Codes, cues, ignition and deep practice....

I am sure that most people have heard of the 2009 book by Daniel Coyle " The Talent Code". Its an interesting read for parents and coaches alike and he has just brought out another book this past year called " The Little Book of Talent" which would be a great Christmas present for coaches, teachers, students and anyone else who is trying to become better at their job.

In short Coyle talks about keys to greatness and makes a compelling case that it is in us all, it just needs nurturing.  The key thing I take from Coyle, without giving too much away, are that the cues and the ignition are things that coaches probably cant influence in most cases, however when it comes to 'deep practice' we certainly can play our part.

The suggestion is that when an athlete or performer enters this zone of deep practice they can accelerate their development exponentially and improve as much in 20 minutes as they usually do in 6 months. If that is the case, then if we can get our players into that zone then maybe we can make up for the lack of time on task that the vast majority of our players are faced with and help them close the skill gaps in their game.

After watching professional golfers 'ghost putt' and basketball players practice their movements at the free throw line without the ball, I believe that deep practice should be used for developing our players technical ability, at slower than game speed and quite often without the ball with multiple repetitions.

For our younger players the ball is too big and it gets in the way! I also believe that the ball drives us to be more outcome driven than process driven.  Instead of looking where the ball goes we should be asking these questions to our players:

Why did it go there?

How did it FEEL?

Can you repeat that?

Can you make it go somewhere else?

So, if you talk the talk I guess you have to walk the walk..

Earlier this spring I did a session with a group of girls that involved my version of deep practice. We spent about 40 minutes working without the ball on a receiving and shooting session. At first I thought that they thought I had lost my marbles, but I asked them to be patient with it and when I introduced the ball I could see that the girls were thinking their way through the exercise and not worrying about scoring. Inside of 40 minutes  they had started to become more concerned with the process rather than the outcome!

Over the past few months I have tried a few more exercises without the ball and some players try it and some think its a little strange, but something happened last week that really opened my eyes. I was working with a younger girls team on basic passing and receiving and after my demo I turned around and they were all practising the movements without the ball!  This was a great moment for me as it validated my previous actions with these players and shows that they understand how important correct technique is when it comes to the basics of the game.

At this point I should add that my beloved Sheffield Wednesday have also been developing through deep practice, unfortunately they have taken it a stage further and started playing real games without the ball!

After last weeks enlightenment moment I will make deep practice a part of all my sessions when I am working with younger players and helping them develop their techniques.

In closing...

If you are interested in deep practice then I encourage you to take a look at Coyle's books, alternatively you can come along to the next Lower Island Soccer Coaches Association meeting on Friday 30th November at 7pm at  Lakehill Soccer Associations  Braefoot #2 field. Our topic is shooting and finishing and the use of deep practice!

September...

What a great tune from Earth, Wind and Fire, is it R&B or is it disco at its finest: a discussion for another day! September has always been my favourite month, real sport is back, the kids are back at school and the tourists have gone home.

As a fan I have had a terrible month...after a four month unbeaten run at the end of last season propelled the love supreme, known to others as Sheffield Wednesday, back into the Championship, we have reverted to type and lost every game this month. The world famous New Orleans Saints have failed to win a game, thanks to Roger Goodell- I will say no more on that topic- and our dream of winning another Super bowl in God's country is in shreds, and even a team that is winning, my Louisiana State University Fighting Tigers are quite possibly the poorest 5-0 team in the history of the NCCA.

  

Having said all that, what about the WEATHER.

I can't remember a better September and as a coach I have one simple question.

Why haven't our youngest players in the U6 to U9 age groups been playing in this great weather. There is no doubt in my mind that these are our most important players. Our future National team players and hopefully World Cup players are currently in these age groups and we have just missed a whole month of warm and sunny weather which is ideal for the development of young children.

In the LISA district our mini players started playing on the last weekend of September and I am sure that everyone had a great time last Saturday, the weather was good and everyone went home dry. Very soon things will be different, the colder and wetter weather will return and it won't be anywhere near as much FUN! The kids will be bundled up but they will be cold and their movement somewhat restricted due to the many layers of clothes that they have on. Their feet will be cold and they probably wont get a good feel of the ball which won't help their technical development. Not only will they be cold, the chances are they will also be wet as we get a bit of rain in the winter. If we are trying to develop soccer players, wouldn't we be better served to try and develop them in conditions that will facilitate development as opposed to hindering it.

Here's a few more questions for you:

Would you rather watch your child play in warm dry weather or cold wet conditions?

Would your child ENJOY playing more in the warm dry weather or cold and wet conditions?

