Go Sports Life

The first thing a father does with his son is toss a ball around.  Whether it is a baseball, football, basketball and shooting hoops, it is all done through the air.  Girls very rarely play catch at an early age so tracking a ball through the air is more difficult for them.  If you have ever watched a girls game you will see the goaltender misjudge a long shot, take a step forward only to realize the ball is going over her head and into the net.  This exact scenario happened a handful of times this past fall in the Womens World Cup.  There is also a big difference in how girl goalies control their 18 yard box versus boy goalies.  Girls can control their 6 yard box, but boys can control the entire 18 yard box. How can we change this?  For starters we can play catch.

Growing up like a lot of young boys, my dad and I would go out into the yard and play catch.  We would throw the ball normal back and forth to get warmed up.  Then we would throw it harder.  We would mix in ground balls and fly balls.  As I got better, my dad would throw the fly balls up as high as he could.  He would throw them all over the field and I would have to run after them and figure out where they would land.  If I was lucky he would make it so hard that I would have to sprint after the ball and the only way that I could get there would be to dive.  This was a fun game for me and an added benefit I was learning how to judge a ball in the air.  This skill would come in handy later as I was learning how to; judge a ball, catch a ball, punch balls over the net while playing goalie, trap a goalies punt, judge a long ball, do headers, and volley the ball.  It all related back to something that seems like it had nothing to do with soccer.  Learning the skills to track a ball in the air by playing catch is one of the reasons it is important to give your players a strong athletic base to draw skills from.  What creative activities can you set up for your players?

Go out, grab some tennis balls, and spend a couple minutes each session playing catch with your girls.  It will be a fun and unique warm-up activity for them.  After a while you will start to see some major improvements.

Until later,

Andy