Coach: Finally, I love your new emphasis on 1+1 that was not emphasized in the first Practice book. That’s one thing that I adopted based on some offhand comments you made once, and it’s really paid off. The bottom line is that if a kid can beat another on the dribble, or conversely if he can defend 1 on 1, then the team game becomes much easier. You get outnumbered attacks on offense, and prevent them on defense. It’s really the foundation for the team. I do like your idea of fast rotation, no more than 1 minute for opponents. I would often times have them go longer, but I agree with you to rotate everyone is a much better strategy. Thanks!
Karl: The reason for rotating after a certain time limit are many… One minute of constant competition is extremely physically demanding – with fatigue you will lose concentration and there goes your learning curve. It gives the variety necessary to keep interest ‘very high.’ The better player has an opportunity to practice his newly learned skills against weaker, even and stronger opposition. The weaker player gets an opportunity to have some ‘role models’ show him how to maneuver the ball, etc. And it gives the coach a chance not to get bored – especially if he keeps the players scores. yes, you read correctly – it is the coach who gets bored in practice – because a good coach should OBSERVE and then be as visible as a good referee – this is not very exciting – if the players are playing (soccer) that is, attacking and defending goals – there is no slack time and no time to get bored.
As mentioned earlier – it is your job – to make the repetitive sections of our practice seem exciting to the players – because we know they will have FUN during the rest of our practice since all they are doing is playing soccer!
