Winter Training Kickoff

Dome went up last weekend, so we kicked off our winter training season last night.

We still have 2 games left in our fall league, and head to Omaha the first weekend in November to battle Greta Elite Academy (NE) and Sporting Iowa (IA).

After those games, we’ll have 4 months of indoor dome training before heading to Vegas at the end of February for the Las Vegas Mayor’s Cup.

The fall was frantic. New team make up, and a month to try and get them ready for ECNL competition. Seven competitive weekends, 5 of them on the road. Due to the strength of schedule, there were not many opportunities to test different formations, test players playing in different positions, or experiment with different tactics.

My plan for the coming months will be as follows:

Play, and Play More

In our dome training sessions we’ll probably spend 75-80% of the time scrimmaging. Generally, we’ll have 1/4 of the dome to train in (approximately 55x35yd) and either 1 or 2 goals to use.

If we have 2 goals, we’ll play 6v6 or Winner Stays (the girls divided into 3 teams, 2 teams on the field, one team resting, whichever team scores stay on the field). Based on the numbers at training, this can be modified to include neutral players or bumpers.

If we have 1 single goal to use, we’ll usually do our 3-team 1/2 Court to Goal activity, one of my favorite 1-goal scrimmage exercises. I’ll document this in an upcoming video.

We also have access to small pop-up Kwik goals, which will allow up to add variations to our scrimmages to keep things fresh.

There is little doubt that the amount of scrimmaging we did was the key factor in the team’s overall development last year. See The Game is the Best Teacher

We were scheduled/budgeted to train Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays this winter. I added in optional Sundays (see below), and here is the plan going forward:

Match Analysis Mondays

After our fall season is complete, Mondays will be for match analysis.

There is little doubt that watching high-level soccer is key to player development, and the girls need to do more of it. They need to see technique properly executed, see the intensity of the game, see the movement off the ball, see the speed of play, see the changing rhythm and that the game isn’t played only in a North-South direction towards goal.

So I’m going to put this site to use by creating a new blog post every Monday with a link to 10-12 minutes of high-level soccer. The girls will be asked to watch this, and then comment with something that they identified in the video that we’ve talked about this year.

More on this coming on Monday, Nov 8.

Technical Tuesdays

We’ll spend the first 15-30 minutes working on individual technique (dribbling skills, passing technique, heading, etc) before jumping into scrimmaging.

We will focus on individual technique for the first

1v1 Wednesdays

Wednesdays are all about 1v1s. Defensive intensity is key, forcing attacking players to develop a repertoire of fakes, feints, and dribbling skills to find success in these situations, and forcing players to get used to physical contact on the ball - something that will be part of the game for the rest of their careers.

20-30 minutes in 1v1 battles before we move to playing.

Possession Thursdays

Thursdays’ focus will be on possession. Moving the ball quickly, changing the point of attacking, recognition of and movement into smart space, providing proper angles for teammates, first touch, and more.

20-30 minutes then playing.

Funday Futsal

Sundays, or Fundays as they’ll be known, are for Futsal. See Adding in Some Futsal