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    #16
    The Serenity Prayer


    God grant me the serenity
    To accept the things I cannot change;
    Courage to change the things I can;
    And wisdom to know the difference.

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      #17
      Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
      Define "unqualified", but please be more specific than "daddy coach".
      Almost anyone who coaches at club has either played or has a rudimentary knowledge of the basics, including the ability to receive or properly pass a ball
      I don't agree that any of this is true.

      Most club coaches are unqualified. Why do you think this site exists? This is not all, and there are a lot of qualified coaches, there aren't.

      Not all who played either know how to coach or how to teach skill.

      Let them do scrimmages, I don't want these coaches trying to teach anything. They'll learn better on their own.

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        #18
        Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
        Let them do scrimmages, I don't want these coaches trying to teach anything. They'll learn better on their own.
        Some will. But as another said the dominant players will dominate the scrimmage while others get very little out of it. You can pay any monkey to babysit a scrimmage. You're paying for a coach to teach them something.

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          #19
          Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
          Some will. But as another said the dominant players will dominate the scrimmage while others get very little out of it. You can pay any monkey to babysit a scrimmage. You're paying for a coach to teach them something.
          You're missing my point.

          Even the idiots you're paying aren't qualified, especially the coaches who just scrimmage.

          Why on earth do you want then to teach your kid?

          On a closing note, this is another big problem. Why pay a ton of money to a club and then complain about how they operate? Find a club that has qualified coaches who train players the way you want and bring the kid there.

          Comment


            #20
            Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
            I don't agree that any of this is true.

            Most club coaches are unqualified. Why do you think this site exists? This is not all, and there are a lot of qualified coaches, there aren't.

            Not all who played either know how to coach or how to teach skill.

            Let them do scrimmages, I don't want these coaches trying to teach anything. They'll learn better on their own.
            I am not sure what the majority of you are truly looking for and I don't think you know either.
            We are not certified teachers but most of us are at some level certified soccer educators. We teach the game. If you held teachers to the same level of criticism leveled against us, there would be no teachers.
            I am not a life mentoring coach, psychologist, therapist, or a member of the clergy.
            I am a highly licensed soccer lover who hopes to instill a passion for the game into a child; do not ask me to step out of my area of expertise and be something I am not trained to be.
            You don't ask your kids dentist to provide life lessons-why are coaches expected to do just that?
            If you are a member of the club scene, I feel sorry for both your child and the club with which you are affiliated. It sounds as if neither is meeting expectations.

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              #21
              Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
              I am not sure what the majority of you are truly looking for and I don't think you know either.
              We are not certified teachers but most of us are at some level certified soccer educators. We teach the game. If you held teachers to the same level of criticism leveled against us, there would be no teachers.
              I am not a life mentoring coach, psychologist, therapist, or a member of the clergy.
              I am a highly licensed soccer lover who hopes to instill a passion for the game into a child; do not ask me to step out of my area of expertise and be something I am not trained to be.
              You don't ask your kids dentist to provide life lessons-why are coaches expected to do just that?
              If you are a member of the club scene, I feel sorry for both your child and the club with which you are affiliated. It sounds as if neither is meeting expectations.
              I don't think many of the posters here are that far off when they say there are many unqualified coaches teaching u10 and under.

              Would you have a High School math teacher teach a kindergarten class?NO

              Would you want a 1st grade teacher teaching an AP Biology course? no

              Could they teach it ? of course . Would they be most effective ? NO

              Same thing in soccer.
              There are certain licensing and diplomas that target the younger ages . F and National Youth license.
              How many Club coaches have a USSF national Youth License?
              The 8 year old brain works very different than a 14 .

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                #22
                Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                You're missing my point.

                Even the idiots you're paying aren't qualified, especially the coaches who just scrimmage.

                Why on earth do you want then to teach your kid?

                On a closing note, this is another big problem. Why pay a ton of money to a club and then complain about how they operate? Find a club that has qualified coaches who train players the way you want and bring the kid there.
                Licensure isn't always a guarantee of good coaching either. Skills is one component; being able to teach skills and work well with kids is another. How many teachers are out there that are certified by the state but suck at teaching? At least with club soccer you can walk away to another club. With schools, tenure, etc you're usually white knuckling it and praying for the end of the year and that none of other kids get that same teacher.

