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0:01 hello all your coaches out here it's coach KW back again and today we're going to talk about Player Development we're going to talk about something I'm super passionate about because really
0:09 what we're trying to do here is take a look at the Long View of our players to make sure they get ready not in one year not in two year but six to eight years
0:17 um if we're really lucky to be able to stay with those young players and go all the way with them so let's get into it and this will be really kind of an
0:25 overview of some stuff and then I'm going to have another video talking about how you can plan out your year cycle and then break that down so it
0:31 doesn't feel so overwhelming so keep an eye out for that video as well but let's get into this okay so with Player Development again we're talking about the Long View
0:42 at a minimum if you have a team from you 10 through U14 we're talking six years and that's probably the minimum because really a player is not fully formed
0:53 easily into their high school years even Beyond if they're going to go beyond that in the college so what we need to really learn to do is just relax and
1:02 slow down because as coaches we feel like ah I got to get them to know everything right away and it's just impossible a there's not enough time in
1:09 the day and B they're not ready for it anyway so what we need to do is learn to Pace ourselves but to think in the big picture and then be strategic about what
1:18 we do in our planning for each year making sure that we're hitting all the big elements as we go along with these players so that when they're ready to
1:27 learn the next thing you've given them the basic to go on to the next step and the next step because just like math and other subjects it is an additive process
1:37 they have to be ready to do something but they also have to have some base skills to get there before you get to that next pot so one of the things that
1:44 you really what really is helpful especially to me it's one of those reasons why I really do love the United Soccer Coaches foundations of coaching course if you're going to take one I'll
1:53 say this all the time that's the one to take is one of the elements they talk about in that is the stages of both physical mental psychosocial all those pieces emotional
2:07 but also the different parts of the game where the beginning understanding can start and where the Mastery should ma match up at the end and if you take that
2:17 course they have a fantastic document here's a quick snippet of it it's about five pages and it talks about ages and years and then all these different
2:26 components whether this is dribbling and receiving and passing but they also talk about running and skipping and jumping and all these other things it's a fantastic document if you can find it if
2:35 you take the course it's a great guid Stone because it really does help you look at things and go I shouldn't be worrying about these things because I'm
2:42 not ready for it but I can focus on these things so again it really helps you in your planning in your Player Development longterm view of understanding what should I focus on now
2:53 the other piece to think about too another piece I should say is the physical development as third and fourth graders the beginning to have some maturation in terms of the muscle groups
3:02 and everything else boys and girls are mostly the same still here um which is important to know but physical items and helping them understand how to do
3:12 certain things that you think might an active eight or nine year World be able to do you'll be surprised so I've got my quote unquote best fourth graders in my
3:21 town and over the winter when we played footall when I'm in the gym I work on some what I like to call physical literacy you're learning skills of
3:28 physical nature that make you able to do the next thing in the rung of ladder whether that's in this case speed trading or even just basic soccer moves
3:38 if you can't balance and hop and Skip and change direction you can't play soccer so you have to learn those pieces so what should I eight and nyear old do
3:47 well this list here hopping skipping or bounding jumping with two feet with Landing with their feet pointing Straight Ahead balance on one foot either foot run at different speeds
3:58 change of pace and of Direction those are the types of skills that if you want to work on physical things those are the things that you can work on because
4:08 surprisingly even these Athletic kids that I had they had a difficult time hopping 20 feet on one foot and then switching and never mind skipping SL bounding the difference between skipping
4:18 and bounding for me is Skip your legs kind of stay low bounding you're driving you're at opposite knee high into the air and this is a pre-step for speed
4:28 training but it works on these physical characteristics coordination characteristics things that are almost pre speed training when they get older when they're ready for it but you've be
4:37 surprised my most most athletic kids struggled with that for a couple of weeks until they practice those skills in the gym in the I'm talking like a
4:46 basketball gym not like gym that type of gym um it's really surprising so don't waste your time with warm-ups or laps they don't need the stretch they don't
4:55 have the connective tissue even though some will argue while I'm training them to know how to do and they're older they don't need it till fifth 6th seventh
5:02 grade when they start to hit puberty is when they really need to start dealing with those types of exercises you've got 90 minutes with them don't waste your
5:10 time having them go through this elaborate warm-up process instead focus on some of these key physical literacy things and don't waste your time on laps they can't develop anerobic and aerobic
5:23 capacity like you and I can they're not built that way the studies show that actually what helps better for them is high intensity short burst things so 10
5:33 to 15 yard Sprint over and over and over again you'll be surprised kids this age physiologically given two to five minutes rest can come back and Achieve
5:43 almost the exact same ability scores time that they did the first time they did it because the way their body structure is and the way they physiolog
5:52 physiologically are put together they can basically recharge their batteries at a very fast rate faster than you and I can they're different than us so don't treat them you're not sending them on
6:04 long runs you're doing Fitness with the ball you're getting fun and touches in there that's how you're going to work on that sending them for a lap for
6:12 punishment just teaches them that physical activity is a punishment and not a skill so as much as you can don't use that use short Sprints if you want
