Building a Girl's Team and League: A Blog

[Val]

Had my best session this past Sunday. Numbers have still been low, but I've got maybe 12-14 girls who have come out semi-regularly and I've been getting 6-8 girls per week. I've come to the conclusion that I will have to recruit if I want to build a girl's team. Not really what I want to do...

But I have been successful getting two of the parents of my more regular girls to do some recruiting. And I've been getting more girls out, last week I had 10, and two were players who'd I be targeting for the travel team. And going to a local camp, I found two other girls who summer in the area but are underneath the radar, and want to come out next week.

[Val]

Well, the new season is upon us, and the best thing I can do for the program is have a model season for all the girl's team coaches. After having attended yet another coaching clinic (let me tell you, I am sick of them this year) I've been convicted of the need to write out my lesson plans (OK I am a former teacher, or I would have called them practice plans) and I am going to make them available for the entire league. What the girls in this league need is repetition, since we are still talking girls whose soccer entirety has been playing in this league (very few seem to play by themselves or even during recess). I've got maybe 10 exercises that I'll do all year long, usually in different permutations and with some elementary progressions, to give them that repetition.

1st Exercise
The first is very basic, coming from the very first lesson in Tony Carr's book, How to Coach a Soccer Team.

X ..........................> Y
( o ------------ o )
X <........................ Y

There's two poles/cones, and two players on either side, X and Y. X passes the ball to Y, who doesn't trap the ball, but pushes it across the pole and passes back to X. X comes across the pole to receive it and in turn, pushes it back across the pole/cone to pass back to Y. Very simple, very basic, very needed by the girls in my league. But this is designed to keep the girls from trapping and stopping the ball and to encourage movement. Do this as long as needed until you can direct your players to pass the ball amongst themselves in pairs and they are naturally moving the ball about and not just trapping the ball.

2nd Exercise.
Get all the kids in a slightly smaller grid than you might normally use, for me with my U11 girls, that would 20x20 for 9-10 girls. Each kid with a ball. Basically, they're going to dribble around the grid, not going out of bounds, keeping control, not allowing their ball to hit anyone else's ball. Lots and lots of progressions here (meaning different things you can emphasize). Easy things: when you blow the whistle, every kid has to stop the ball. Or when they have to run to another ball (and this can become a sort of musical chairs game, where the last kid to find a ball or tries to take his/her own has to sit down). Or, when you blow the whistle each kid has to execute a turn with the outside of his foot, or if you've been working on turns, whatever turn you've been practising. One I just made up last night, when I blew the whistle, the kids had to look at me and see how many fingers I was holding up. This makes them have to dribble while looking up to see me and avoid other players. After a couple of weeks, I'll make the grid larger and put in several pairs of cones (or gates) and when I blow the whistle, have the kids dribble through a gate. You can also add a lot of tag games to this format.

3rd Exercise.
A real favorite that I've described here before. But two large goals with two keepers in each goal, maybe 20, 25 yaards apart, like so:

| ___________________ |
.................X............X




....................Y...............Y
| ___________________ |

One player from team X dribbles the ball down and shoots on Y's goal. If Y makes the save, Y advances as fast as possible to shoot on X while the one player is maybe still out of position. If Y scores, X gets a ball from behind the line and advances quickly as well. Really a great game. This game is great for shooting practice in general, advancing on goal quickly especially if after a turnover in the defender's half, retreating while running backwards, and goalkeeping. Last year's team would have been happy to play this all practice long. Very easy to fit in a couple of extra players as they can be shagging balls.

4th Exercise
I've done these previous exercises alot in previous seasons. What I am going to do more of this year is the Ajax game, made famous of course, by the Dutch team Ajax. The game has three teams of 3, so the game is abbreviated 3+3 v 3. You really need pinnies for this game. Each team has their own color, and you start out with two teams versus the other playing keep away. So it is 6 vs 3 in maybe a 30x30 grid. The team that causes the turnover, whether it is the bad pass, or losing it out of bounds, or getting caught in possession, goes on defense. You'll have to help your players recognize the change of possession and which team has to drop back to defense, but this is a good game to play.