Why are our youngest players playing and learning to play soccer in our poorest weather

conditions?

Would you rather have the sun at your back or the rain in your face?

Over the next few months the Lower Island Soccer Association will be working on a pilot program for these age groups as we would like to see these players NOT playing outside in the winter months. If there first experiences of soccer are fun then the chances of our future National teams players staying in the game will be greater.  

The next Adam Straith, Josh Simpson and Emily Zurrer are out there and they will be tempted by other sports. As a sport we need to make sure they stay with soccer and sending them home dry and happy after every practice might keep them in our game.

In closing...

The 'She Kicks' female coaching program kicks off this week. She Kicks is a partnership between LISA and the University of Victoria that aims to help develop female coaches through female only coaching clinics. During the month of October the She Kicks program will put young female players through the Active Start and Fundamentals courses as they start on the road to becoming successful female coaches and role models for our young female players.

Three weeks of smoke and mirrors..and what's in it for us

Its only natural to look for flaws in perfection because when we see perfection and it isn't us, then we are reminded that we are less than perfect. Spain's performance over the past three weeks has been over analysed and they have frustrated some, including me when they passed the ball back to their own keeper from an attacking corner in the 93rd minute against Portugal, but their second goal in the 4-0 humping of Italy was perfection, seldom seen but never forgotten.

The soccer intellectuals in the media will spend the next few weeks telling us all about Spain's method and style and their use of a 'false 9', and how Del Bosque has shown us a team without designated strikers, ignoring that fact that Roma and Manchester United did this in 07 and 08. The shape and movement of the Spanish is highly impressive and their invention and ball retention is of the highest quality, but in my opinion the keys to the castle are their superior technical ability.

There are two good bits of good news in this for soccer in Canada; first of all we don't have to play them in order to qualify for Brazil 2014 and secondly we can take something from Spain's methods and apply them to our game here in Canada.

We cant talk to our players about 'false 9's' or expect them to play in the sophisticated style that we see from Del Bosque's' team but we can make the technical part of the game our training priority. Spain are technically better than any other team at the moment. The difference between them and everyone else is not that great, but its great enough to make ALL the difference.

Spain's game is based on possession, and defending by keeping the ball away from the opponent, that's not a secret. They play a succession of 2v1, 3v2 and 4v3 situations and are equally comfortable in possession in even numbers or numbers down phases, because their technical ability is high and they are confident in their own ability to keep the ball. This encourages them to take up good supporting positions and circulate the ball, it also means that if you can manage to get the ball from them you have to be quick in transition as they are all around the ball. All of this is great for Spain but how can we take lessons learned and translate them to our practices.

More small sided exercises in our practices and more 3v1's 4v1's and 5v2's with the emphasis on keeping the ball moving and all players moving to give the player in possession more choice. The 4v1 exercise is simple to set up and a great session starter that gets the kids moving and keeps them challenged. the key to this is to motivate the defender to work hard in order to challenge the players on the outside of the box. With the right amount of encouragement, very quickly you can progress and make the area smaller and limit the touches. Once you get them into a 5v2 situation then the challenge is to find the split pass and if you can get them to a 4v2 situation and have some success then you are going in the right direction. The game is simple and effective and will provide positive results. We cant play like Spain because we aren't Spain, but we can strive to match their technical ability.

At the next coaches association meeting, in early September we will be looking at small sided exercises and ideas how to use them in our practices. In my next blog I will be talking about other ideas that will t improve the experience of our younger players in the Active Start, Fundamentals and Learning To Train Stages age groups. My belief is that if we make the experience better than "better learning" will take place Again I believe the key is coaching, improve the coaching and we will improve the players and on that topic here is a list of the coaching courses that we have set up in August and September:

Soccer for Life

August 25^th and 26^th hosted by the Lakehill Soccer Association

Learning to Train

August 18^th and 19^th hosted by Prospect Lake Soccer Club

Fundamentals

September 8^th hosted by Cowichan Valley Soccer Association

September 15^th hosted by Peninsula Soccer Association

September 22^nd hosted by Gorge Soccer Association

All of these courses are free to coaches in the LISA district, and we recently ran a Learning To Train course with support from the Juan de Fuca and Sooke clubs and the new material was well received by the coaches who took the course. I would like to encourage you all to make time to attend these course, if we get better then our players get better, its that simple.

The 2012 Euro's were on the whole a good tournament but not a great one, like the 2000 tournament, and they didn't produce a game that will live long in the memory. The tournament format of 16 teams means no easy games and every game counts, unfortunately in 4 years time the tournament will include 24 teams, this will bloat the tournament as there aren't 24 good teams in Europe. No matter, the French will still pout, the Dutch will implode, the Germans will be challenging, Spain will be passing and maybe England will complete a pass or two!

