Monday 3^rd September

Brazilian Soccer Schools

Year 5/ Year 6

Session 1

The National Soccer Coaches of America (2004) state that Leadership is fundamental to the success of any team and is vital in helping the coach create a positive training environment. They also state that leadership can emerge in many ways and creating a desired culture within the team is vital. I have taken this advice onboard and want to start doing this straight away. Smith and Cushion (2006) studied behaviours of youth team coaches and found that praise and encouragement were effective methods of motivating players, I agree and as I am new coaching this group I will adopt these thoughts in order to keep players motivated. As today was the first time I had taken full control of this group I adopted a fairly autocratic coaching style (Weinberg 2003). This was in order to maintain control of the group and take over the current culture that was set by my head coach. By adopting the autocratic coaching style I feel I will able to eradicate problems early on and then as I begin to create my own culture with the group I will be able to switch my style to a democratic coaching style. The previous coach had a democratic culture that worked well as each player pushed themselves hard and felt if they weren’t working hard enough they were letting themselves, the group and also the coach down. I would like to eventually create a culture in which players do not need to be told to work hard, nor should I have to discipline. I want the players to bring this upon themselves in such a manner that they are self disciplined enough to do the right thing as stated by John Wooden (2003). I was pleased with the way that the players responded to my session today, it must be hard for players as well as the coach to adjust to each other after only one session. The main objective of tonight’s session was to take the “Rivelino elastic” and strip it down to simplify the movement pattern. We then took the move and put all of the parts together to perform the move in one movement. The “Rivelino elastic” is the skill that Ronaldinho uses on a frequent basis. You basically push the ball to the outside of the body with the little toe and bring it back across the body with the inside of the foot. It is quite a complex move to grasp, but a move I will spend a lot of time on developing with this group as I would like it to become a natural part of the player’s game.

We began the session with an active warm up (Bishop 2003) which involved static stretching as a means of flexibility training (Bandy, Irion 1994) and also dynamic stretches that are sport specific to the movements we will endure during the session, it is more beneficial due to the dynamic nature of football (LaRoche, Connolly 2006). We then moved onto 5 minutes warming up with the ball using various surfaces of the foot. The aim of this section is 5 minutes intense core work with little rest as a warm up. I felt I gained the right level of intensity from the players during this section and I felt they grasped this task and took on board the points I wanted them to concentrate on. One point I wanted to focus on was for the players to make their legs nice and wide on the sole to sole; I was not happy with the sole to sole they did at first so stopped them and gained their attention before showing them exactly how I wanted it to be performed. Some players seemed to struggle with the “kaka pivot” at first, by the end of that exercise they started to grasp it, however it is a core move I feel this group still need to work on.

I then introduced the “Rivelino elastic” with the sole. This is the smaller and easier movement pattern of the “full elastic. We then worked on this for 5 minutes at a high intensity and good work ethic. I felt I could have organised this slightly better as I wanted the players performing the move statically whilst still working hard. When planning this I don’t think I concentrated enough on this and I never thought about the fact the players would be moving around. I then addressed this during the session by placing the players side by side on a marked white line and I had them jumping up and down and performing the move on my signal which was a clap. I felt by having the players bouncing up on their toes, one foot at a time, it would prepare them to perform the move without being flat footed and then this would allow them to progress to performing the elastic on the move. The skill based movement patterns in FDS help improve body mechanics, which in turn better body mechanics are seen to reduce the likelihood of soccer related injuries. (Watson 1995)

They all grasped the elastic with the sole however I wanted to introduce the “full elastic” with the toes so when I felt each individual had a competent demonstration of the elastic with the sole we, as a group, could move onto the “full elastic.”

I then gave a demonstration of the “full elastic” and then asked the players to work on the move focussing on getting it right and then repetition. Vennell and Gooding (2004) state that a good demonstrations help players to understand a specific move or drill. We spent around 5 minutes performing the move then stopping it with the sole, and then performing the move over and over again. I also set this as homework to work on over the coming weeks so that we can really get to terms with it and start bringing the elastic out frequently in FDS game play. I was pleasantly surprised by the group as most players grasped this by the end of the section. However it still wasn’t perfect and is a move I really want the group to progress with. I feel it is an important in football and is such an effective move. The players enjoyed learning this move and were actively involved by asking questions in order to perfect the elastic. Caruso (1997) states that by asking questions in coaching sessions you are actively encouraging players to think of reasons for doing certain tasks, it allows them to understand reasoning behind drills. This is a move I have practised over and over recently myself and therefore I know the struggles that are involved with it. I broke it down and demonstrated how I first learned it and they seemed to respond to that way of teaching. Breaking down skills allows young players to see the individual parts that make up the whole skill; this helps them to learn the whole skill with time and practice (Rees, Van der Meer 2003). Williams, Hodges (2005) recommend players practice and improve their technical skills; they also suggest that in soccer acquisition of skills is fundamental and helps gather expertise. I had the players bouncing on their toes before performing the move on my clap in order to see everyone performing the elastic at the same time; it also means each player is working as hard as each other and gaining the same amount of touches on the ball.