6:21 to especially fourth graders third graders maybe not that much work on those other skills if you want to work on physical things the next piece of it
6:30 you need to be aware of is their social development in third and fourth grade they become less egocentric they understand the world has other actors and they may have feelings or ideas or
6:40 opinions different from them and they want to begin to fit in girls a little bit earlier than boys but both boys and girls are on the same plane so now they
6:49 start to get more of a concept of team they get a sense of concept of competition ranking amongst each other but also that can be bad because they
6:58 can stand start to point those differences out to each other for negative reasons so it's really important in this phase to work on team building to make sure that those
7:08 interactions are positive and uplifting you're building your teammate up you're not tearing them down it's a little early but they can start to hold each other accountable but it's how they do
7:19 it my team recently was starting to kind of snipe on each other they' with been with each other for a year and a half and when things weren't going the way
7:27 they thought instead of building them up they would blaming people we put a that right to rest we said we hear that on the field you're on the bench simple as
7:35 that instead here are some examples this is what you can say this is what you can do next time try this I know you can do that better you know even practical hey
7:44 make sure next time when you put your foot down make sure you're pointing with me with that pass with your plant foot like you know they start to know those
7:51 skills so again when that's Social Development be aware of that Dynamic and the interpersonal dynamics that start to happen some players have beefs from other parts of their life from school or
8:02 otherwise you have to be aware of that too that it doesn't break out into something physical on the field whether it's a bad tackle or Taking Liberties
8:11 with somebody in a in a in a play it's something to stay aware of because again player safety no matter what is always number one next whatever you're working
8:20 on you want to make sure you have a logical progression you don't want to go into a practice session where you work on throwing the ball in then you're
8:27 going to do a little attacking drill and then you're going to offensive different thing and then you're going to try and fix a corner kick and you've gone 90
8:33 minutes and done five different topics your kids will not retain any of it will not perform well and will mostly not remember any of it you need to make sure
8:42 that whatever you're working on in a session you have a logical presession if you're working on attacking do not work on defending only coach one side of the
8:52 ball that's another phrase that you'll hear if you take some of the coaching courses if you're working on an attacking drill and you have Defenders leave the Defenders to their own devices
9:00 you're working on attacking don't mix your messages don't try and Coach both sides of the ball even with an assistant coach working on the other ones you want
9:08 the Defenders who are defending at that time to absorb the information you're giving to the attackers because you're going to switch everybody around so everybody works on that attacking skill
9:16 if you're working on defending same thing so if you're going to work on something try and make your entire session a logical progression maybe you have a welcome game where they're
9:26 playing a scrimmage then you pull them together now you work on the core technical piece that you need to do maybe you can expand it a little bit
9:33 bigger so now they're working on it in bigger groups and then maybe at the end then you go back to a scrimmage type thing where you hope to see that
9:41 activity or that skill in use Maybe by incentivizing if you make that skill make that pass or whatever and you score a goal it's worth two points again just
9:51 trying to reinforce the lesson but try to have a through thread throughout the whole thing the kids will retain it better because it's not contact switching on them they're not switching
10:01 from one thing to the other to the other to the other they don't do well with that that's like going through a math lesson and halfway through the formula
10:07 talking about an English paragraph and then going to science they won't learn anything there on top of that logical progression what you want to look at is
10:15 making sure that you have a structure a framework to your practices so your kids feel comfortable within it so they have an idea what's coming next they'll be
10:24 more aware and more present if they feel like there's not a surprise coming so while you can have different types of practices and it might take a couple of
10:32 times to get comfortable if your practice most of the time has a welcome game a couple activities and a scrimmage your kids are going to be ready for that
10:39 they're going to understand that pacing and when they show up they're ready to do those things because they'll feel comfortable in that structure or framework so when you plan out your
10:48 sessions try to come up with one or two maybe three kind of Frameworks of how you would run one and that first time you have a different style it might be a
10:57 little bit confusing but you explain it to the kids and say hey we're going to do it a little bit differently this time so we can mix it up they will learn it
11:04 quickly and they'll learn to adapt to it but then when you do it the next time it will feel comfortable and familiar with them and they'll perform better for you
11:12 lastly we're going to talk about some of these small things cuz small things matter more than you think when it comes to Player Development and you might be
11:19 surprised with some of the things I'm about to talk about so the first one which I am an absolute nut about is the ball both the pressure the size the
11:29 weight and the quality you cannot learn with a ball that's underinflated or overinflated it has to be right because it under underinflated ball will not react the same it'll be softer on their
11:40 foot they won't be able to get as much power it's a deadened experience same with the ball that's over pressurized it's too hard it hurts so you want to
11:48 make sure you get that right so if you can invest in a really good pump this pump I don't know that we can get it anymore I'll put a link to some that you
11:56 can it has a built-in air pressure gauge so as I fill it up I can see exactly where I am no guess work I've had this for five or six years it's been a
12:05 fantastic $80 investment rechargers be a USB it's awesome right I got some balls here what you want to look for is you want to stay away from some of these