5th Exercise
Get Out of Jail. Less of a skill game and much more of a fun game. Good to have if you've gotten beat hard or if you want to get players enthused about the season early on.

Coach starts in goal (after playing this a couple of times, you can let the kids play keeper as well). Everyone is in a line, maybe 30 yards from goal. Have a very small (2x2) grid off to the side, which is jail. Each kids dribbles down and shoots. If he scores, he gets the ball out of the net and goes back to the end of the line. If he misses, he gets his ball and goes into the jail. Posts count as misses. If the keeper saves the shot, he punts the ball in the air. If the player catches the ball, everyone is freed from jail. If he drops it, he goes into jail. Start with easy drop kicks until you know how good your kids are at catching.

This game is just a lot of fun and good for building team spirit as your kids in jail really cheer on the kids trying to catch the punts.

6th Exercise
Bomb Ball. Have two teams of players lined up across from each other across a relatively narrow channel, say maybe 10-12-15 yards. Put a ball in the middle, something that will stand out from the other balls. Sort of like marbles, kids have to drive the ball across the other team's line, and when it does cross the line, the "bomb" has gone off and everyone on the losing team has to die a loud and glorious death (at least up until U12 or so). This gives players lots of reps striking a ball with some pace.

7th Exercise
I am going to work more on dribbling this year than I have in the past. While it is fashionable to to quote the No Lines No Lectures No Laps thing, I have never had a problem with laying out cones in a line and having kids dribble around them. Seems to have worked well enough for Best and yes, even Cruyff. What I don't like is having to set up the cones. So the way Stanley Matthews learned to dribble was along a line on the field. Standing on the line, your players dribble down the line, having the ball cross the line with each touch. Depending on the skill level, they can start out using the insides of their feet, but then advancing onto using just one foot (which means every other touch of the ball is with the outside of their foot). And to change things up, you can have your kids dribble a little faster by keeping the ball ON the line. But the real reason for this is that this is a great lead-in for teaching the Matthews turn: as you dribble and approach the defender, you push the ball with the inside of your foot across your body. So if you are dribbling with your right foot, you push the ball with the instep of your right foot towards the left side of your body. The defender should move his body to his right (your left). As your right foot continues it's step forward after the initial push, move it to left side of the ball and push the ball right with your outside foot. Explode right into space that the defender left because he was moving to your left. This is about the only turn that I have successfully be able to teach young U10 - U14 players. I've got three players on my team now that I would expect to be able to execute a Matthews turn in a game by the end of the season.

8th Exercise
Very simple one, actually, and one that frequently gets forgotten, but let the kids scrimmage. Two years ago, especially, I always seemed to get bogged down with too many over-talkative kids and some discipline problems, and it always took longer than I thought with getting through my program. The lesson is that the game is the program and if your other exercises are taking too long, cut them out so the kids can play. Many coaches will say that coaches shouldn't play with the kids and that they should just have a chance to play without adult interference, and there is merit to that. But I like to play because I like to play; it is rewarding for me. But more importantly, the girls I have are usually more intimidated of me than boys. When I can convince the girls not to run away from me they'll start to learn to challenge everyone of the field. Yesterday I made that point to my best player when she started a knee-jerk withdrawal from me. Three minutes later, she caught my misdribble in my penalty box, took the ball away from me, hit it first time and scored. She caught my error, I wasn't playing easy at that moment. Hopefully, she'll take this out on the field with her and not back down from anyone.

[74offsuit]

I tried 'Ajax' last night with my U16's.

Very successful. As with all youth football, one of the challenges of a coach is to keep the interest level high, or you 'lose the dressing room'.

The lads performed this session with plenty of focus and quality.

Nce one thanks Val.