We took the “elastic” and progressed into a more realistic situation by setting up a drill which mimics a standing defender. Once a specific drill is utilised fully and everyone in the group is comfortable, a progression of this drill can be demonstrated in order to further develop skills (Stoop 2004). I split the group into sub groups of 3 each with their own pole to run at. I wanted to focus on the timing of the move; timing is an important factor of skill acquisition, it comes from processing information within sport (Hanford et al 1997). I reiterated and involved the players by inviting questions and asking them when they felt the move should be performed. I wanted the player receiving the ball to receive it with their sole and burst in towards the pole as I feel the sole of the foot isn’t used as effectively as it should be by English players. I wanted to concentrate on 3 moves in this section as I feel it would give me a better opportunity to put my point across by limiting their choice of move; one move being the “elastic”. I was able to easily communicate and give demonstrations of these 3 moves specifying on the timing of the move. Demonstrations are a highly effective and inspirational process, but only if the players know what they are looking for. (Wade 1997). Annett (1994) in comparison suggests that a demonstration with correct verbal labelling is essential for skill acquisition. I pointed out key factors to look for when I was demonstrating and then asked questions afterwards. I felt this was an effective way of doing this as they all grasped the timing and done this task well with great enthusiasm and intensity.

We then moved from using the poles as defenders to a 1 v 1 situation. I didn’t want to make too many rules in this section; I wanted the players working hard and competitively in a good spirit, which they responded to well. Hastie, Sharpe (1999) suggest that sport helps to develop social qualities, this is the culture I wish to create in my sessions, however as Ruiz (2003) states that if training exercises lack a competitive edge then player will simply go through the motions; it is important that players understand the importance of both. I wanted the players to bring out their own style of play and really express themselves as an attacker; by doing this with the attacker it allowed me to concentrate on defensive duties with the defender. I expressed 3 coaching points that I wanted them to concentrate on and involved them with questions about why we do things as a defender. They took the points on board and I was impressed by their discipline as I said no sliding tackles and not one person did. Ellinger et al (2003) suggests in business that a management coaches behaviour influences an employees performance; relating this to sport and my sessions in particular, it relates to what Binzinski (2003) believes, he states that without disciplined players you cannot make much progress; every coach will have to discipline their players in order to gain a good response to drills. Therefore as a coach I need to instil this discipline into my players to gain a good response from my drills. I felt this was my best organised section and the players seemed to respond well and like this section of the session. They worked hard whilst having a good spirit and sense of competitiveness. The players were bringing out a lot of aspects that we focussed on during the session and I was pleased to see them doing this as it showed to me they took on board the points we coached during the session.

The 1 v 1 set us in good stead to play FDS. The FDS game play in tonight’s session was excellent I was really pleased with how the players responded to me as a coach and also the drills I set up. I feel they took the session’s good spirit into the game play and expressed themselves. The movement of the players was great and the players used the ball well as individuals and also in a team effort.

I felt tonight’s session was appropriate to the players needs and they worked with a good work ethic. I want to create a culture in which players’ follow this ethic at all times, we can do this through sport education. Siedentop (1998) suggests that sport education is best achieved through a combination of various approaches, such as small group work or peer teaching rather than more drill orientated teaching. With a few adjustments in the session I feel we were able to meet the session objectives. When I felt things weren’t going right I addressed the issues and changed things slightly in order to get things right. I felt the session was organised well however, I did deviate away from my original plan during the session as I felt there were things I could change to make a more effective communication. The players are beginning to show a good attitude and I feel as the week’s progress the players are beginning to respect me more. There are still certain little things I need to address, such as players saying, “can we not do this instead”, I have been doing so by just repeating “do as I ask please”. The players will hopefully take this on board and in future they will just “do as I ask”. The players worked hard in this session; however I did find it hard to gain the intensity I wanted when teaching the elastic. I adjusted my original plans and was able to do gain a higher intensity by having them bouncing up on their toes, one foot at a time. I was impressed by the elastics achieved by the end of the session. I felt my communication with the players was good and they responded in a good way, but I still need to work hard on areas of my communication, there are 3 types of communication as stated by Hargreaves (1990), physical, verbal and visual. Visual and verbal are possibly the two most important in BSS coaching as it involves a lot of demonstrations for specific skills, Horn et al (2007) suggest that demonstrations allow the learner to pertain the movement solution at a quicker rate from the visual communication. I feel as each session progresses it is becoming easier to communicate in the various ways.

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