Coaching in Absentia

Unless coaching is your actual job, life comes before the game.

This past weekend I had to fly to Arizona for a long ago scheduled family vacation, unfortunately, it coincided with the start of the current season and I had to miss my team's first match. Fortunately they won 3-2.

I was worried about how they would play this game, since we moved up to the most competitive division and they had not spent the whole winter training as some of their competition. I spoke with my assistant after and he debriefed me on the match. He said it was a physical match. Immediately, my brain processed this to mean that we need to circulate the ball from player to player faster  to negate the physical play.

Another point my assistant made was that the middle was too clogged. Again, brain thinks that we'll work on build up play to the width. On the plane ride back, I kept thinking about how I'm going to really emphasize that our outside midfielders (in a 3-3-2) MUST have their heels on the touchline when we are in possession to really spread the field.

To train for this situation, I think we'll play 1 big goal to two small goals (6+GK v 3, to start). The objective will be for the team defending the big goal to play through one of the two small goals (maybe I'll place a target player beyond the small goals that they must play to) simulating how we build from the back into the middle third through width. In this situation, I'll only coach the team defending the big goal.

He also noted that the two goals we gave up were from loose balls in the box that we did not get to. First one our keeper made a diving save but gave up a rebound which their striker pounced on. The second was off a corner that wasn't cleared and sat unclaimed in front of goal until their player fired it in. Bad thing is that we gave up goals that could be fixed with just a little initiative. Good thing is that they are goals that can be resolved with a little behavior modification, as opposed to having to build a complete lesson around it.

To me, this is a technical thing. Strikers and midfielders should know to follow their shot and defenders should know that they should follow the shot in as well. All this in case of a rebound. Remember Ronaldo (the fat one) pouncing on Oliver Kahn's spilled save in the World Cup final? If there was any bigger waste of time than following in on Oliver Kahn, I don't know what is. But even the best do it. And for all of Ronaldo's brilliance, he most important national team goal was probably from one of the most basic responsibilities of a striker. Follow your shot.

Overall, physical play in our opponents disappoints me but it's not surprising. It's easy to teach. "Run harder.", "Be more aggressive.", "Knock them off the ball." Constant things I hear from opposing coaches. If I knew nothing about soccer, then I'd probably resort to this too but there's so much more to the game than basic thuggery. If you're this type of coach, stop it. Challenge yourself to grow in the game—for the kids' sake.