before practice.  As players arrive, we simply start dividing the players into teams.  Starting with 1v1 until we reach 4v4 on a field.  When that field is set, we start with the next, 1v1 to 4v4.  In my experience, this ticks two boxes.  Firstly, we get the players to train making decisions.  Secondly, and almost more importantly, we see players arriving half hour earlier to training and running from the car to the field with excitement to play.  We typically allow these small sided games to continue for 20-30 minutes.  In our club, where we train 4 times a week, a player can get up to 160 hours in this stimulating, decision making environment which will pay dividends in the future.  

“There are so many players in soccer with great talent, but their actual understanding of the game is poor, and that’s the difference between good and great. It’s getting the decision right, which changes it all”

Almost a forgotten technique in youth soccer is the instep driven pass, or daisy cutter.  I am not talking about the inside of foot but the instep.  As a youth player, I had the great experience of training at Ajax, where the instructors were adamant about teaching this technique.  We would spend the first 20 minutes of each session standing 20 yards from a partner and smacking the ball back and forth.  We had two touches, the first was to control the pass and the second was to play the pass.  During the first few sessions, the ball would miss the intended target or the first touch was poor, but as we spent more time working on the technique, the passing and receiving became second nature. 

For years, I have held the belief that young players develop best by introducing different playing surfaces and using different balls.  Learning to adapt to these changes opens a player’s mind, which is still the most important part of a player’s development.  Recently, I read an article about Walker Zimmerman and how his youth coach introduced a futsal ball for building out of the back sessions.  The coach felt that this ball would prohibit the tendency to simply clear the ball out of danger and force the players to pass the ball out of pressure.  A futsal ball has less bounce than a regular ball so it stays on the surface more, promoting passing without having to introduce limitations.  Based on Zimmerman’s rise to become USMNT starting CB, I would say the coach was on to something.

Passing drills can improve the team’s communication skills, attentiveness, first touch, and even their connection on and off the field. Being able to pass the ball accurately and precisely can affect the team’s performance and quality during practice and games.

Watching the Premiere League games this weekend, I saw countless instep driven passes, De Bruyne is a master of the technique.  As developing players progress through the youth levels and venture into college or professional, the passing alleys become very narrow.  Weak passes rarely find their intended target.  Learning to hit the daisy cutter in a game opens more passing options and increases speed of play tremendously.

Every July, I get a chance to see the new up and coming players in Orlando in a futsal event.  This year, it was the 2013/2014 age group.  This age group provides a snap shot of different club’s development philosophies.  There are always a few teams who have players who seem to be dancing with the ball; pull backs, stepovers, and what I call tells.  Signs that a prescribed set of movements with the ball is about to occur.  Now, to the amateur eye, these moves look the part.  Parents “ooh” and “aah” at the moves from the player but what is not seen is that these choreographed movements do not translate to the older ages.  Sure, they can fool a U8 and U9 player, but a U13 defender gobbles them up leading to transition moments, leaving the player doing the moves questioning why they didn’t work.   Interestingly, most of the clubs highlighting players with these moves do not have older teams in the competition. 

The organizer of the event, who has a son beginning in the game, came to me to ask what I thought.  My response was that I have never seen a cone, flag, or any other field marking make a tackle.  The improvisation of the dribble is all predicated on what the defenders are doing at that moment.  Maybe a first time pass was the solution to eliminate more defenders.  Maybe a subtle drop of the shoulder and reception on the far foot was the answer.  This was demonstrated by CR7 on ESPN’s Sport Science program a few years ago.  The producers of the show installed a video camera on CR7 to simulate what exactly he was looking at while dribbling.  Now, most young players see Ronaldo as a scoring machine, getting into the correct place to finish chances created.  However, when he was just starting with Manchester United, dribbling was his forte.  So much so, that he used to draw ire from fans.  What the video showed was revealing.  His eyes were on the DEFENDER.