talking

[Gre-No-Li]

Hello,

Not posted for a while as things have been ok in the past few months. However been keeping an eye on the bulletin boards.

Over the last few weeks it has become apparent in my team that althought the boys play nice passing football, they dont talk. IMO this is a disadvantage as when I remember my playing days...long time ago...half our games were won by excellent communication between us all on the park. I am looking for ideas on how to encourage the boys to shout "Man on"/"pass the ball".

Would really make a difference to the team.

JP

[tony75]

Just do small sided games, and implement 3-4 things you want them to say. Man On, Switch the play, Cover me, back post. Get them going for a few, then build it up. You can then code it frees, throws & corners.

[Jerzy]

Some kids just don't talk, and I would bet that your coaches implored you to talk as well.

The only way I've been able to get talking is by making that the coaching point for several weeks. As Tony said, start small and everytime your kids don't talk, you have to stop the practice and focus on that. Takes a lot of time for me, and I can not really get to it until I've had kids for a second or third season. I am having trouble getting my kids to play my standard SSG which is the Bayern Munich game (5v2 + 1 target) and we haven't done very well with restarts, so I just can't get to it, but if you want kids to talk, you really, really have to focus on it...

[mcolwell1959]

This is hard, but the right advice is keeping coaching it over and over again during practice and matches and it will slowly get through. My under tens are quiet in matches and so i really have to get them communicating whilst they are on the pitch.

[Val]

Talking and communicating on the field requires an awareness of self and of others, i.e. What am I doning in relation to the others on my team, and what do I want them to do in relation to me? In other words, this is a metacognitive development. Metacognition refers to thinking about self, and I'm not sure when it develops in general, but it seems to me that it is just not a skill that kids are ready for until at least u12s. Girls tend to pick it up sooner, but I'm guessing that all your teams, Gre, are not doing a lot of talking.

[Gre-No-Li]

thanks for the advice. going to try out a few things tonight at training. Let you know how we get on.

G.

[lanesra]

In terms of making corrections on the field of play, the National Soccer Coaches Assoc of America (NSCAA), which incidentally is the largest coaching association in the world, has come up with the following methodology (sort of) for stopping and starting play.

There are four R's, though at the moment I can only think of 3.

Respond -- See what it is you want to correct.
Rehearse -- While everyone is stopped, have your players walk through what you want them to accomplish.
Restart -- let the ball and play go live when your players re-enact the desired action.

Took me a long time to get into this methodology, and the kids don't like it, but let me tell you, it works. And it works very well with communication.

Say you're trying to work on your kids talking through a give and go. You see a time when the give and go would have worked, but it didn't. Stop the play, reposition your players at the beginning of the give and go. Tell player A to shout to player B that the ball is coming. Then have player walk down the line to where he'd receive the ball (everyone else is still standing) and call for the ball back. In this case, they'd want to make the call pretty quickly after making the initial pass. This is the rehearse phase, do it two or three times. Then, restart with the initial player with ball at his feet. Play goes live when he receives the return leg of the give and go.

The thing is, you're not making that big a deal about the communicating, you're really teaching a give and go, but you have the time to emphasize talking, so you get two points at once. I'll have to post more on this methodology, which I am starting to get comfortable with.

[fingersweaver]

The next time you have training try getting your guys to say ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING for five minutes during a SSG. I had the same problem with my lads not communicating enough, so we tried this & I have to say it worked a treat!!
It was really wierd - an almost eerie silence, but after five minutes we brought the guys in together & asked what they thought.
If lack of talking ever creeps back into their game then we can go back to this to remind them - it doesn't take long for them to see (well....... hear!) the difference.
Hope this helps & good luck!!!!

[roypaul]

I went on a workshop run by Premier Skills They teach talking in realistic practices from the age of 6 yrs and up.Their "football language" is excellent so are their practices.If they operate near you make contact

[sw1169]

I agree with val in that I believe it comes with age. I run an U9's team and I've been trying to get them to talk more to each other during matches. I have a couple of lads who will talk at times during a game but not for all of it. I think they are concentrating so much on the game, their positioning etc that they can't talk as well.