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Are you a parent learning how to coach
soccer?
BEFORE you start you read...
Dustin emailed us and had a few questions after watching our series.
We asked him to share his thoughts about the series with other parents and
coaches that are new to coaching and or the sport of soccer. Dustin
took the time to write an extensive review and his thoughts.
If you are a LEARNING soccer coach and going through your certifications
you will quickly understand what Dustin did. They do NOT teach you how to
teach SKILLS, they teach you how to coach.
Dear Coach V,
In order to put my following summary into perspective, I would
like to first explain the levels I coach and the experience I
have. I am a youth soccer coach who currently coaches U5-U7 age
groups. As a parent, I was asked to coach when my daughter was
first entering soccer at the age of 4. Even though I had played
for roughly five years as a youth, I hadn’t had any exposure to
the sport since that time. Even after thirty years I’m still able
to perform all of the soccer kicks, however I had no idea HOW to teach
children to learn these skills.
Being an
“obsessive” person who wants to be extremely prepared before
starting anything, I did a ton of research before starting as a
coach. I began to constantly be frustrated when trying to teach
the girls how to avoid the dreaded “toe kick”. I knew nothing
other than the conventional instruction which was, “use your
laces”. However, the more the girls attempted to do this, the
more they would drag their feet and injury their ankles which
would exacerbate the problem, because now they would avoid even
attempting further trying to kick with their laces due to
learned pain when previously trying. This led to an unavoidable
downward spiral that I was incredibly frustrated with because I
didn’t know how to correct it.
I then
discovered on my own that there were coaching licensing clinics
that I could attend that were run by previous college and
professional soccer players as well as experienced coaches. I
attended the “G” clinic which was targeted towards the U5-U7
youth. What I received was a complete disappointment. All that
was really covered were the drills that I was already doing
along with a bit of first aid help. Even the DVDs that were
handed out were useless.
Next, I took
the “F” clinic that was offered which would license me to U12.
This was run by a professional soccer keeper who had played in
Germany and who was currently coaching three select teams.
Again, it covered the same drills. However, this time when we
moved to the field portion of the class, he let us observe his
U14 and U17 girls during one of his practices. He showed us the
drills he used and what they were good for, but that still
wasn’t answering my question that I had in my mind. I finally
spoke up and asked him. “I see that your girls are doing these
drills and what the purpose of them are, however, HOW did you
teach the specific way in which they did each movement to make
the drills work? In other words, these girls couldn’t have
always known how to kick. Where did they learn it from and
exactly HOW do I teach this to youth players?” He looked at me
like I was from outer space. Again I tried to clarify my problem
by continuing on to say, “since this is youth course, I need to
know exactly how to break down each movement so my young kids
can learn how to kick. These drills are all fine and good, but
without knowing HOW to kick, they are completely useless to me.”
Needless to say he appeared very annoyed, blew me off and
continued on to another subject.
Again, I left
with my “F” license convinced that I had learned nothing.
Again, I
continued my quest for knowledge and I happened to stumble
across one post on a message board that recommended the “SoccerU
series that included Blast the Ball”. I was extremely skeptical
about spending money on another soccer DVD as the many I had
borrowed, bought and received in the past, were complete trash
and taught me nothing. I decided to take a gamble and I was, and
still am, blown away by what I watched. In the “Blast the Ball”
DVD, my questions and more were answered in a complete and
concise way that I have never seen before. Each step and
mechanic of all of the major kicks was finally answered for me
and I was both relieved and overwhelmed at what I saw. Inside I
felt that I had done a disservice to my kids, yet I hoped that I
could redeem myself now armed with the tools that CoachV
espouses in this video. There were very few drills shown in this
video, which I didn’t care about since I already have many
drills at my disposal, but the content is exactly what I needed
and still need to properly teach my children going forward.
