Training question

Does your club require players to seek outside training/privates? This was the subject of discussion at our team meeting. Coaches stance is that if he has addressed an area of weakness for a player and they are not improving, he highly recommends they seek 'extra' help. He just issued the girls evaluations. Many girls had endurance, accuracy, footskills etc. I'm thinking if the girls need to seek extra help for these issues what on earth are they doing at practice? I'm not against using a trainer and we have had privates before but this was the majority of the team he had evaluated as needing extra help. Is this the norm and I just don't know it?
 
Does your club require players to seek outside training/privates? This was the subject of discussion at our team meeting. Coaches stance is that if he has addressed an area of weakness for a player and they are not improving, he highly recommends they seek 'extra' help. He just issued the girls evaluations. Many girls had endurance, accuracy, footskills etc. I'm thinking if the girls need to seek extra help for these issues what on earth are they doing at practice? I'm not against using a trainer and we have had privates before but this was the majority of the team he had evaluated as needing extra help. Is this the norm and I just don't know it?

There is little enough time to get the whole team together for practice, without sacrificing some of the time to work on the weaknesses of just a few.
 
I think your kid is an 05 player.
I'd say that every 05 player should work on foot skills and accuracy.
Endurance is a bit touchy. Between PE at school every day and soccer for 6+ hours per week, id be careful adding endurance training.
 
There is little enough time to get the whole team together for practice, without sacrificing some of the time to work on the weaknesses of just a few.

I love this answer. My DD has weaknesses and as she grows in the sport I think it's an accountability issue as to whether she would like to work on perfecting those skills to her best ability. Things like kicking a ball against a wall, soccer tennis with friends etc cost no money and can help. Air collections in the yard with her siblings too again helped a lot. As she started moving up more she was the one who would go for runs, and then begin o acknowledge "hey I need help with striking etc".
Also I avoided the mass trainers and instead sought advice from parents about what their experiences were with certain people to find the best fit for outside help.
I would also encourage a coach evaluation and give that to the trainer so he is aware of what her coach thinks about performance in games.
Finally and most importantly keep an open mind and be open to constructive criticism about the level of play. Maintain realistic expectations. Most kids know where they fall on a team roster and what they can do to get better. It's a balance between maintaining the love for the game and "making extra work" for my daughter.
 
Does your club require players to seek outside training/privates? This was the subject of discussion at our team meeting. Coaches stance is that if he has addressed an area of weakness for a player and they are not improving, he highly recommends they seek 'extra' help. He just issued the girls evaluations. Many girls had endurance, accuracy, footskills etc. I'm thinking if the girls need to seek extra help for these issues what on earth are they doing at practice? I'm not against using a trainer and we have had privates before but this was the majority of the team he had evaluated as needing extra help. Is this the norm and I just don't know it?

I forgot to address the coach issue. Again I have a lot of empathy for coaches and what they have to manage. They usually have between 12 and 18 girls on the spectrum of ability. I can understand from a consumer perspective wondering what you are paying for but the fact of the matter is two times a week practice with games on the weekend isn't going to address all the nuances of soccer. I think it's a great thing that your coach took the time to give evaluations and give the girls a benchmark to work towards. Most coaches do a lot and I think that Coach should be applauded for giving a evaluations and providing honest feedback:)
 
Does your club require players to seek outside training/privates? This was the subject of discussion at our team meeting. Coaches stance is that if he has addressed an area of weakness for a player and they are not improving, he highly recommends they seek 'extra' help. He just issued the girls evaluations. Many girls had endurance, accuracy, footskills etc. I'm thinking if the girls need to seek extra help for these issues what on earth are they doing at practice? I'm not against using a trainer and we have had privates before but this was the majority of the team he had evaluated as needing extra help. Is this the norm and I just don't know it?


A club shouldn't have to require additional technical training. If the player is serious about his/her craft then THEY should want it. Any player without technical skills is exposed when playing against great competition.
 
