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El Clasico is here
I posted the “gameplan” below before the game. Let’s compare the strategy to the actual stats and see how well each succeeded (have to use my Barca commandments because we don’t know what Pep had). Posted on 12/9: Mourinho has come up with his ten commandments to beat Barca, but any list can’t beat the culture of Barca. This game does worry me for Barca, because they just... [Read more]
Creativity… how do we instill it in our players?
Remember the movie Monster’s Inc.? The Monsters generate their city’s power by scaring children, but in the end they find that children’s laughs provide 10x the power. Creativity is the same… it is powered by joy and passion. Scaring children as a means to get them to not make mistakes only kills the passion, enjoyment and potential creativity. Have you seen a recent FC Barcelona... [Read more]
3 Rules of giving kids feedback
As a coach and a parent, I get constant feedback on what works with children when giving feedback to them for performance on the soccer field or their behavior at practices. Unfortunately, many coaches fail at their ability to properly motivate and balance their criticism. I’ve seen coaches who constantly criticize their players (U9s) to those who impart the fear of making a mistake into their... [Read more]
What U.S. Youth coaches really coach… scrappy, relentless…
I recently read the below article in our local newspaper about an under 14 youth team. I’d like to commend the team mentioned on winning a tournament, but I want to highlight the article and what it says about the soccer being played. The article uses the following adjectives to describe the play of teams on the field: speed, solid, relentless, aggressive, scrappy, tough tackles, tenacious. Great... [Read more]
What is soccer development?
I read a lot of soccer blogs, news, and watch a lot of soccer… not only the news channels, but probably 2-3, or 4 games on TV a week. I coach 5-6 days a week, so I am pretty submerged in the beautiful game. One of the articles I recently read was posted on 3-4-3, a very good coach centered site written by a couple of people that have their heads in the right place as they look critically at the... [Read more]