Champions League starts on Tuesday!!

Enjoy the summer.

Preliminary results on physical activity in U9 soccer...

As you may be aware, late last year I started taking a closer look at U9 soccer, specifically the number of ball touches per minute (TPM) that players were getting in the games. Along with help from Stu Hackett, the LISA treasurer, I was able to look at 10 games all played on the same day on the same field and with the same 6v6 format.

The results were in my mind surprising and a little disappointing when it came to touches on the ball in the game. To recap the results that we saw over the day we watched

•          89 players  play 250 minutes of soccer giving a total of 3,464 touches of the ball

When we collated the data we found that the most active player in terms of touches of the ball had 91 touches in the game which equated to a TPM of 1.82.

When we looked at he data as a whole we found that on average only 31% of players were getting more than 1TPM resulting in almost 70% of the players getting less that 1 touch of the ball per minute over the course of the game. The biggest surprise for me was that 30% of players were getting less than 25 touches of the ball during the course of a 50 minute game.

We are planning on some more research into TPM’s this year but for now I have turned my attention to the amount of physical activity that our players are getting on any given weekend soccer game in the U9 age group.

About a month ago I spent a Saturday morning with some U9 players and their parents. We strapped them up with accelerometers which measure the amount of physical activity over a period of time. The levels of activity are broken down into 4 categories, sedentary, light, moderate and vigorous. The physical activity guidelines call for 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA).Before I share my findings with you its worth noting that a study from 2009 showed that fewer than 2% of Canadian children and youth get 90 minutes of MVPA on at least 6 days of the week and only 7% of Canadian children and youth are meeting the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines of at least 60 minutes of MVPA per day.

Well, I was disappointed with the TPM results in terms of developing technique in the game but I have to say that I am a little more pleased with the data that I got from the accelerometers. First of the numbers for the girls team and the boys team were almost identical. On the girl’s team the averages were:

28% 15.7 minutes in sedentary

10% 5.4 minutes in light activity

29% 16.3 minutes in moderate activity

33% 18.6 minutes in vigorous activity

On the boy’s side the averages were:

26% 14.1 minutes in sedentary

12% 6.2 minutes in light activity

28% 14.8 minutes in moderate activity

34% 17.9 minutes in vigorous activity

As you can see the figures are very similar and I will leave you to take your own conclusions from that.  Once I have more data I will make my own conclusions and give you my opinion. The key numbers from this exercise is the amount of time in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA)

The girls spent 62% of the game which included half time in MVPA which equated to just less than 35 minutes and the boys also spent 62% of the game time in MVPA totalling just short of 33 minutes. When we tidy up the figures to remove half time our percentages will rise but the minutes in MVPA will probably stay consistent, of course when I get the cleaned up data I will get that out. As I mentioned previously the TPM numbers were disappointing but I find these numbers encouraging as it shows that the 6 a side game is doing a pretty reasonable job of providing a good level of physical activity for our players during the course of a game.

The key to these numbers though is the number of players on a SQUAD, not the team. This data is taken from two teams that had 8 players available for a 6 a side game. I have some data with a team of 7 and over the next month I will be working to get data on squads of 9 and 10 players to see what effect the number of subs has on the average time spent in MVPA. Once we have that data I am hopeful that we will be able to justify smaller squads and less players on the bench.  I understand that logistics can play a part in squad numbers when forming teams, but at some point we must put the needs of the children first and look at some different options when it comes to organising our programs.

I believe its time to take a long look at our small sided games program in Victoria and start investigating the options of spring and summer soccer. We have a good number of turf fields in our district and from personal experience I can tell you that watching soccer in short sleeves and a pair of shorts is much more fun that watching bundled up or from the front seat of a strategically positioned vehicle!

In closing…

I would like to pay a personal tribute to the greatest coach I ever met and the person who had the greatest effect on me as a coach. Roy Rees, who took the US U17 Men’s team to four World Cups and beat Brazil, Argentina and Italy along the way, passed away in November at his home in California. Roy, and his wife Anne, played a big part in my life and pushed me in the right direction whenever I was considering a wrong turn. Roy could be a hard person to work for but he always made me a better coach and in turn a better person and I owe more to Roy and Anne than I can put into words. What more can a person ask from another, than to simply make them better. Alongside his duties as national team coach he was kind enough to step in as best man at my wedding after the starting best man had to lay down 10 minutes before the kick off due to a previous injury from the night before. Both my wife Joanne and I will always be grateful for his performance that day!