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                  #23
                  Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                  In a typical 90 minute U-little practice, how much time should they be spending learning footwork, passing, positioning, etc. versus just scrimmaging. Club we were at last year had them spending the vast majority of their practice time scrimmaging.
                  not a ulittle, but here is a day in the life...
                  our team does 4 day practices of 90 minutes. 1.5 hr of special conditioning workouts a week. not including tourneys, full scrimmages with b team or year up, etc.

                  breakdown - 60 minutes footwork, passing, drills, etc.
                  30 minutes - ssg, emphasizing passing, from back. absolutely no bootball.
                  shooting drills to give gk some practice.

                  minimum 60 minutes of juggling, footwork drills a day.
                  privates are the unspoken "norm". outside sports are encouraged and allowed, but
                  honestly, when and how? in too deep to stop. sucks sometimes.

                  good news is my older kid can drive and play chauffeur and my other kid will drive soon.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Here's a real world example.

                    I coach a U12 girl's team. U-12 is now 9 vs. 9 competition. So my team is about 12 kids. On any given practice day, I really can't scrimmage a group bigger than 4 vs. 4. Now, 4 vs. 4 is a pretty good number for scrimmaging because the kid's have more choices on who to pass to, however there isn't so many people on their team that they aren't very active. Basically, if their little 4-person team has the ball, they are either dribbling, passing, receiving, or they just sent a pass so they are supporting. Likewise, if they are on defense, they are either actively fighting over the ball, trying to intercept the ball, or positioning themselves. My point is that there isn't one moment where they are standing around, and they 1/8 of the time they have the ball, and 1/4 of the time they are involved in a pass (on average).

                    Say all of the negative things you like about what a waste of time 4 vs. 4 is, but the kids are involved. More importantly, unlike running mindless drills, they want to succeed. They want to win, so they are trying hard to do the skills right. I'd rather have a kid to 5 minutes of a skill with the desire to do it well than 10 minutes of something mind numbing where they just really don't care about the outcome. I think you learn more when you genuinely care.

                    Would it hurt to spend half of a practice playing 4 vs. 4? Instead of 25%? or 30%? or some other arbitrary fraction? I don't think so. The key is that they touch the ball enough, and they care about the outcome.

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                      #25
                      I coach U10 and U12 travel teams and have coached them since they were U9 respectively. Within any 60-90 minute session, I spend no more than 1/3 of the time scrimmaging.

                      I start every practice with 5-10 minutes of individual juggling while I set up cones for the first drill and adjust my training plan based on the number of players at practice. I spend 15-20 minutes working on technical foot skills, varying it up between practices with dribbling as a group in a confined space and calling out skills/touches or doing skills/touches in a cone grid or line drills (dribbling to a cone or through cones and executing moves. This includes everything from inside-outside and 360 toe-taps to L and V moves, etc.

                      The content of the middle 20-30 minutes of my practice sessions are mixed between various passing pattern drills, 1v1 or 2v2 iterations, shooting drills, defending, etc. The U10's generally work as individuals in drills while I mix up the U12's with drills that may require teammates or numbers up/down and occasionally some tactics (defending as a group, attacking with through balls/flighted passes, overlaps etc.).

                      The last 20-30 minutes is spent scrimmaging, vs numbers depends on the number of players I have at practice. It could be 4v4 with one team on the sideline juggling until someone scores or it could be 5v5-6v6. Occasionally we scrimmage another team full-field. Whatever we worked on in the practice session is what I try and reinforce during scrimmage. Technical skills are always emphasized.

                      With my older kids, they spend at least 5-10 minutes performing a dynamic warm up routine as well. For both teams, if they are early to practice, players are told to juggle until more teammates show up, then they do rondos with 1-2 players in the middle until practice starts.

                      I try and vary the drills/sessions so in any 2 week practice period they don't do the same drill/technical session and the content is generally laid out before the soccer season starts. I'm a US Soccer licensed coach that played soccer through high school, then walked on to compete in a different varsity sport in college. I still play in adult leagues and really only follow soccer as a professional sport. Couldn't care less about other sports or teams.

                      Both my kids also play club soccer and there have been times that my practice sessions have been better organized and more in-depth than the club coaches. I've also seen club practice sessions that were far better than mine... depends quite a bit on the quality of the coach.

                      I can also tell you that just scrimmaging has a place as well... in the summer or offseason. The lost art of the pickup game. NEFC is doing this over the summer, six 90 minute sessions of pickup soccer for $50 and I think it's an excellent way to spend 90 minutes a week. However, I wouldn't tolerate paying $1-2k for club soccer and have scrimmaging to be the primary development tool. Can get that for almost nothing... most town rec leagues are essentially that.

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