Coaches Playbook Grades 5 & 6 Week 1

Transcription

1 Coaches Playbook Grades 5 & 6 Week 1 This packet contains 8 practice plans to use with year olds OCN Sports soccer players. The plans are based on a 8v8 on a field 70 yards long and 50 yards wide. The goal should be 6 feet and 16 feet wide. The ball used should be a size 4. Each plan contains the following sections: Purpose Equipment Practice Plan Purpose focuses on what you want to teach your players during that practice: it is you main theme for the day. Equipment notes what you ll need on hand for that practice. The Practice Plan section outlines what you will do during each practice session. It consists of these elements: Warm Up Fitness Circle Games Skill Practices Team Circle and Wrap Up You ll begin each session with 5 minutes warm-up activities. Follow this with 5 minutes of the fitness circle, during which you briefly talk with players and lead them in an activity that relates to health or fitness. Then you ll have your players play a modified soccer. Game. You ll look for your cue to interrupt that game your cue being when players are having problems with carrying out the basic goal or aim of the game. At this point you ll freeze the action, keeping the players where they are, and ask brief questions about the tactical problems the players encountered and what skills they need to solve those problems. We provide discussion questions in each practice plan. In addition, we provide coach s points, when appropriate, with games and skill practices as points of emphasis in most effectively conduction the practice. Then you ll teach the skill that the players need to acquire to successfully execute the tactic. During this skill practice session, you ll use the IDEA approach: Introduce the skill, Demonstrate the skill Explain the skill, and Attend to players practicing the skill Your introduction, demonstration, and explanation of a skill should take no more than two to three minuets; then you ll attend to players and provide teaching cues or further demonstration as necessary as they practice the skill according to the practice plan.

2 After the skill practices, you will usually have the athletes play another game or two to let them use the skills they just learned and to understand them in the context of a game. Note that in Game 1 when players are being introduced to a new tactic or skill, they will play an even-sided game. This allows them to encounter the challenges they will face in execution the tactic or skill in competition. Then in most Game 2s they should play lopsided games (e.g., 4v2, 5v3) to increase their chances of experiencing success and beginning to master the new skill. However, if your players are showing proficiency with the new skill, you can use even-sided games in Game 2. The choice is yours. The Practice Plan section concludes with a Team Circle that focuses on character development. You will lead players in an activity and discussion about some aspect of soccer that relates to one of the four core values caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility. Following this, you ll wrap up the practice with a few summary comments and remind them of the next practice or game day. A note about Team Circles; these times are meant to be true discussions not lectures where you re doing all the talking and your players are doing all the listening. Ask the questions provided, and wait for your players to respond. Don t immediately feed them the answers that we provide. These answers are meant simply to help you guide the discussion. Your role in Team Circles is as much to ask questions and get players to respond, as it is to dole out information. You will find a variety of skill levels among your 10 to 11 year old players. Here are suggestions on how to modify a practice to make it either more or less challenging, according to the needs of your players. If players cannot control a ball under pressure, give them a bit more space, which allows them more time. However, to challenge a player s control, restrict the dimensions of the playing area. A skill practice or game can be made simpler or more challenging by adjusting the nature of the defense. Tell players to be either a cold (low pressure), warm (moderate pressure), or hot (high-pressure) defender, depending on the abilities of opponents. This is particularly important during skill practices because players need the opportunity to be successful when they have the ball. You might have cold defense played against a weak player but warm or hot defense played against a stronger players. Some players control the ball better than others and can dominate a game. To challenge these players, restrict them to two or three touches of the ball at a time so they have to control the ball quickly and bring other players into the game. Similarly, you might restrict better players to using just one foot or a particular surface of the foot. When players are feeding teammates practice balls (such as during goalkeeping practice), they can decrease or increase the difficulty by varying the speed and height of feeds. Low, slower feeds are easier to control than higher, faster feeds. Note: The numbers referred to in games and skill practices for example, 4v4 always assume one goalkeeper per team among those numbers, unless otherwise noted. So if a game description says 4v4 there are three field players and one goalkeeper per team. Following are practice plans for the two weeks of your preseason and the 6 weeks of your competitive season.

3 Practice 1 Purpose To play a full field game of 8 v 8 while adhering to start and restart rules. Equipment One soccer ball per player if possible One portable goal per six players or use cones for goal if necessary) One cone per player (if possible) Different colored vests or shirts to different teams. Warm Up (5 minutes) Begin each practice with about 5 minutes of warm-up activities to get players loosened up and ready to go. 1. Players dribble in space (one ball per child). 2. Players dribble and turn on signal. Fitness Circle (5 minutes) Following the warm-up, gather your players and lead them through a series of stretches for the major muscle groups. After the stretching, form a Fitness Cirlce and briefly discuss the fitness concept for the particular practice. In this first practice your fitness topic will be more general, but in future practices you ll often discuss more specific concepts and issues such as safety, flexibility, healthy habits, and more. Key Idea: General fitness Gather the team into a group between two cones about 20 feet apart. Do you think there s a difference between physical activity and physical fitness? Listen to their responses. Physical activity is any body movement you use while performing a skill or task. Physical fitness is a condition of the body. The more fit your body is, the better you can perform some skills and task. I will give you some activities. Run to this cone if you think it is regular physical activity. Run to the other cone if you think it is an activity done for fitness. Examples of physical activity are walking to school and walking stairs to bed. Examples of activity done for fitness are walking to school for exercise, jogging to improve sport performance, or walking staris to strengthen leg muscles. All season we will talk and learn about the different areas of fitness during our fitness circles. We ll also work on improving your body s fitness for soccer.

