Guidelines for Seeking Help on these Forums

[Val]

If you've been given a small sided game (SSG) topic for your coaching certifications, or if you're looking to bring more dynamic games to your practices, it will help everyone here help you if you tell us a little about what you are trying to do first.

If you're trying to incorporate your games into your practices, tell us a bit about your team (age, gender, skill level) and then tell us what you've done so far. What has worked and what hasn't. Then we can help you fine tune your practices to benefit your team.

If you've been given a topic for your coaching badge, don't just post that you've been given such and such a topic and that you want some ideas. Post what your thoughts are, some progressions you want to try, and what you've already learned in your course that you want to apply. You'll end up getting more help from more people and a much more dynamic conversation this way.

Please don't read this as a we-don't-want-you-to-post discouragement. If you think about your topic first, you'll get better answers.

[pollo]

i took my level 2 last year and my tutor was dissappointed he had to fail me because i only let myself down with my ssg,everything else was spot on ,several candidates i thought were definatly going to pass but they also failed on the ssg,the trouble was my team i am coaching are 14 to 16 year olds and i found it difficult to stop the game and keep there interest, i have been encouraged to apply again to resit ,do you have any suggestions on how to go about dealing with what in effect is the basis of passing level 2,no matter how good you perform during your course it boils down to getting this correct on the day!!

[74offsuit]

I think you should resit your L2.

I passed at the second time of asking, and with a lot of help from message boarders here, I was better prepared and passed fairly smoothly.

Post your topic and session plan on this forum, and you will get lots of excellent advice.

[ian.curry]

I passed L2 in May, my own team are u15s now.
Practise really does get you there. I told my lads exactly why I was doing it, and explained when I was making a coaching point that I would be making them to everyone - not just the person making the mistake.
The advantage with older ones is you can do question and answer more with them, and you can discover more things to suggest/say.
Once you get your topic, do it coaching one half of the squad in a 2-1-2 formation for 20 minutes. Have a break and do something else like crossbar challenge, then coach the other half of the squad in a 2-2-1 formation - the exact same session.
Practise, practise, practise.

[lanesra]

My assistant retook his USSF C (equivalent to the Level 3 I think) and he said he learned a lot more the second time around (as well he should, it costs about $1000 to take the C course) but that was because he had a better handle on what he'd have to do and also what he had more freedom to really focus on the things that would help his coaching with the team he then had. Application is a big key with any kind of learning.

[Chez]

I have my mock L2 this coming Sunday - 'Running with the Ball'. The technique to skill is fairly straightforward, however the SSG.....

I am thinking of setting up the 'attackers' I coach as a 4, with the defence being 3 and a goalkeeper. This should create space for those running with the ball. I'm not sure about how to include a progression though.

I am considering a structured start position for the defence with maybe two players starting to one side. This would naturally allow the forwards more space to run into. The progression would be to take this away and allow the defence a free role - however, still outnumbered 3 to 4 in the outfield.

Any other ideas?

ps the structured start position was mentioned by another group's tutor when he was coaching - I tried it with my tutor and he was okay with it.