[Ozark Coach]

Neat tips, Val! many thanks for taking time to share them. As a new coach, this stuff is a real blessing! Yerdabest!

[Val]

9th Exercise
Wallball. Great game for developing leg strength and power. You need a big wall (I've had people tell me that a couple of benches laid on their sides work as well, but they're never tall enough for my kids and we spend way too much time chasing balls). Players line up maybe 10-15 yards from the wall, first player in line has one ball, He dribbles once and then strikes the ball firmly and goes to the end of the line. Next person in line has to get to the ball and hit it back against the wall before the ball stops. If that player can't get to the ball or his strike fails to hit the wall, he gets the letter W (for wall) and goes to the end of the line. You get an additional letter for each miss, until you spell out WALL, and then you have to sit down. Last person standing wins. Progressions: get a total of 2 touches and then move up to 1 touch wall ball. Once the kids get the hang of "being difficult": trying to have the ball softly hit the wall or strike it at an extreme angle, so to make the following player really have to run, this becomes the most cut-throat game. Lots of fun. I will move my 2nd practice to a different location just to find a good wall. This is also one of the few games that I've been able to have my kids play without me for long periods of time.

10th Exercise
Good passing movement and communication here. I use the following as my pre-game warmup. Big circle or square (the center circle works well for this). 2/3 of your team lines up outside the circle/square, with the remaining players inside said circle/square with a ball each. They each look at a person outside the square, call his name and pass the ball to him. Then they run to space to receive the ball back, and then go look for another person to pass to. This game teaches movement well, good receiving motion, and it seems to be the one game that I can use to get the girls to talk and communicate.

11th Exercise
This is a game that I call Wimbledon, so of course no one in America knows the geography... But a good game to teach players because sometimes they'll play by themselves. Best for small numbers, say maybe four or five players max. One keeper, everyone else out in the field, but the game is like the basketball game 21, everyone against everyone. Keeper plays the ball out, and it's a free-for-all. First player to score two goals sits, then the next player to score 2 sits, until there are only two players left playing 1v1. Loser sits as everyone else goes into the next round. Now it is the first player to score three, and the elimination continues. Each subsequent round, another person sits until you have the winner. Winner goes into goal for his well-deserved rest. Lots of 1v1 play is emphasized here and each player gets a break, so you can play this all day long. Which brings me to...

12th Exercise
And lastly, 1v1. I have done 1v1 drills before, but never down at the U10 (U11 for girls) ages before. I dunno, just seemed too advanced, but obviously I was wrong. I'm going to do a lot more of this. Fairly simple to set up a 10 yard wide channel maybe 15 yards wide. One player serves the ball to the other, than he plays defense -- approach the ball/player quickly to slow the player down, then move in control to challenge the ball -- while the receiving player is going to try to beat the defender and stop the ball on the opposite end line. For younger kids, keep it simple. I only teach two or three moves: the aforementioned Stanley Matthews move, the push and a simple stepover (maybe because those are the only three I can do). But the best progression comes from the defensive side of things in that you can teach approaching the ball and start to work on first-man defense.

And that's it. Most practices will be a combination of these drills. I haven't had to teach offsides lately, so that is missing, and I've found my girls especially need the repetition, so there's not a lot of time spent on formation or tactics here, just lots of touch, lots of pass and receive.

[Val]

Now that the season has started, I have begun an e-mail campaign for my girls. I sent out Sunday (after our first game) a youtube clip of George Best to serve as inspiration. (I have given my best player the #7, because from past clips, it seemed to me that Best wore 7 and 8 most consistently throughout his career. And I decided to show Best clips because I want to encourage Rani to dribble more. But the two clips I had in mind have several images of Best drinking, getting arrested, and that's not something I want for my U11 girls. So the clip I sent out has Best primarily wearing 11 it seems, so I lost my point.) Anyway, the girls have loved the clip, so I am going to continue sending out clips. Next up, Dennis Bergkamp.