Roy Rees, a great man, a great friend, and the greatest coach I ever met.

                                                                             

Transfers and boundaries.....

It’s an interesting time in the lower island district, and the reason for the interest revolves around the number of transfers that each club has per team. Since I arrived in Victoria in November of 2008 the transfer and boundary discussions have never been far from the surface and it doesn’t take too long for people to voice their opinion on the subject.

In this blog I would like to discuss the idea of unlimited transfers which equates to open boundaries, if you have as many transfers as you like then the boundaries cease to be relevant.

I would also like to make the point that this opinion is my PERSONAL opinion and not the opinion of the Lower Island Soccer Association.

From 1993 to 198 I worked in the United States where there are no boundaries or transfers. During my time there I saw many coaches work the system to recruit players for their teams in order to try and win a state championship.  In time the recruitment of players morphed into recruitment of coaches who then brought their whole team into a new club. I keep hearing that open boundaries and unlimited transfers give players choice and is the best system for ‘player development’. Its true that unlimited transfers give people more choice but there is no guarantee that it leads to ‘player development’

Here are a couple of examples of things that I have experienced as a coach during my time in the United States.

Neighbourhood FC run a responsible program and their technical director and technical committee recommend that coaches work with a team for a period of two years and then the team is reassigned to a different coach who has a skill set that is compatible with the age group. The coach of the U13 Neighbourhood FC boy’s team doesn’t want to ‘lose’ his team and ‘his’ players, after all the game is about him, not the players! He whips the players and parents up into frenzy, calls are made, emails are sent and meeting are attended. Neighbourhood FC stick to their guns and bring in a coach who can help the players continue to develop. The soon to be replaced coach meets with his team and presents them with an option. “We can move our team to Big Club FC and we can all stay together! Let’s go”. Mean while Neighbourhood FC have lost a whole team even though they have a responsible player first policy to coaching appointments! That’s player movement and choice but it’s probably not in the best interests of the players, and what happens to the players and families who at the last minute decided to stay with Neighbourhood FC, where do they play?

Things are not going so well at Big Club FC, the technical director and board are at war and the TD is looking to leave the club at the end of the season. He has been talking with key coaches and parents in his club and they have decided that its time for a change and they will all be moving to Biggest Club FC next season. Big Club FC will be losing 6 coaches and 8 teams in the summer and now the integrity of the club is threatened as many more individual players are looking to land elsewhere.

Big Club FC are now in turmoil, they cant make teams and a number of players are left without a team to play as all the other clubs are full. They need to hire a new TD; do they hire a good coach who can put together a long term plan or a used car salesman who can recruit players into the club?

Now, I am not suggesting for one minute that if we instituted unlimited transfers in the LISA boundaries, these scenarios would take place, but there is no guarantee that they won’t and in time I think we will see this type of behaviour in our district.

The major downside to unlimited transfers is the lack of club stability it provides. Even the bigger clubs are not immune to losing a chunk of players and the lack of certainty means that clubs are not able to make major plans as there is no guarantee of their numbers from year to year. How do you plan to build a turf field or clubhouse when you can’t honestly project your registrations and revenues from year to year?  What financial institution would lend money to a non for profit organisation with no real guarantee that the club can afford to make the repayments from year to year.

So, I don’t like the idea of unlimited transfers and I am not supportive of zero transfers as we do need to offer families a choice, and there is always the situation where a player and coach just don’t get on. My son Oliver is not involved in soccer as he had a poor coach and wasn’t able to move teams so restricting movement totally is not something that I, as a parent, could support.

We need to give players a choice, but at the same time preserve the structural integrity of all our clubs at this moment in time. If we lose a club, for whatever reason, then we will lose more players and we can’t afford to lose more players.  In the future if clubs choose to merge as Cordova Bay and Gordon Head did then so be it, but that is a better option than clubs ceasing to exist.

We should provide choice for our families but if we were to open the boundaries and that led to a loss of clubs then all we have done is restrict choice. An equal number of transfers per club is, in my opinion, the way to go. That number needs to allow players who have transferred in past seasons to be able to stay where they are so that they can continue to enjoy their soccer, which after all is all this should be about.

In closing, our next coaches association meeting is this coming Friday, Match 9^th at Braefoot. We will be looking at midfield shape in front on the back four and I hope to see as many people as possible. Remember to bring your boots!

Let England Shake....

I have stolen the title from PJ Harvey’s 2011 Mercury Prize winning album, if I could write songs like her I wouldn’t have to worry about the mess English football is in, but I can’t so I have to worry! More about Polly Jean later.

