Thursday, June 27, 2013

Back Yard Ball Mastery

How impressive it is to see a soccer player with good ball mastery.
I am always in awe when watching professional players work their ball magic.

On this post, I would like to post a few links  of ball mastery exercises to get your creative juices flowing.

Be sure to watch these 11 year old girls demonstrate ball mastery exercises:
Coerver Ball Mastery
Intermediate Ball Mastery

Try these exercises to work on dribbling:
Dribble like Lionel Messi
Minefield

Spending 10 minutes a day on Minefield may very well be the best soccer training you could do.  You can use anything in the back yard as obstacles, and start with the obstacles a couple of feet apart, then move them tighter as you improve.

This week, we crowned winners to our 3 year-long tests and our first soccer Tennis toournament.

Winners were:
Soccer Tennis:  Denton
Juggling:  Denton
Run-Return: Ryan
Turn-Kick: Joey

Congratulations gentlemen!!

The complete standings for run-return are:
results measured in seconds

 run-return    27-Jun
Ryan    8.34
Joey    8.37
Samuel    8.50
Landon    8.53
Chris    8.56
Rylee    8.71
Ben    8.81
Denton    9.15
Brandon S    9.50
Bryson    9.53
Colby    9.81

Practice has been going well.  This group looks to have excellent focus.
Keep up the good work
Coach Mike

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Training - June 14-22

Arsenal,
Our first week of soccer training is done.  We did something a little different which was to do a basic soccer skills week without shin guards (no aggressive soccer drills for which shin guards are required).  We, instead, started laying a groundwork for ball mastery, and we worked on kicking technique.  I think that most of the players worked on the most basic skills pretty well.  As we all ramp up our focus, big improvement will follow.

The  development model that we use is commonly called the Coerver approach. and can be modeled as a pyramid:

                                   *finishing*
                           ******tactics******
                  ******Passing/Receiving******
          ************** 1 v 1 ***************
*****************Ball Mastery******************

Week 1 was all about working on foundational ball mastery skills.  In practice, this amounts to doing activities that provide 2000 - 3000 touches of the soccer ball per practice.  No less important is our focus on perfect kicking technique.  After all, there is nothing that will improve soccer success as much as improving kicking technique.

At home, the players should be working on  any skills that they would like for at least 30 minutes a day.  We want each player to bring something unique to the team.  Working on ball mastery is also highly encouraged.

Activities that provide basic ball mastery are:
1. Soccer touches with both feet (the skills we warm up with in our "aerobic soccer training").
2. Juggling (especially foot to foot juggling)
3. Kicking with specific goals in mind (ie. kick the perfect short chip shot with as little effort as possible by using my sweet spot on my left foot)
4. Cuts, back & forth.
5. Reverses (triangle drill)

Test Results for week 1:

Turn-Kick - left foot -
results measured in feet.

Chris    54
Brendon J    53
Rylee    52
Landon    46
Caden    45
Matt    40
Ben    35
Ryan    33
Tanner    31
Mason    29
Denton    27
Colby    26
Samuel    24
Payton    20
Brandon S    15
Joey      0
Bryson    0
Grady    0

Juggling
results measured in # juggles alternating feet.
Denton    55
Rylee    50
Ben    45
Colby    36
Matt    34
Caden    28
Landon    26
Payton    22
Brendon J    21
Tanner    20
Mason    20
Ryan    20
Chris    20
Brandon S    15
Joey     0
Bryson    0
Grady    0
Samuel    0


Next week we will test the 20 yard and return sprint with ball.
Next week we will publish the results of our first soccer tennis tournament as well


Next week schedule:
Tue Jun 25  7am-8:30 North Lake - Practice
Thu Jun 27  7am-8:30 North Lake - Practice
Sat Jun 29  8am-9:30 North Lake - Practice

We will start with the our trainer (West, with whom we will train every Thurs for the summer)
July 11 6:30pm-8:30 North Lake Park

Quote of the week:
"Practice makes permanent"
~anon

Thanks.  This group of young men is awesome.  thanks for sharing them.
Coach Mike