Coaching Soccer Weekly: Methods, Trends, Techniques and Tactics from WORLD CLASS COACHING

I only had one team playing last weekend. My U17 girls competed in the Presidents Cup tournament. For those not familiar with how the state tournaments work in the U.S.; the top teams in each age group compete in the State Cup for a chance to win and go on to Regionals. The winners of Regionals move on to the National Championship. A few years ago US Youth Soccer created the Presidents Cup. The to...

We had our last league games of the fall season last weekend. It was great to see so much of what we had been working on come together in those games. We still have a lot to improve but we’re definitely headed in the right direction. I had an encounter with a parent from one of the teams we played against over the weekend. This kind of thing doesn’t happen often but I thought I’d...

One of my teams had two interesting and very different challenges this week. During their first game of the weekend they played a team that they were clearly better than but were just coasting their way through the game. There was on urgency or intensity in their play. They knew they could get by on 50% effort so that’s how they played. In the beginning I let them play and watched to see if...

Last weekend was another tournament weekend. It was local and it was nice to play a tournament close to home especially because the forecast was for rain all weekend. I had three teams in the tournament which may seem like a lot but it was manageable because it was spread out over three days. Friday was perfect, it was a great evening to play. The rain didn’t start until overnight. Saturday...

I only had three games again last weekend; one Friday, one Saturday and one Sunday. The teams all played very well. It doesn’t always work out that way so it’s fun when it does. We’re at the point in the season where I’m seeing the results of what we’ve worked on in training. It’s great to see them applying concept to games under pressure. Now it’s time to add on to that.  For me...

I took just one team to a tournament last weekend. We had a great schedule; we played at 8 am and noon on Saturday and Sunday and then we headed home. There were only five teams in our group so we played each of them once. Not having to stay around to play a final against a team we had already played was great! Having only one team allowed me to spend more time with the kids and parents than I&#82...

This was a pretty easy weekend for me. I had one game a day over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I almost didn’t know what to do with all my extra time.! During these games I was thinking about the way I change the positions that players are in during games. The way I used to do it was to have everyone play the same position for the first four games of league play and then rotate the attackers...

Reaching 160 episodes got me think that I’m sure there are many people listening now have not been listening from the start and may not have gone back and listen to the episodes that were produced before they discovered the show. I’m getting to the point where there are times that I’m not sure if I’ve already talked about a particular topic or training session on a previous show and I have to go b...

I’m sorry about not telling you that there wouldn’t be a podcast last week. I forgot that it was Labor Day weekend and I had two teams going to a tournament. I didn’t remember until after I’d already recorded and posted the last episode. The two teams I took to the tournament played very well on Saturday. Unfortunately, it started raining on Saturday evening and didn’...

This is the fourth week of training for the teams in our club. I’m finally getting into the flow of the season. Each team has had a number of games and I’m starting to learn more about the players and they’re starting to understand what I’m look for from them. The recreational league games started last week as well so with that, the amount of time and energy I have to devot...

I’m sorry for missing last week’s podcast. Everything just piled up and I ran out of time. On top of a crazy week I also had three teams in a tournament so there was no time to get it done over the weekend as I’ve been planning to do. With all of that taken care of now I’m confident that I’ll be able to get a new episode out to you each week from here on out. Thanks f...

This week has just been insane. Create cards and rosters for our older team and getting the uniforms and coaches meeting organized for the younger teams has been a bigger job than I could ever have imagined. his weekend I have to get the schedule done and then hopefully I can get my life back into balance again. On top of all of that, we also started training our teams this week. With all of my re...

If you’re anything like me you when through some serious World Cup withdrawal. I’d been spoiled by being able to watch so much good soccer over the last month that I didn’t know what to do with myself now that it was over. I discovered the Rugby World Cup Sevens last weekend. I would describe it as all of the best parts of the game compressed into a format that’s great for...

I want to give you some info that will help explain how I’m going to present episodes in the future. Usually I record on Thursdays but it’s going too hard with my coaching schedule this fall. I’m now going to produce them on Sunday so I’ll have a bit more time to put it together and I can talk about what’s happened over the weekend. I’m recording this one about an hour or s...

I enjoyed the bit of time off I took over the last couple of weeks. It gave me some extra time to spend with friends and family over the 4th of July holiday. Things are still in full swing with preparations for the recreational season coming up so it wasn’t a complete break but still a nice change of pace. It also gave me time to enjoy watching the quarter finals of the World Cup and a few S...

I wasn’t able to schedule a time to talk with Scott Moody of SoccerFIT about their new soccer conditioning app this week. I decided I would spend my time putting the show notes together for last weeks show on directional rondos. So go back to episode 152 and you’ll find a link to those notes. Nothing fancy here; I just put diagrams of the activities into my outline of the show. Hopeful...

I had to take last week off from the podcast because it was our week for tryouts. I’ve described our tryout process in detail in a number of previous podcasts so you can do a search for, “Tryouts” and listen to those episodes if you’re interested in more information on those. At the same time as tryouts are occuring we’re also coming up on the deadline for the recreat...

Well, my 2017/18 season has finally come to an end. The team I had in State Cup lost in the Semi Final. Only one team per age group really ends the season having accomplished its goals and having won the title but looking back I’m very happy with the progress of my team and especially of the individual players. That’s really what it’s all about those. No college coach will ever a...

Last weekend I traveled with three teams to a Memorial Day Soccer tournament in Chicago so I didn’t release a podcast. I talk about the tournament and out of town tournaments in general later in the show. Tonight I had my last practice of the year with the team I have playing Jr. State Cup this weekend. We had two training sessions this week. Yesterday we focused on shooting and finishing. T...

I had a huge tournament weekend a week ago. Having four teams in a tournament makes for a busy weekend but it’s the best way for me to give all of my teams a chance to play with the least amount of disruption to our league schedule. This was the last tournament for one of my teams while the other still have one or two events to play. For those teams that are still playing, this tournament wa...

Last weekend I feel like I coached three great game and one awful one. The players weren’t awful, it was me. I have a team that’s playing up an age group and there were promoted to the first division after a very good fall season. The difference between DI and DII is substantial and it’s been a difficult spring for the team. They played well in the first half this weekend and wer...

We’re finishing up our spring league season in the next couple of weeks. Then there are a couple of tournaments to end the season and we’re back to tryout time again! This is also the time of year I set aside time to complete player evaluations for all of my teams. If you’ve listen to the podcast over the last three years you know that our club uses ZoomReports.com to communicate...

I had some good and bad last weekend in terms of weather to play in. One game started at 10:30 am and was miserable. It was hard for the girls to play anything like the way we usually try to. I found myself coaching their effort to fight through the conditions more than anything else. By 1:00 pm is was beautiful and the teams were able to play some great soccer in very competitive games. It looks...

It seems that I’m always talking about the crazy weather we’re having this spring. Last week was our third weekend with snow this spring. I ended up only have one game because of thunderstorms on Friday and bitter cold and snow on Sunday. I helped referee some tournament games on Saturday night. The snow was blowing in sideways! The goalkeeper couldn’t take a goal kick because th...

I was fortunate to have an opportunity to tour the new US Soccer National Training Center. It’s an amazing facility that was built as a partnership between US Soccer, Sporting Kansas City and Children’s Mercy Hospital. The three entities all have their separate areas build to suit their specific needs but they also share areas of the facility that they all benefit from. I give you an o...