It’s well known one of the advantages players outside the US have is pickup ball. Across the globe, players of all ages from 7 year olds to adults benefit from the street game – that informal pickup culture the American player lacks. The barrio, as hispanic/latino cultures call it, is where strong mentalities, ball skills […]
Philosophy
The Myth of the Best Players
Who’s better? Neymar or Ronaldo To me, this is a no-brainer and practically a litmus test for who I shouldn’t pay attention to. But there are people, for one reason or another, who think different. And right there, in that one phrase, “for one reason or another”, is where the myth busting of the “best […]
The Best Coaching Advice You’ll Ever Get, and Probably Ignore
Go master how to properly train 10 different rondos. Stop making forays into exotic topics like ‘guided discovery’ or some academic neurological studies on learning. Stop it with the hundreds of sport session planner diagrams, and your buffet of drills. Stop it with buying a new soccer book every week, thinking somehow your art will […]
Our Match vs FC Barcelona – U13/14 – MIC Cup 2015
In pursuit of world class, one better have some grip on what that actually means. And that, I think, requires going beyond your domestic soccer bubble, especially if the standard for world class does not reside there. Winning an American league or tournament, no matter which you want to cite, does not give you a […]
How NOT to Coach Playing out of the Back
It’s like everywhere I look in American soccer media, and to quite an extent, the English as well, the advice being thrown around on player development is the worst thing you can follow. The inspiration for this article came from Twitter via a coach posting the following activity he runs (& recommends). I saw the […]
What Coaches Can Learn from Louis van Gaal’s Recent Statement
Newly appointed Manchester United coach, Louis van Gaal, recently stated it’ll take him at least 3 months to get his team to start executing the way he wants to play. 3 months! And he’s got a whole staff behind him working around the clock. 3 months! And he’s got all international level players. 3 months! And the […]
Who Else Wants to Win?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Winning fucking matters! And don’t you ever forget it. The only question (AND IT’S A CRITICAL ONE) really revolves around context. Under what circumstances has winning occurred? What were the pros/cons considering short, medium, and long term objectives? But, whatever your answers … on the whole, winning matters. Chronic losers […]
How to Execute: Who on Earth are You Learning From?
The figure breaks coaching down into 3 fundamental elements – all of which contain huge challenges. For instance, we’ve got over 4 years of philosophy-based content here, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. But now I think there’s enough of a base to start efforts in the other two elements – Activities & Execution. The […]
The Golden Rule to Team (and Player) Development
This continues with the theme of our previous article … It is after your team demonstrates a level of mastery with your core material, that you can start layering in other principles. For instance, our founding core (the set of activities all our teams start with) does not include stuff like: Combination play up the middle. Offsides trap. How […]
A Huge Mistake Well-Meaning Coaches are Making
They try a bunch of different activities. Doing this, creates no continuity in your training. Which means: Your players aren’t getting a simple digestible message (the philosophy). Your players can’t achieve a level of mastery in the skills associated with a particular activity. And you, the coach, aren’t achieving a level of mastery with a […]