Does your club require players to seek outside training/privates? ...............I'm thinking if the girls need to seek extra help for these issues what on earth are they doing at practice? ...................Is this the norm and I just don't know it?

Require is a strong word. Recommended is a better word, I believe, since its up to the player (and the family) to invest resources and the time to address deficiencies. The team practice should not be confused with individual drills. While there are some individual activities during a training session, the focus is on how the team works as a unit, in terms of passing, shooting, defending and so on, in addition to tactical issues.

Yes it is the norm because most coaches are under the assumption that the player wants to get better. Not always the case. Some are just happy with their efforts and that's it; hence, recommended and not required. The downside is if no improvement is made, it will result in less playing time and ultimately getting released from the team for someone better. It is a competition after all. Every position on the team should have a competition to drive the players better.

As for privates, I do not recommend on-going thing. Its usually best to do 3~4 1 hour sessions with a trainer and let the kid work on the drills from those sessions on their own. This is a clear case of the cliche, where, you can bring a horse to the water but you can't make the horse drink the water. If the player wants to improve, it will happen, whereas if there is no internal motivation, it won't matter.

Endurance is expected. So if someone is lacking in that department, he/she has limited playing time before anything else is considered. The coach will simply know that the player is only good for x minutes/half and the quality drops off. It doesn't take much to build endurance so that's something the player can work on during every practice by hustling and giving 100% every minute during the regular training session.
 
Even if a a coach worked on accuracy all practice long, with a 15+ player roster, the repititions will be limited. A one hour session with a private trainer will get a player a ton more touches on the ball.
Don't want to spend the money/time? Check out Beast Mode soccer on YouTube. They have a great program.
 
Every coach I know does this. Its a part of their job.... Why do you think its out of ordinary by applauding??

I have friends who don't get evaluations and you have to ask for them I'm just trying to be considerate of the job the coaches have to do
 
Like I said I have no issue with privates etc and the only thing coach put for my kid was footskills with left. Ironically she shot her last 4 goals with her left. Ha. I just thought it was odd that this was advised to the majority of the team. At least 75% of them.
 
I have friends who don't get evaluations and you have to ask for them I'm just trying to be considerate of the job the coaches have to do

Is your friend a player? Evals goes to the players, and not parents, per sa. Unless you're referring to parent conduct on the sideline being evaluated, coaches give feedback to player often throughout the training sessions. The most important part of improvement is the motivation to improve on deficiencies and that need to be addressed to the player.

As for formal written eval, I believe those need to be given to the players too after u12 or so, and not the parents. Until then, I get that the parents need to interpret the results for the kids, but by 11~12 yrs old, those who are motivated will take it and run with it....
 
Is your friend a player? Evals goes to the players, and not parents, per sa. Unless you're referring to parent conduct on the sideline being evaluated, coaches give feedback to player often throughout the training sessions. The most important part of improvement is the motivation to improve on deficiencies and that need to be addressed to the player.

As for formal written eval, I believe those need to be given to the players too after u12 or so, and not the parents. Until then, I get that the parents need to interpret the results for the kids, but by 11~12 yrs old, those who are motivated will take it and run with it....

I don't know why you're being contrary obviously I was speaking about a player I'm sorry I wasn't more clear . Formal evaluations are not given to a lot of players that I know and I've been in the circuit for over eight years .
Obviously players are evaluated at each training session but do you think that 11 and 12-year-old girls take each correction at a training session as a formal evaluation because I would beg to differ with you .she was speaking about a formal a valuation and that is what I addressed
 
Like I said I have no issue with privates etc and the only thing coach put for my kid was footskills with left. Ironically she shot her last 4 goals with her left. Ha. I just thought it was odd that this was advised to the majority of the team. At least 75% of them.


My thoughts on the matter are simple. The coach doesn't have enough time with 3 two hour or so practices a week to teach much on foot skills to the individual players on the team. In my experience the players that want to get better also want to work on their skills. It was perhaps the best individual investment that we made in our player.
 