12:16 sort of trophy balls this is a ball from the World Cup and it looks nice and it's an Adidas Ball but I can tell you that playing with it kicking it it's like
12:27 kicking a rock it's too hard the shell is too hard it's really really honestly meant to go on a shelf somewhere even though they sell it to play with for the
12:35 longest time for the longest time I was recommending the Nik strike it's a was a fantastic and is a fantastic ball the problem lately is the valves whatever
12:45 they did in the last two years with their valves have just not been great um but otherwise I have some Nik Strike balls that have lived outside on Turf on
12:54 grass outside in the snow in the winter they're 6 years old and they're still playable which are the fantastic Testament I honestly every single soccer ball that I get my hands on that comes
13:04 home gets pumped to normal pressure gets weighed and measured with centimeters to make sure that it's in official size and weight because you'd be surprised all the balls Say official size and weight
13:16 on them you'd be surprised how many are actually not either the right circumference or the not right weight which means it's not the right ball to play with in general if you're looking
13:26 for a ball to play with you're going to have toay pay between $35 and $50 for a quality ball that's the right size the right weight the right feel anything
13:37 cheaper is just not going to work in the long run and it's not going to be great for Player Development I am crazy about soccer balls my co my kids know they now
13:46 bring their balls to me to pump them up because they know I'll get them just right for them because now they won't deal with a ball that's not right which
13:53 fantastic the next thing that I'm crazy about is field and net sizes so unfortunately with you soccer in towns they try to make doe with whatever it is that they have available but there
14:07 are rules and regulations and laws of the game that suggest the size of the field so 4 7v7 the field should be 35 to 45 yards wide and 55 to 65 yards
14:20 long I like to go right down the middle with 40 yards wide by 50 yards long and you may say well that almost sounds like a square it's not cuz it's in yard but
14:29 it's a large expansive pitch remember a U10 field is technically a quarter of a fullsize pitch so it is basically 1/ half of one/ half going up and down the
14:42 field from Goal Line to Center half so you should be able to fit four of those on one fullsize pitch 9v9 are two going side to side and then you have 11 V1 so
14:53 that'll be important as you do your transitions to understand you literally double the field size each time you go from 7 7 to 9b9 to 11v 111 but I'm crazy
15:02 about it because fields too small while they're challenging they also don't allow players to experience using the width and the depth of the field because everything's Too Close um in addition
15:13 I'm crazy about making sure that we play on a decent surface so you can actually play the game of soccer we just played at a field at some inner not inner city
15:21 but outer city field that was so bad you couldn't play a pass I actually had a ball rolling hop up over a 4 half foot player when it was rolling on the ground
15:31 because the field was so terrible we couldn't play soccer neither team could play soccer the field was also way too small we scored a goal from the top of
15:39 our own 18 yd line and it was nothing spectacular that's how small the field was that doesn't help with Player Development same with net sizes you can
15:47 have Nets up to 6 and 1/2 ft by 8 18 and 1/2 ft wide but a U10 keeper looks at that as just an enormous net to sit into
15:57 what they recommend is the standard 6 1/2 x 12T net very close to a footle net which is 3x 4 M that's the official size but use what you have but understand
16:08 there's a reason why they suggest that smaller net that larger net is just so intimidating to a U10 player and as an attacker you think oh this will be easy
16:17 to score your kids see that big net and start taking shots from places they should never take a shot which is kind funny lastly as a coach it's really
16:26 helpful Player Development to make sure you have some things like cones pennies and training AIDS I actually get my teams a set of pennies for every coach
16:35 for every player and they give it to them and say you bring this to practice every practice some keep it for them but it's much easier if they bring it as
16:42 part of their quote unquote uniform you can even get dual-sided pennies because it then makes it really easy as a coach to make two teams or even three teams
16:51 red Penny reverse White Penny no Penny and now you can do three but it really makes it easy as a coach to work on things where you want to split those
16:59 kids up or even sometimes if you're working in a formation and you want to highlight a particular position you could make the two center backs wear a
17:07 yellow Penny because you're working on something where you're highlighting them and that makes them stand out on the field for the rest of your players so you can use that a lots of different
17:14 ways same with training AIDS cones all that stuff you want to make sure you have some of the stuff in handy so when you need it I'm lucky enough that on the
17:22 field that I practice 7v7 it's also where our u8 and our U6 fields are and our Fields get smaller and smaller so a lot of times I bring my kids to those
17:30 smaller FEI Fields CU I don't have to lay out cones they're already lined and they're nice and small I can play 3v3 4v4 I can work on other things and I
17:38 don't have to lay out a little Grid in the middle of the game field it also Saves the Game field from wear and tear which is nice if you're on natural grass
17:45 I hope these hints about Player Development are helpful for you to help you think about all the training environment and the big picture that you need to work on um it's really important
17:54 to just keep that in your mind that don't being a rush coach you've got two years and hopefully you've got longer than that with them and you can grow
18:01 with their kids as they get older it's really a treat to see them grow um into young men and young women as they go along um really proud of a lot of them
18:09 as they go that way remember you're not in a rush take sweat the small stuff it's more important than you think but don't worry about you have to do
18:18 everything all at once till the next time I hope you guys are all well hope you're having a great season if it's your fall or your spring season I'm
18:25 recording it it's spring once again I got rain out for a practice so I've had a very strange season this year but until next time I'll see you later bye
