Go Sports Life

"Did you win?"  This is a common question asked by parents, siblings, friends, and coaches anytime a game is played.  It may not be the first question, but it is always inevitably asked and scores are kept.  When winning and losing are involved it is natural to want to win and plans will be formed so you can win.  Even coaches who say they don't care about winning still try to instill a competitive streak in their kids and hope to give their kids skills while trying to win at the same time.  Winning is a by-product of improving.  Then there is the expectation when you gather top players together to form a team to win a decent amount of the time.

Every spring through fall there are so many games played and each game brings on new challenges and things to work on.  These challenges are good and you can find something new in each game. The problem arises when you start trying to work on one thing, then the next game comes and a new issue comes up so you start to work on that issue.  Then the next game comes and you find something else and so on and so on until ten games down the road you are back to working on the issue that you spotted and began to work on ten games ago.  In order to improve players need repetition.  You cannot expect any player to pick up a certain skill in one training session.  It takes time. This is why the winter months are some of my favorite months of the year.

The winter is where the development happens.  You can see it right before your eyes.  Week by week you progress with no interruptions.  You aren't distracted by what happened in the last game.  You are focused on your development goals and how best to achieve them.  There are no cries about scores, how we're playing, playing time or anything else.  It is just constant improvement and it is great.

In the winter I can set out my training plans and I don't have to be worried about adjusting them based on day by day events.  If we have a bad session, that is ok.  I'm not going to get 20 emails saying the wheels are falling off.  There are no kids leaving discouraged and feeling that they let their team down.  (I am not saying that a player ever should leave a game this way, but it can and does happen.)  If we have a bad session I can look at the session, see what needed improvement and adjust that within the framework of my goals. 

When one training session is off it is not a crisis and it is easy to regroup and improve during the next session.  If it is a topic that we are struggling with I can adjust the pressure and set the kids up to succeed.  The more success they have the more challenging the exercises will become and with each new difficulty we can talk about how far we've come.  "Last month we struggled to complete three passes in a row during our 4v4 games.  Now I am not only asking you to keep the ball, but I am encouraging you to add in give and gos and overlaps.  Do you see how far you've come?!"  

Kids also enjoy the training period.  While they do enjoy the games more than anything they realize that there is less pressure on them when we just train.  There are no parents dissecting each move they made in a game and questioning them on their play.  They can build and experiment with no worries as long as they are putting in the effort to improve.

Another benefit of winter training is that you can play a wide variety of games with the kids to peak their interest and keep them excited.  Always playing 8v8 or 11v11 games can get stale.  The variety of indoor environments we have up here provide the kids with unique training environments that can help all aspects of their game.  You have dome fields that are like normal fields.  We also have boarded fields in a variety of sizes that keep the games fast paced and entertaining.  Then we have futsol in gyms.  All of these different types of trainings keep things interesting for both kids and coaches.

The winter is a great time of year so go out and enjoy it.

Until later,

Andy