Shomit’s Youth Soccer Training Tips

I want to wish all players of my U-15G Arlington Express the very best of luck in their high school tryouts this week. The way that all of you play the game speaks for itself. Through the ups and downs of tryouts, keep an even keel and do your very best at all times. Please know that you have my support and I personally think that any high school in Arlington would be lucky to have any of you. Good Luck!

Image details: View of a couple stretching served by picapp.com

I encourage all players who strive to play at high levels to practice yoga techniques when weather makes it difficult to train outdoors. Doing a few of the exercises shown on this link can help a soccer player in a variety of ways, both mentally and physically:

http://www.powerofyoga.com/yoga-postures.htm

The idea with these positions is to hold them while calmly counting to fifteen. It is important to take deep easy breaths while doing this. Players often feel energized after completing these 12 positions on a daily basis. I encourage parents to take a few minutes a day and do this with the players. It should make for some good laughs and some good exercise as well.

Image details: Sampdoria V Inter Milan - Serie A served by picapp.com

One aspect of a youth soccer player’’s development that is often neglected is defensive competency in the individual player. Individual defensive techniques should certainly be incorporated with the overall tactical ideas of the team. When a player consistently has sound defensive technique and is able to incorporate that into the team’’s tactical ideas, the player will become more well rounded as time progresses.

Without expanding too much on team tactics for obvious reasons, the basic principles of solid individual defensive play are: Delay, Deny, Destroy, and Develop.

Delay: When presented in a one-on-one defensive situation, it is important for the player to stay on their toes (not on their heels) and have great balance (not falling over backwards, foward, left or right). Another key in this aspect of defending is a player’’s eye-control. The player must have eyes locked on the ball (not the waist, head, feet, or chest, of the opponent). Proper delaying technique allows time for teammates to make recovery runs and get in the correct positions.

Deny: After delaying the opponent in a one-on-one situation, players should become confident in denying penetration to opposing dribblers. . This requires the individual players to work on their overall foot speed while still maintaining good control of their eyes in seeing the ball. Flexibility in the hips is quite important when having to defend an opponent who is attempting to dribble. Players must learn to adjust quickly and avoid “diving in” or “stabbing” at the ball.

Destroy: After effectively delaying and denying, the next step to is to destroy the other team’’s possession as quickly as possible and regaining possession for your own team. It could be a direct result of denying dribble penetration or it could be because of “covering” defenders intercepting passes. These defenders were able to recover because of the delaying and denying of other teammates, which in turn allowed them to destroy the opponent’’s attack.

Develop: After destroying the opponents” attack, a team must now work on the fundamental principles of possession. With a large number of players who are very sound in one-on-one defensive situations, a youth soccer team’’s chances of group success are greatly increased. I view this as an overall positive quality for individual youth soccer players to acquire as they grow older. It takes some hard work and attention to detail, but teammates should expect each other to be VERY good in one-on-one defensive situations in order to achieve team success.’, ‘Four “D’’s” for good defensive principles in youth soccer: DELAY, DENY, DESTROY, DEVELOP

This past weekend was such a great soccer experience for me that I thought I would share. On Friday February 1st, I was able to make it to the opening night of the VYSA Workshop in Richmond. It was great to see so many great coaches from around the state all in one place. There were a lot of people there whom I have the utmost respect for in Virginia youth soccer. I wanted to stay for Saturday’s events, but I had standing obligations to my two girls’ travel teams.

The highlight of Friday night was Liverpool Youth Director John Owens presentation about the systems and ideas of the prestigious English club’s youth development system. He mentioned that he took great pride in the belief that every player that comes through their youth system will look back on their time as a player in the Liverpool system as a positive experience. I could tell that he felt very fulfilled by that, which is great to see from a person who is a leader in one of the world’s most famous clubs.

Youth soccer players who are denied vision training during their younger years will have a harder time playing in a competitive environment as they get older. Players of all ages are certainly more comfortable in controlling a soccer ball when they are able to look at it. One of the most difficult challenges in the game of soccer is to be able to control the ball, look up, AND identify/process WHAT you are seeing.

So how do you train this skill with very young soccer players? Simply saying “look up”, which all of us coaches do, is not quite good enough.

Players have to be able to look up and identify what they see while still being able to manipulate/control the ball at their feet. Simple obstacle course dribbling activities in which the players have to look up and identify different objects can do wonders for a youth soccer player. **(Two different colored cones can work for this. Keep one in each hand behind your back, then raise it up and have the player call out the color. If you want to get advanced, have FOUR different colors).

If cones are not available at home, simply have the young player dribble around objects in the yard at home and identify cars crossing in the distance, or colors of birds in the air.

Be creative with it, but emphasize vision…..and make it fun. You need to be able to see the game to play the game. Fun ways to improve field vision for U9 soccer players

Please see the link below from Soccer America. Congratulations to McLean and Bethesda for being recognized for their player development and technical direction.

Click Here