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Well, hello coaches. Welcome back. Coach KW here. Sorry I had to take last week off. Just lots of stuff going on. It is the dead middle of the season and for my
town, I'm also in charge of setting up tryyouts. So, a lot of mental energy being expended both uh between uh just getting my team ready to play and
dealing with tryyous and trying to figure out dates. I've also been running goalkeeper training, which I hope to make a video on real soon. Today we're going to talk about a little bit of an
epidemic that I have noticed in my first four games of the season. Um you may know that I coach uh currently a fifth grade team U12. In our league it's fifth
and sixth grade, but in our town we make our teams by grade so they stay together and they're more consistent in terms of their growth and their development
because half the team isn't getting swapped out every year. And so that's a little bit challenge when you're in the fifth and sixth grade bracket. And we
also moved up from division three to division two. There are five divisions in our uh county league, if you will, and they've moved up. But it's been
interesting making that move up. What we're seeing is a lot more, you would expect, bigger, older kids. And that's what we're running into. It's a little bit of a difficult uh we've lost one,
tied to, and won our first game. And that first game was another fifth grade only team from another town that does what we do for the right reasons,
frankly. Um, good on them. But what I found more interesting is besides dealing with the size factor is something else. And we're going to look at some actual game video and look at
that. Uh, and we're going to play a little game and see if we can all spot what's going on there. I want to thank everybody for the likes, the subscribes,
the shares. Subscriber count just went over 1500 uh yesterday, which I was super pleased. Took a screenshot just because it's a nice round number. If you're watching this and you haven't
subscribed, please could you just hit the button? It's free. It helps me out.
Helps the channel out. What I really love is seeing all the shares. YouTube gives me a weekly update and tells me how many times videos have been shared
and every week it just knocks my socks off. If you're finding it so valuable that you want to share it with other folks, that means the world to me. And
if you're one of those new people, please hit the subscribe and share it perhaps to somebody else. I really appreciate it. So, let's take a look at
some video clips. We're going to play a little game of we're going to look at clips from the four games, one of which is different than the other three. We're
looking to see what the commonality is and then we're going to talk about it briefly. All right, so we got our first game up and running here. You've seen a
few seconds of these clips um as we're going through. I will say that all this footage you're going to see is from our new Replayer camera. Uh we've been
partnering with them to test out.
They're kind of a startup. Uh you may have seen their ads on social media and such. Um and so we've been a kind of a partner with them trying to uh you know
get these products off the ground. It's been a little start and stop, but we've got our our unit and we're running it now uh every week and testing it for
them. Unfortunately, they are out of cameras until probably the end of the calendar year. Uh so, a little bit of a struggle there if you're looking to get
one. I will have more info about this later. Uh because certainly it's a different model than some of the other kinds that are out there and frankly
much cheaper, especially if you are part of an association.
Most of the other products charge per team andor player and seem to almost be a pyramid scheme if you're really being honest with yourselves. Um so uh
hopefully uh once they have some more units back in, they'll give me a referral link and maybe you'll consider using that uh when you look at one of
these. But we'll just watch through some of this. I'll skip ahead a little bit as we go through. Um if the camera seems like it's moving a little bit too much,
remember we're at 2x, so it's going to highlight anything if the wind is blowing, etc., etc. So, that's uh not anything to do with the camera itself, but I think we've watched enough
of this uh footage here to talk about u you know, I think hopefully you've seen some uh some tendencies in the red team here. Um that's my kid trying a very
ambitious shot from midfield. Uh we tied this game 2-2, which is frustrating. Uh we beat this team last fall 7-1, but this was the holiday weekend and they
the coach told me they called up some players from the quoteunquote uh lower team. And when I tell you that the three or four kids that they brought up all
were 56, probably dwarfed most of my players by a good four or five inches.
It's one of the struggles right now we're having in uh U12 is that we're a fifth grade team. Even though we play against fifth and sixth, moving up that
one division has made it much more challenging in terms of the size of the kid. And I wonder if it goes into the what we'll talk about after all these
video clips. I'm going to stop this clip. We'll go to another game. So, here we are. Second game.
We're on a turf field. Uh we're in the green again. Um and you can see one of my big frustrations with a lot of these way fields that we play on in our league
is this 9 field is not a 99 field. It is incredibly short. Um, you can see you can see where the edge of the box is and
where the sideline is. Um, incredibly narrow as well. If I'm being generous, this is probably a 77 field. This whole field is supposed to be a 9 field all
the way across. And I don't think it was 60 yards from sideline to sideline, if that. Uh, so really, really tight, which made it really difficult uh to play
here, especially 9B9. Uh, and it was also terrible turf. It was like a carpet, so the ball just rolled. We don't play on turf usually, so it's
really tough for my players, but on bad turf, it's like a carpet and there's no friction. Uh, that's a bit of a struggle. Um, but we'll just watch a
little bit here of what's going on.
Again, we're playing another team in red. Uh, this team had some uh had some good ideas, some good thoughts about what was going on in terms of uh play.
Uh, but uh there's definitely some commonalities uh in this one as well.
Maybe I don't highlight every clip that should be uh happening here. Somehow we did not concede. Uh that was a it was an interesting day to say the least here.
We had one sub which we always have a few subs one we maximum three but we could talk about Rossa construction sometime sometime in the future. Let's
see if I could skip ahead grab some other clips here. We'll continue here. It's a good breakout uh by this team, but uh again, you can see how far and fast that ball
moves on the carpet and they were used to it and is part of the way they play.