Only in England can we lose a coach who in his last game beat the reigning World and European Champions and see our odds slashed to win the European Championship this summer. Only in England can we lose the coach with highest winning percentage in our National team’s history and see this as good news.

Fabio Capello is one of his generation’s finest minds and it’s worth reminding ourselves of his achievements

7 Serie A title with three different clubs, Milan, Juventus and Roma

2 La Liga titles with Madrid

Champions League with Milan

3 Suppercoppa’s in Italy

So, not to labour the point, 9 league titles, with 4 different teams, in 2 countries, and European Footballs Holy Grail with Milan in 1994: 4-0 in the final against a team from Spain by the way. His spell at Milan in the early 90’s is unmatched and the team he produced during that time would be in anyone’s top 5 and the English FA lose him 4 months from the start of a major tournament

I am sure there are many reasons why he left the job and we can speculate all we like but as the cliché goes, ‘at the end of the day’ Capello had had enough. The “Cult of Personality” that has developed around the England team since the arrival of the so called golden generation speaks to a wider issue in the country itself.

A country that is struggling to find its identity in the world and at war with itself: The 21 miles from Dover to the mainland of Europe may as well be a million miles as England is not in Europe, culturally, financially or philosophically. The country still carries the scars of a war fought and won almost 70 years ago and that greatest generation would turn in their graves at the sad state of the country that they knew. England’s green and pleasant lands have been replaced by concrete jungles that are no go areas after dark; the England that I grew up in has gone for good.

Now back to the football…..

How do you replace Capello? The England team has long revolved around he players and the belief that the best players can just roll up and beat old Johnny Foreigner. The rest of the world figured out long ago that the game is a team game and England’s group of individuals have consistently failed at the international level, Linekar, Shearer, Gascoigne, Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, Rooney, Cole were no match for Johnny Foreigner.  England’s superstar players showed the world what they were in South Africa in 2010, yet less that two year later Capello had started to make changes. The win against Spain, after being outplayed for large portions of the game, was a cause for optimism and for the first time in a long time there was a sense of England being more a team that a collection of pouty professionals. Capello declared that England couldn’t beat Spain at their own game and he was right. The problem for England is that they have been trying to beat everyone at their own game since 1966!

So where do England go now. The people’s choice Harry Redknapp, currently at Tottenham, well he’s won the FA Cup once but he’s English so he is in the frame. He also spent last week in court, a place that the former captain and role model John Terry will be seeing soon, interestingly enough Steven Gerrard who may take the armband from Terry knows what the inside of a court room looks like.  One wonders why a number of the current England team along with a good number of ex England players want Redknapp, the return of passion in the England team has everyone waiting with baited breath. Unfortunately the Passion they talk of is not a technically gifted midfielder that England desperately  needs, its that up and at em, backs to the wall, glorious failure, knees up mother brown bullsh*t  that you get tired of very quickly.

The Football Association of England overlooked Brian Clough, blacklisted Don Revie and didn’t do enough to keep Terry Venables. Harry Redknapp has done a great job at Tottenham but he isn’t in the same class as Clough, Venables or Revie, that’s how England has fallen.

Whoever inherits the poisoned chalice will have more than enough on his plate. He will take over a group of players with average technical ability and world class egos. He will have to deal with a press pack that is poorly educated with regard the game outside of the Premier League, and with one or two notable exceptions poorly educated in the finer points of the game. 

There is, however, a possible silver lining. The ‘golden generation’ should be all but finished by the end of the summer and a clean sweep is on the cards. If the new manager can dispense with the old guard and bring in players that are able to adapt to different tactical strategies then England will remain what they are: a decent team with a good qualification record and a good bet to get to the last eight of a major tournament, but you wouldn’t want to play them because sometimes that passion thing takes over.

So who should the FA choose. Of their last 5 appointments, Hoddle, Keegan, Eriksson, McLaren and Capello, only Eriksson and Capello have left the team better off than they found them. Hoddle, Keegan and McLaren were all disasters and their careers have never recovered, so why the clamour for an English coach? If I had to make the choice I would look to Marcelo Bielsa. He is doing a great job with Athletico Bilbao and had success at the international level with both Argentina and Chile. He knows how to deal with the press and his three hour press conferences should be enough to keep the English press busy. He introduced younger players into the Chilean team which is exactly what would be needed with England. He seems to me to be a great fit for England but there is just one problem…he isn’t English!

As promised a little more about Polly Jean Harvey. In musical terms she is more like Capello than Redknapp having won the Mercury Music Prize twice in 2001 and 2011. She won’t manage England but she has is qualified to, she was born in Dorset!