I apologize for the long delay between posts. Soccer season is upon us, so there is a lot less free time to write. My "free" hours are spent with coming up with training plans or administrative stuff for the team.

Our first game is this coming Sunday. In preparation, our tactical phase has been focused on when our team is in possession in the attacking third. My approach this season is to expose the young players to the context in which their technical skills will be applied in a real match. I have the luxury of having a full field to ourselves for training, so every activity is oriented on the pitch as they would see it in the game. I further reinforce this point by explaining to them why we do this drill, why it is set up how it is and where it is, and the objective.

For example, I've ran a 5v2+GK+TP (target player).

5 players try to score on a normal goal against 2 defenders. The 2 defenders try to win the ball back and play it to the target player to score points. I believe this latter part makes it more game realistic as now they work on the transition from defense to attack. All restarts come from me to either the center mid or or wide midfielders.

As a side note, we play 2-3-2, so I deploy the 5 attackers in this activity into a 2 forwards and a LM, CM, RM deployment. Again, echoing as much of actual play as possible.

At the outset, the 2 defenders could handle the attackers very well, outscoring them 4-1. But the next group did considerably much better that I had to add a third defender to increase the resistance. We cycled in players ever 3-5 minutes, with the players not participating in the 5v2 were off to the side with my assistant playing keepaway.

The following training session I wanted to work on our attacking/build up play in the middle third. After the warm up, we play what I call the end to end game. Two teams, in a 30 yard long x 40 yard wide grid. On the short edges you have a player from each team, to score a point the ball must be passed from touchline to touchline without losing possession. This works on good stuff like possession, short and long passing, receiving, and the concept of switching play.

After that, we played the End Zone game to get more work on our attacking/build up play in the middle third of the field. This was a very spirited game against the two groups and I felt they grasp the concept of penetration or playing balls behind the defense very well. They're really starting to get these concepts, but it's still a little rough.

My main concern is that their play in real matches is too vertical, too rushed. I don't want to be heavy handed and force them to possess more so their overall play isn't as crisp as I would want. For the most part, they can handle the technical demands of the game. As a group, the top third are advanced for their age technically, the rest are a little ahead of their peers but their technical game have various holes—each one different for each player.

Some coaches may think I'm forsaking their technical training for organization and tactics. Maybe on the surface, but I'm still very much invested in their technical development as ever. I'm coming to believe that it's hard to develop the all important Soccer IQ if they are not presented with the soccer situations they will face in a match. In fact, putting them in these contextual games really highlights what technical deficiencies they are lacking.

The proof will be in the pudding this weekend at their first match of the season. Can they play nice soccer together and display their individual technical qualities?