How to prepare your Football Team

A coach for the most part is like a salesman. They have to sell their systems and motivate their team to perform and make them feel that they are getting the best deal in town. A coach likes to be in control of the game and if you're in control you usually are having a good day.

But, what about the uncontrollable?

For instance, how talented, big, and good is your next opponent?

How do you prepare your team?

Well, you have to emphasize to your players the controllable. Like, be disciplined, play the system, limit your mistakes. Don't take bad penalties to give them any extra advantage and most importantly choose to outwork and out hustle at all times.

Talented teams play the game with ease and if you let them have time and space they'll hurt you. But when you force them to work for that time and space it can close the talent gap and keep things close and give your team a chance.

Finally, emphasize to your team, that you cannot control how good the opponent is, or their size, or their team record. You can only control how hard you work, whether or not you choose to execute your assignment, and the fact that hopefully,their talent will challenge your athletes and will bring the best out of your players.

Cheers

Team Selections

Try-outs or Training camp can be a complicated process. Player evaluations can be tough at times and stressful for both the parents and players involved. But it is part of the process needed in order to choose and shape your team and your practice plan should reflect this. Meet with your coaching staff and manager prior to the first practice. Assign one or more the job of running the practice sessions. Plan to either sit up in the stands or on the bleachers with your pen and clip-board. Pay attention closely to the each player's skill level by evaluating them when they do drills emphasizing fundamentals. Evaluate how hard they work in drills. Pick out the ones that seem to struggle in the different individual skill drills that you have scheduled and make a note of them, as well as the ones that do the drills with ease. Watch them closely during team drills when they have to work in tandem with other players. How do they respond? Does it appear that they could play within a system or do they struggle? As well, note their effort in drills where they are pressured and have to battle, do they battle hard, or do they shy away, this will measure their character. Finally, after practice, meet with your staff once again and discuss each player individually. Some will stand out immediately while others will have you wondering what they can do. Talk about their strengths and their weaknesses and what they would bring to the team. In the following practices pick the tempo up and evaluate them once again. You should soon start to see the separation begin and you will start to get a pretty good idea of how the team will shape up. Keep a log of your players during this process. This will help you in the end with your selections. Also, if you are challenged by a player or parent on your selections you can refer to your log on the player in question. Usually, o a challenge once you dig out your log this puts an end to any sceptics.

Cheers

Its a lot faster down here!

Did you ever notice when you sit up in the stands how the game seems to slow down? There seems to be a lot of time for the coach to make decisions, adjustments, and the game just seems to be easier to read from the stands. I've noticed it many times. But I also know that down on the bench, or sidelines, that the game seems to be going at a faster rate and theres not much time to make decisions or evaluations. Did you also ever notice that a lot of teams have a coach up in a booth,or a spotter in the stands or on the clubhouse roof that communicates directly with the bench? Why? Because the game seems to slow down, you see more from above, your away from the pressures of managing the bench,your more focused and can make good decisions without any distractions. As well, you can see more clearly team play which sometimes is harder to evaluate at court, ice, or field level. Most team now tape their games from the stands. This has become a valuable tool for the coach to view the game afterwards from the comfort of his couch, with no game pressure and evaluate his team play. Kinda like sitting up in the stands!

Cheers!

Football Practice Plan: Be Organized!

Your first practice is a few days away, you're excited about getting out there and getting things going, working with the youth in the hour plus time allotted. Wait a minute... an hour... how do you fill the time in? Well, let's get started. You need to be organized and you need to have a practice plan. You cannot do it off the top off your head. You need to have a practice plan that accounts for every minute of your planned practice. A good practice plan will cover all aspects of your specific sport: warm-up, conditioning, fundamentals, skills, team play and systems. Account for at least a minimum of 10-15 minutes per category. Too much in one area and the players will lose interest and you will lose out in the other areas that you want to cover. By having a practice plan and following it, you will have good flow to your practice, maintain player concentration, and get the most out of your practice by covering all aspects. A poor practice plan and you will have down time which invites fooling around and lack of focus especially at the youth level. Follow your plan! If you are working on a specific fundamental or system and things are not working out after your allotted time frame, move on to the next scheduled assignment, and after practice make a note of how each session went and what you need to continue to work on in practice. Keeps a practice log recording your thoughts, ideas, and player evaluation and development. Refer to the log prior to planning the following practice so you know what you need to schedule. It's important that you work on fundamentals of some sort for each and very practice, do not omit this in order to work on something else. Solid fundamentals such as passing, shooting, tackling and blocking are very important. You need to do fundamentals well in order to be good in your systems. Remember you play like you practice!

Cheers