Like I said I have no issue with privates etc and the only thing coach put for my kid was footskills with left. Ironically she shot her last 4 goals with her left. Ha. I just thought it was odd that this was advised to the majority of the team. At least 75% of them.

Making a goal with left is significantly different than controlling the ball, the touch, pass and being able to use her left, just as comfortably as her right (assuming that that's her dominate side). Often a player will take an extra touch to move the ball to the dominate side, which takes more time and opens up for mistakes as well as defenders to close the opening/separation.

So it may not be so odd, if you think about it in the total soccer perspective rather than just kicking the ball with left.
 
......do you think that 11 and 12-year-old girls take each correction at a training session as a formal evaluation because I would beg to differ with you .she was speaking about a formal a valuation and that is what I addressed

Why do you think formal evals are so important? Its been my experience in life - both sports and career - that informal, constant feedbacks are far more effective than a written annual/semi-annual evals. It is far more effective to correct something right there and then, as it happens, than wait until "gathering of parents" to go over each player's strength and weaknesses.

And yes, we've been with 5 clubs, 2 kids and over 7 years and have gotten a written formal eval from every one of them/team. My kids don't know what to do with them because by the time it comes its a rehash of things they've deal with already.
 
Making a goal with left is significantly different than controlling the ball, the touch, pass and being able to use her left, just as comfortably as her right (assuming that that's her dominate side). Often a player will take an extra touch to move the ball to the dominate side, which takes more time and opens up for mistakes as well as defenders to close the opening/separation.

So it may not be so odd, if you think about it in the total soccer perspective rather than just kicking the ball with left.
Agreed she is slower with her left. She seems more accurate with her left. I would have addressed different things her preference to dribble the ball too far away from her. But I am no coach. I appreciate all the stuff the coaches do, I just wonder if it's a bit of a money grab to give evals to 75% of the team that says they need extra help, and refer the team to trainers.
 
Why do you think formal evals are so important? Its been my experience in life - both sports and career - that informal, constant feedbacks are far more effective than a written annual/semi-annual evals. It is far more effective to correct something right there and then, as it happens, than wait until "gathering of parents" to go over each player's strength and weaknesses.

And yes, we've been with 5 clubs, 2 kids and over 7 years and have gotten a written formal eval from every one of them/team. My kids don't know what to do with them because by the time it comes its a rehash of things they've deal with already.

No where did I discuss my philosophy about that I attempted to provide basic advice. Yes in a utopian system where each player was invested at every practice training is infinitely more important than one formal evaluation or a formal try out. That being said I think you and I are in the minority in our feeling about that and the majority of club parents either have not played or are new to the sport and see the formal evaluation just like they would a report card.
Real-time feedback is clearly more important.
I am not going to argue semantics with you because I am very well aware of many coaches who do not provide those evaluations unless they are asked to do so.
My daughter always enjoys the formal evaluation process because her coach is very transparent with her and critical even more so using a standardized evaluation system using ODP or US soccer. I would venture to say the majority of parents have not seen the ODP evaluation tool or the US soccer evaluation tool.
Long story short I think you and I are like-minded in our opinion about this
 
Agreed she is slower with her left. She seems more accurate with her left. I would have addressed different things her preference to dribble the ball too far away from her. But I am no coach. I appreciate all the stuff the coaches do, I just wonder if it's a bit of a money grab to give evals to 75% of the team that says they need extra help, and refer the team to trainers.

Two quick things to your response:
1) its imperative that she leans to dribble running full speed with the ball very close to her feet,
2) the reason she is more accurate with her left is probably because she's not trying to kick it as hard as her right. In other words, in her right kicks, she may be trying to use too much power in striking the ball, and losing accuracy (spin/no spin on the ball too but that's a whole another subject).

As for money grab, it the coach is insisting on you using one of his buddies or someone in the club, then you might be right (it is club soccer after all....). But if its just go get it done somewhere by someone, probably not.
 
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