Excited by
the Blast the Ball DVD, I jumped into the SoccerU series. Now
understand that about half of the series does not apply to me at
this time, since my kids are too young to learn some of the
material, yet what I can use are things that, again, I have
never seen before.
There are so
many things that I have learned from this series that it would
take me days to explain, but I will touch on a few things that I
return to constantly even at my age group.
One of the
areas I focus heavily on is the section on passing. I have
always known the idea of “giving the passer options”, but that
has not sunk in with the girls as I don’t think they can
actually visualize what that means. Coach V uses pool noodles to
explain where the options should be when the supporting
attackers do not have the ball. I went out and bought those and
I can’t tell you what a difference that they make. Once they
were able to visualize the noodles, I had them use their arms in
a “V” just like Coach V teaches, and the improvement was amazing
to say the least. As soon as a girl with the ball raised her
arms in a “V”, the supporting girls would run to line up with
them. Also, the use of the pool noodle to explain WHEN the pass
should be made was an eye opener for the girls since now they
could get an understanding of the timing of the pass.
The other
area I focus on is the section on defense. I teach basic
defensive principles to the girls since I believe they can
understand them even at this young age. The explanation of the
correct use of a block tackle has also been invaluable. If
anyone has ever watched a youth game, you would have noticed
that 99% of the tackles made are either just swinging wildly or
shying away from the ball. My daughter was the latter, yet when
I started working with her on the block tackle, she has gained
an extreme amount of confidence in winning the ball. Just for
reference, she is 5yo playing against 7yo girls who are MUCH
bigger, faster and stronger, yet she wins most of the tackles
now due to proper form. She now understands that form can trump
physicality and is improving due to this.
The next area
of defense I cover is the closing down of the attackers and the
proper stance to take when pressuring. I know for a fact that
this is able to be learned at this young age since my girls can
do it. They don’t yet comprehend the first and second defender
idea, but the breaking down in the proper stance wins 90% of the
balls when they do it due to a few reasons. If anyone has ever
watched a youth game, 99% of the kids will just blindly run in
and try to boot the ball away when they want to win the ball. My
girls have learned to simply dribble past the opponents’ defense
because they know this. In fact, since my girls don’t yet know
how to properly kick, most of our goals have come from simply
dribbling into the goal past the keeper. However, when the
opponents have the ball and are approaching our goal, it is a
different matter. My girls will close them down and assume a
proper stance and wait for a mistake to be made. At this age,
this causes two things to happen. Either the opponent will freak
out and dribble right into my defender or kick it directly at my
defender. Either way my girls usually end up with the ball. For
the naysayers who think that this cannot be taught, I will tell
you that I know for a fact otherwise. Restraint is a hard thing
to teach at this age, but it can be done through repetition. I
use another of the soccer series that touches on this which
applies the principle that if you are not the first to the ball,
then you must be ready to break down and assume a defensive
stance. I drill into my girls to be patient because the attacker
WILL make a mistake and when they do, they need to be ready and
commit themselves 100% into winning the ball. Using the pool
noodles is also great for illustrating the space in which a
defender should maintain.
In summary, I
would like to say that I could write a book about the
effectiveness of the Blast the Ball and SoccerU series to my
coaching and remember, I am only using about a third of what is
taught, since I don’t coach the age groups that the rest of the
material is geared towards. There are many other things I have
not touched on that I use that I feel bad in not mentioning, but
all I can say is that anyone would be remiss not to have these
DVDs. They are the most effective coaching material I have found
over years of searching including worthless “official
licensing”. Keep in mind; this is NOT a series where you will
find a lot of drills to use during practices, yet that type of
material anyone can find ad-nauseum through many other sources.
On a personal
rant, I would like to say that I wish this information would be
taught at clinics or at the minimum be handed out to all
prospective and current coaches rather than the drivel that is
currently available.
Also, the
saying that many premiere club coaches say, “do not teach
anything that has to be untaught later” makes a lot more sense
after watching this series.
Dustin
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