Practice Notes--Scrimmage

Parents,

Friendly (scrimmage):

I just want to confirm that that we have a Friendly Saturday, August 17th, at 3pm Four Seasons against the Kings Hammer Academy Blue team. The address is 4609 Kellogg Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45226. 

I'm assuming everyone's uniform has come in, or if it hasn't, that it will by then.  Please where the red color, but bring the white.  Also, bring entire OLD red uniforms just in case everyone doesn't have their new uniforms.  No matter which we use (old or new), I do want us to all match and not look like a rec team...

Be at the fields by 2:15.  45 minutes prior will be the norm for now on, unless I say otherwise.  At the girls ages now with their physical development, their muscles are tighter than years past, so there is more room for pulled or torn muscles.  Adequate warm-ups are necessary.

For those girls not currently playing high school soccer, I would suggest an hour of practice on their own daily, with every other day running at least 1 mile and then five 100 meter and five 50  meter sprints.  

Practice Notes:

Parents, I am not gonna bore you with our meeting last night.  Please discuss with your child the things we talked about.  We spoke, as a group, about each others strengths and areas needed for improvement.  We discussed leadership, how to lead (begin with a positive, address issue, end with positive), and even allowed some to role play.   (example:  Olivia to Molly:  Molly, you are very skilled player.  Today though, I saw you many times kicking with no purpose in the midfield just trying to get rid of the ball.  Molly, when you play with confidence and use your skill to find an option, or if there isn't an option, you use your skill to create more space and time for an option to open up,  or just beat a defender--it makes our team so much better--that's how important you are to this team.).

The was meant to do many things...

1. Carry this over into their lives with relationships off the field.
2. Learn leadership/management qualities at a young age to carry over into their professions one day.
3. Hold each other accountable, and give a positive way to do so.
4. Allow each girl to hold herself accountable.

I hope each girl walked away looking at this as a positive.  If that was not the case, please have them speak to me, or as their parent, please feel free to let me know any thoughts so we can take care of it now, and not mid season.

Have them discuss with you our new offense.  It is a VERY attacking type offense that demands specific runs constantly.  When these runs don't happen, 15 push ups as a team in practice will be awarded; and in games a little bench time will be awarded--not as a punishment, but to create habit.  Just support me on this.  It quickly got my freshmen team to catch on!  And on a final note about the offense, it will require 3x the stamina the girls had last year.  As a team, we were out of shape--about 4-5 girls were really out of shape.  Most of that falls on my shoulders.  These girls will run more this year than ever to get them in shape.  Hopefully they are working on that now on their own, or school team.

Below is the outline I provided each of them.  We didn't make it to our defense yet.  Have them go over this outline with you please.  We set expectations with each girl and the team.  I want to make sure all parents are on board also.

Thanks all.
Brian

OUTLINE:

1.       Team Goals

2.       Expectations

3.       Conditioning

4.       Offense

         a.       Overlap rules (attacking team)

         b.      “up, back, thru”

5.       Defense

a.       Flat back four (different from our “sweeper/Stopper diamond”)

                                                               i.      Pressure (delay)

                                                             ii.      Cover  (telling Pressure which way to push the attack)

                                                            iii.      Balance

6.       Other Areas of focus     

a.       Consistent use of skill—we will be the most skilled team

b.      Perfect 1 and 2 touch passing, especially with weaker foot.

                                                               i.      This will only be accomplished on your own. We do not have enough practices for this to happen.  The teams we are playing are having 3-5 mandatory practices a week with constant “friendlies/scrimmages” and 3-5 tournaments a season.  We will be getting together as a team about ½ of our competition.  HAS TO BE ON YOUR OWN.

c.       Effort.  Lack of effort gets benched—PERIOD.  We win 9 of 10 50/50 balls, and the one we lose, YOU get it back.

d.      Winning and CONTROLLING balls out of the air.