FC Kansas City wins their first league game, top of the table vs Seattle Reign, 2-0

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English: Lauren Cheney of the (WPS) Womens Professional Soccer Club, Boston Breakers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

reat win by FC Kansas City vs Seattle Reign last night;  FCKC plays an attractive possession -style game and take their chances with quick counterattacking strikes using their speedy striker.  Lauren Cheney showed why she is world class in the midfield, bringing calm and order to the game whenever she got the ball on her foot.  Strong and confident with the ball, she plays connecting passes with superb touch.  Scott was great in the holding midfield role, winning possession and stopping the Reign counterattacks countless times.  The outside wingers and backs are very active and provide support with confidence and speed.  The  center backs are strong, fast reliable in possession and get the attack moving on both sides of the field.  This is a great team for young soccer players to watch to see an excellent team-concept being worked under game conditions.  The Blues play at a very high level, with skill, and not the usual American athletic long-ball style.

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LUSC U13G victory in the Challenger Cup

really proud of this group of girls.  Tough as nails and very good sportsmen

 

 

LUSC U13G earn a hard-fought victory 3-1 today

Report from the soccer game today  from coach Greg.  So proud of that team

Ken,

Thanks as always.  It was a tale of two hallfs.  First half, they played in our half much of the time, had the wind.  Defense was worked to it’s max.  They scored on a long shot that the wind took.  Gil played it well, but it was hit hard and slipped throughout her fingers as it was up in the air, and fell in.  I thought we were down 1-0 at half, but after the game I found out we had a goal in the first half.  So, 1-1.  But needless to say, I challenged the girls to dominate this team with passing and winning the 50/50 balls.  They did.  The other team only had 3 runs into our side of the field.  I had the outside backs pressure higher on the pitch.  They did.  Haley, savannah played amazing.  Emma and sadie played some outside back to help the rotation and did good.  Rachel hit on on a penalty kick, and it hit the post.  Emma made a great run, after the outside and mid fielder switched the ball to the other side and she split 2′defenders and had a shot hinthe post.  Taylor and Lex did wonderful.  Taylor hit a shot from 30 and sunk it.  It told the girls that we had the wind so look to pepper the goal.  They did.  I thought it was 1-1 at that point and we had two more minutes left.  I challenged them to finish hard and get the winning goal.  Emma did in the final 20 seconds.

You would have been very proud of them.  That second half  was total domination.

Safe trip home.  See you Monday.

Oh, Rachel was not feeling good.  I played Lindsay at holding, she is a true holding mid.  She won 3 balls with headers out Of the air, protected her back line with her work rate, and connected very well to the mid fielders.  Sara played out of her mind in mid field.  She listens well and played some wonderful through balls to set the team up many times.

Great game!

Soccer champions

Leavenworth United Soccer Club U13G team: champions of the Challenger Classic soccer tournament in Kansas City 9-2 Aug

record: 3-0-1.  scored 13 goals and gave up 1.

 

 

 

Champions final set

Barca was a machine against RM; blew them off the field;  Arsenal just showed how to crack Man U with short fast passes, where Barca excels. Will MU be able to use size and strength to penetrate the Barca box? RM couldnt and they were just as big and fast as MU.  I love MU but man, what a challenge they face. Giggs: activate!

Futsal season concludes with our best games of the season

really proud of our girls as they finished the season with a couple very well played, competitive games.

even at age 12 they are becoming more mature and focused in practice. they get rewarded by participating in what we will do in each practice, provided they bring energy to the game.

They usually like to scrimmage in small sided games so that they get lots of touchs. Since I incorporate technical training in all their warmups we still get a chance to refine their first touch, ball control skills and “quick feet”

Its gratifying to see them developing as people as well as in their mastery of the game

What to say at halftime when we’re losing

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It’s my opinion that your halftime speech should be the same each game, regardless of the score. And I say that because I think you should be focusing on the things that really matter and that is: are the players executing the game plan that we have agreed upon and are they putting in their best efforts as players and members of our team?

So I believe that your halftime speech should be focusing on those elements and not on the score. The score is the outcome of all the little things that you should be focusing on such as effort, technique and game plan. If you take care of those things, the score will be what it should be at the end of the game more often than not.

If you’re focusing on the score then you’re communicating that winning is what is most important and not the quality of their play and their attention to detail.

I believe therefore that your speech at halftime should be in the form of questions. You should be asking your players to evaluate their performance, to identify what’s working and what’s not working, to focus on a few things that we want to do better in the second half and to suggest ways that we can reinforce our strengths and improve our weaknesses.

I like to ask my players to grade themselves in the areas of effort, having fun, supporting the team, respecting the other team and reminding them how much we love this game.

Inevitably, players are going to know the score and it’s going to affect them because they’re under a lot of pressure from family and friends in school to focus on the scoreboard. It’s a central part of our culture in many ways.

What we can do is athletic coaches them is help them place the score into context here to improve on the score means we have to improve the way we play fundamentally and his team and those are the things we should focus on. Our morale will improve when our play improves and so that should be the focus of our speech and our play in the second half.

Remember that by making it a player’s responsibility to identify what must be done then we have taught them to carry their own burden and we’ve made them stronger people and better teammates.

Isn’t that what we want from our sports programs anyway?

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Developing leadership in all our young athletes

Like anything involving kids, you want to make sure that you start with the absolute basics and set them up for success. That’s what you would do if you were teaching a new foot skill in soccer, and leadership shouldn’t be any different.

Stay focused on the basics of leadership with your kids. Here are a few ways that you can reliably improve their leadership.. Try these on for size and you will be amazed at how far they can get by the end of the season:

Develop a club approach to leadership that involves mixing age groups, so that the older players have an opportunity to share their knowledge and and experience in leadership with their juniors.. This way they get to use their maturity and seniority to their own advantage. You would be surprised at how eagerly our great young people will rise to the occasion and take on responsibility for helping the younger ones.