4 Game 1 (10 minutes) Following the fitness circle, get the kids playing a game. After letting the players play for a while, interrupt the game for a time of questions and answers with you asking the questions and your players providing the answers (about what the goal of the game was and what skills and tactics they needed to perform to succeed in the game). For many games, we provide diagrams or figures showing how to play the game. Also, we often provide coach s points for you to pass along to your players during the games. Goal: Players will learn that they have to attack a goal (cone) to score in soccer. Each team attacks a different goal. Description: 1v1 Each player tries to hit a cone using only his or her feet, not hands. (no need for any other rules right now!) When the question and answer section precedes the coaches cue, ask the questions before the players begin the game. Use the cue during the game. Coach: Which way do you go when you get the ball? Players: Toward the cone Coaches Point In games 1 and 2, watch that players don t stray too far from their cones or goals and into other games, Just redirect them if they stray. Setting up the cones for play across the field at various points will minimize the likelihood that games will spill over into each other. In the first practice we don t include skills practices. However, after the first practice, you ll follow game 1 with a skill practice, during which you ll introduce, demonstrate, and explain a skill or tactic, then attend to your players as they practice it. The question and answer session, in which your players tell you what skills and tactics they needed to be successful in the game, leads directly to the skill practice. We often provide coach s points with the skill practices so you can pass these points along to your players, We also provide coaches cues phrases to help your players focus on the task at hand during many skill practices and games. Game 2 (10 Minutes) Goal: Players will learn that they can play with others on the same team and try to score (cone or goal). Description: 2v2 Each pair tries to score by hitting a cone or by kicking into a small goal. Coach: Who is on your team? Players: (Name of teammate) Coach: Which goal are you trying to score in? Players: That one (Have them point)

5 Coach: Where do you kick the ball to score? Players: In the goal. ( if they say in there, have them show you.) Game 3 (20 Minutes) Goal: Players will learn appropriate ways of restarting the game when the ball goes out of play. Game 2 Description: 4v4 Each team of four tries to score into a small goal. For each pair of teams, mark a playing area no larger than 50 by 30 feet. Coach: How do we start the game? Players: With a kickoff at the center. The other team must go back into its own half. 30 feet 50 feet Game 3 Coach: What happens when the ball goes out-of-bounds at the side? Players: It is a throw-in. (It might be worth stopping the game for five minutes so all players can practice taking throw-ins. You can do this quickly by having pairs of players do through-ins to each other (one ball per pair). Coach: What happens when the ball goes out-of-bounds at the end? Players: It is a goal kick or a corner kick. (You can set up and practice goal kicks and corner kicks during the game) Coach: What happens after a goal is scored? Players: A kickoff at the center. The team that scored must go back into its own half. Coaches Cue: Have both feet behind the line. Hold the ball back overhead with two hands. Throw to your teammate, keeping both feet on the ground.

6 Team Circle (5 minutes) Conclude practice by gathering your players and discussing a character development concept. These aren t lectures; you want your players active participation in these discussions. Following the discussions, wrap up the practice with a few comments. Key Idea: Four core values Gather children into a circle with one ball. Everyone hand the ball to the one next to you until it makes it around the whole circle. After the ball has gone around the circle one time, have it passed to you. We play soccer to be more healthy and fit, but it also teaches us to become good teammates and good people. This season we will talk about four qualities of a good person and teammate: caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility. Our team needs to have all of these qualities in our practices and games. Remember that we can t be a team without each of you doing your part. Can you tell me ways you show caring to others? Helping someone up when they fall? Good! What ways do you show honestly? How about if you tell someone if you played with their game or toy? That s honesty. Do you know what respect is? One thing that shows respect is listening to adults when they speak to you, like you re doing now. One way to show you re responsible is to pick up after yourself. Don t wait for others to pick up for you. Let s pass the ball to each other and say one of the core values before you pass. This will help you remember to use all four of the qualities so we can work together. Wrap-Up: Make summary comments about practice. Remind them of the next practice day and time, and give them a sneak preview of that practice: playing as a team, with control. Variations Have enough balls and cones so all players get plenty of touches and chances to score. This is the point of the warm-up and the 1v1 game. If the number of balls and cones available is limited, have players pair off and pass the ball to each other before hitting a cone. As always, you cannot be certain how many players will show up for each session, so you may not always have an even number of players for 2v2 or 4v4. To use extra players in games, you can place one player as a permanent attacker, always playing for whichever team has the ball. That way 2v2 become 2v2+1.