And as an aside, I am going to include in these e-mails encouragement/praise, pictures of the girls, if I can get them, and a lesson about the game. Last week it was to remind them of the 2-2-1 formation we're playing, which I call a house shape. Next week it'll be the three rules of goalkeeping.

[Jerzy]

I did the same, though the idea of the youtube clips is a good idea. I'll have to include some in my e-mails as well. Since you've got younger girls, did any parents have any issues with youtube?

Edit: Have to say, I tried Get out of Jail, which you had mentioned to us previously, and you were right. What a lot of fun. I had a great time blasting the punts as high as I could, esp for one player who returns punts for his football team....

[Val]

Big weekend coming up, for the program at least. I've been able to identify a pool of maybe 20 girls who may be ready to take their soccer to another level, and they break down kind of nicely between U10s and U11s. I was asked by a local private school to form a team to give their Junior Varsity team a game, and I've put together quite the team. Two girls will be competing against their older sisters and I've got the best girl I've seen recently who's a U13 player to come in and be an inspiration for them. There is a second coach who has a U11 daughter who also wants to form a travel team, and while that was initially threatening to me (because I didn't think the county could support two teams) he's a good recruiter, knows the kids, and we'll have more spots initially for this first year. And you don't want to make too many predictions about which U10s are going to be studs when they're U16s.

So anyway, we've got a practice Sunday and then the game on Tuesday. And I'm trying to get a game for some U10s (younger kids) for the end of the month.

Good times...

[Val]

Practice was great -- just a beautiful fall day and the best team of 12 girls that I have gotten together. Kind of nerve wracking, I had four parents watching me who are very experienced coaches and three of them came up to me before hand and gave me very pointed suggestions about how to run this one-time practice. I knew what I wanted to do, so I ignored them and carried out my plan, which worked well because as I have said, these are good girls. I talked to two of them since and they seemed to really like some aspect of the practice, so I guess all is well. But we'll see what happens tomorrow...

[Val]

Well, the game was fantastic. This is why we coach, why kids play, and why parents come out to games like this. As I had posted before, I cherry picked this team, and I let the girls know that. In my one practice and in my e-mail and in the pre-game, I emphasized to the girls just how good their teammates were, and they really took it to heart (and it was easy, they all are good). First 20 minutes (we played two 25 minute halfs due to the late start of the game before us and the impending sunset) we put on a clinic. These girls passed among themselves, played possession, were talking to each other, they made overlaps, the midfielders were aware of where the other players were so we defended in depth and attacked in waves. They looked like they'd been together all year. We got tired in the second half, our opponents were older, a bit bigger, a bit faster overall, and used to the bigger field. We went up 1-0 and 2-1 before the other team's best player refused to quit, dispossessed one of my defenders (I think she fouled, but then, we always think that of the other team, don't we) and scored a fine goal with 10 minutes to go. I finally got a few minutes on the sideline with my best striker and told her to stop trying to set up teammates every time, and to be a little bit selfish because we needed a goal. I put her back in and if the game had been a little bit longer, I think we would have scored again. This striker and another girl, the best player on the pitch, really had a sense of urgency and had very strong runs of the kind where you can hear everyone on the sidelines inhale and hold their breath. But it was a draw, and bragging rights between me and my daughter (who is not normally very competitive, but for this game, her and two best friends on the team got very fired up) are even. I wanted to win, but I didn't realize that my daughter's team was undefeated and I'm happy that her team's streak is still intact.

All in all, a fabulous day, a great game, and I think, a positive start towards creating a travel team in the spring. I will lose 1 girl to swimming, 3 to lacrosse, 1 to church (travel leagues play on Sundays) and 1 to age (the aforementioned best player on the pitch), but there is still a ton of talent, and there is a younger set of girls that will playing in a second game I have scheduled in two weeks. I've got three parents firmly in place for spring who's daughters I thought were interested in other things (the parent of the aforementioned striker being most notable). Yeah, it was a great day.