Like anything, though, the leadership role of our older players must be something that is explicitly valued by the club and in the coaching philosophy. You need to set these young athletes up for success by modeling excellent behavior with them in their formative years and consistently throughout their career. In this way, by the time they get to the senior position they will be fully prepared to take on a leadership role.

A good way to get started is in the teaching of individual skills and in leading the team through warm-up and stretching exercises at the start of practice and cool down and stretching exercises at the end. These can be ritual routines that are easy to learn and yet give our young people an opportunity to exercise excellence in practice.

Selecting captains for the team as an important way for kids to take on leadership roles during the actual play of the game. I like to rotate Kinship among the kids in the reward for their hard work during the week of practice and this makes can explicit connection between hard work and leadership rewards.

Finally, go out of your way to praise leadership and others, especially when the take the initiative to make on the spot corrections were to share their knowledge work to enforce the high standards of your club. In this way we showed that we value their initiative and leadership.

Enjoy the season!

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Developing discipline in young athletes

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A lot of people believe that you have to be harsh and loud to be an effective disciplinarian. The great example of UCLA coach John Wooden however tells us that discipline is much more than volume. It has everything to do with doing the right things in the right way on a routine basis in order to create an identity that will guide us through difficult times.

As an analogy, military discipline is what holds good units together in times of maximum stress and combat. The discipline anchors us into routine ritual behaviors which have a survival payoff in combat.

In sports, the discipline to do the right thing in the right way every day builds the habits that we need to win on the practice field so that they’ll be available to us automatically in the game.

As an example, if we are in the habit of wearing her uniform properly, then the equipment will not fail us at the crucial moment. If we follow a discipline of warm-up and stretching before every practice, and doing it in again will come as second nature and our injury rate will be much lower.

If we are in the habit of performing our little tasks to a high standard even when no one else is looking, and that discipline will carry over into how we performed on the big tasks.

How do we help young athletes achieve a state of discipline? I think it’s necessary to begin realistically with a few small things that we can build on as we grow our discipline muscles. “If the attitude of the team in your group huddle. When the coaches speaking everyone should be giving him their full attention. As a coach, if you see your players not paying attention or talking with when you’re talking, and how you handle that moment will go a long way towards establishing the climate of discipline.

When your athletes are talking out of turn, they have to know already that this is not acceptable behavior. That means you had to have told them in the very first practice what the standards are for the team when you’re talking. There to give you the respect full undivided attention and be ready to taking your words and apply them on the practice field. Inevitably, some kids will be talking when you’re talking.

Be firm but fair and insist upon their attention before you proceed. You can even ask them if they have anything else that like to contribute to the group before you proceed with your information. They will quickly get the message that it’s not their turn to talk. If their behavior persists, then you may have to take them aside and explain to them why their behavior is unacceptable and what the standards of the team are.

Make sure you framed this as a choice that they will make in order to be a member of the team. You cannot impose discipline on others, you can only encourage it by the force of your personal example.

As in all things, teaching by example is the best way to instill the lessons of disciplining your young athletes. Pay attention carefully when they’re talking, and take them seriously. Show them that you care about the little things in the way that you use language and care for equipment. Insist on doing things the right way for the right reasons and reinforce those lessons verbally with them so that they see how discipline touches everything on our team.

John Wooden started his UCLA season with a demonstration of how to properly trim toenails and fingernails. He was making the point that at UCLA they did everything properly, keep that in mind as you prepare for your next practice. Good coaching!

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Youth soccer coaching: picking a good formation for U11 teams

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There are many different opinions about what the best formation is for teams that play in a youth under 11 league. Typically these leagues will feature seven field players and the goalie, and the question is what formation will allow us to achieve our goals?

A coach would be well served to sort out his or her goals for the season when selecting the formation to use. You should consider the skill level of your players and their familiarity with each other along with their overall skill level. No matter what though, choosing a formation can go a long way towards helping you realize your season’s goals.

My recommendation is to use a 3-3-1 formation throughout the season in order to begin learning the roles of each of the four different positions on the field. A 3-3-1 formation features three defensive backs, three midfielders and a single striker or forward. In this formation, you can emphasize the importance of team defense and positional play while identifying your attacking forward as a target player to receive outlet passes from the defensive zone. Although a single striker can limit your immediate offensive opportunities, you can still use your excellent defense and midfield density to bring the ball out of your defensive zone and slowly build your attack with team play.

This formation will feature a defender and a midfielder on the left side of the field, a defender and midfielder in the center, and a defender and a midfielder on the right side of the field. These sets of two players get to experience a partnership on their side of the field with the responsibility for covering for each other if they create a hole when they pursue the ball. The possibilities for overlapping runs require these partners to play with an eye on each other the entire game.

In addition, the three defenders must learn to play as a unit by staying on the line and covering for each other if one is out of position in pursuit of the ball. Three midfielders must play in a similar fashion: online in covering each other in case one gets out of position.

In the attack, the outside midfielders must run forward to support the lone striker by getting into the box. This puts their fitness levels under stress and you can expect to have to rotate these two outside midfield players most often when using this formation.

As another coaching point, you want to make sure that your outside defenders fill in the open space behind the midfield players when they make a run for. In this way they get in the habit of joining the attacking play and taking over a midfield role.

This formation is stable and sound on defense, solid in the middle, and features a target player in the striker who can receive the outlet pass and set up 18 attacking play. It is a conservative yet ideal way to begin teaching the roles and missions of each of your field playing positions.

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