Um a little bit of a hint of what I'm alluding to here. Um but you can also see the size of some of these kids against my kids. There's some big boys
on the field. Here we are. It's our third game. Uh this is the one that really kind of inspired this video to be honest with you as I watched this game
from the sideline. Uh again we're playing uh we're at home. Um we're playing another team with some really big units to be honest with you. You can
see the size difference from most of the kids on the field. Uh but this is the game that really got me thinking like what what are we doing here? What's
happening? Uh you know again we ended up tying this game 22. Uh again, our first three games, we're incredibly unlucky in terms of, you know, just even our
percentages. I keep stats on shot percentages and things like that. And we were having good shots. We were having excellent shots and we could not put them on net or we'd hit the goalie or
the post or a blade of grass. It was just seemed to be the first couple of games. It's super it's been super frustrating for everybody. Uh, you know,
the kids have been working hard, but uh, early in the season it was tough for us because we didn't have a ton of practice with the whole team. Um, just the way
the weather and everything else is. And then last week I lost an entire week of practice because it basically poured the entire time. Um, we're going to see see
the last game after this. We were the only two teams to play in the entire division because we were in the afternoon and on turf. Everybody else
canceled because it was just underwater type of deal.
This is a little bit deeper into the second half. And one of the things that also frustrated me is that my team started to mimic the tactics of the
teams we were playing against, which basically meant we fell into their trap in some regard. Um, and that frustrated us uh to no end. But I'm hoping I've
picked enough clips here uh to kind of get a sense of what this whole game looked like. I wish we could watch the whole game together uh and get a sense
of what's going on. But, uh, that would be an incredibly boring video to say the least. All right, we'll jump into the one. So, here we are in our last, uh,
most recent game. Again, we played away on turf. It's not something we're used to. Although, this field at least was I felt like it was in the ballpark for
being the right width. I mean, an American football field is 53 and a3 yards wide. Um, although that's pretty close. uh 9v9 should be anywhere from 50
to 60 yards wide and so 53 is in the right ballpark and I didn't count up the field markings but it felt like it was the right length in that 75 yard length
or so that's what kind of where you want to be on that uh super unlucky there. Um but this team was uh we're playing against uh we actually finally won this
game uh 3-1. Uh we were playing another team that was also made up of all fifth graders. And I had a good chat with the coach uh before the game and after the
game and the referee as well because he played in the system. Uh they said that while there's some flaws on how they construct their programs and maybe
that's a discussion for another day. Uh because the families were not happy about the way triyouts were going, they just went the least of path of resistance and they would make teams and
basically if they played together in third or fourth grade, they played together for the rest of the time which has some advantages. Um, but you'll see there's a couple players like that
number 60 in blue that just uh could glue the ball to his feet foot. He was bigger, faster, stronger, better ball skills than practically everybody else on the field at the
time. Would he benefit with playing with and against more difficult opponents closer to his thing? Uh, that's an argument that we can have on and off forever. Um, but uh, basically at least
it was a little bit more of a fair, if you will, fair fight in terms of the size difference was not too bad all over the place. That 60 was the exception.
There's always also that 92 was a pretty big boy. Uh, but this team here, honestly, I felt like of the five, the four that we've looked at, this one most
consistently was different from the others. Don't mind the wobbling here. It was incredibly windy. Um, and at 2x, it really accentuates that. uh that motion there. Um, but of the of the four that
you watched, this one here was probably I would say to you is the exception for most of it. I I know we only watched some clips of the other ones, but uh
this one here would be uh the one that I would say in person uh I felt like, hey, these kids are trying to to do something different. They're they're definitely
not not as trained as the other ones were to uh to do uh something else. So, let's go talk a little bit after we'll pull this down. I'll go into the
conclusion and uh honestly probably just a bit of a rant. Okay, there. So, now we've seen clips from four of my most recent games. And maybe my clip
selection wasn't uh the best all the way around, but I hope you could see what I saw in person. And what I saw for most of these teams with these big kids is
that every time somebody got the ball on their foot, their first thought was not can I find another player, but how far can I get it up the field? And so, as I
said in that third clip with all the uh kids in blue, it was incredibly blatant.
Like every single time a kid got a ball next to his foot, did not look up, did not look for a player, did not look for a teammate. They literally just turned
and fired the ball. if they had a free shot and didn't have any pressure on them, just fire the ball as how they can. Excuse my kid yelling at his video
games in the other room. Um, and and so it was really it it becomes one of these games where you go, "Well, are these teams in division two?" Because they're
basically doing the youth soccer trope.
Take the biggest, fastest kids, stick them on the team, lump the ball into the other end, and chase the ball down. And either with your size, your speed, or
your combination, beat up on the other teams. Is that why they were all in division two last year and they have, you know, they had positive records?
Part of me is gonna argue and say perhaps yes, because a you could see the size of a lot of these kids in comparison. I know the camera's up high
and sometimes distorts perspective, but there was no comparison. My biggest, tallest kid against most of these other teams were giving up three, four, five, six in and anywhere from 30 to 60 lbs.
Like just an enormous amount of difference. And some of my average and smaller kids were perhaps giving up even more. I mean, there was a couple times a
couple of our kids didn't even come up to their shoulder, like chest level type of deal. And so, in a 1v one battle, whether we like it or not, when you're
running towards the ball and you're trying to jockey against the player, that player, if they have at least the same speed as you, you just you're not
moving that mass out of the way. It's just not possible. And while I relish that challenge for my kids, and it's good for them, these teams had no other
way to play. All they did, you noticed probably in those videos, every single time a keeper got the ball, there was no short pass, medium pass, roll the ball
out, it was punt the ball as far down the field as you could and chase it down. And those teams had some success because it's difficult. You can't head
the ball, all those sort of things. So the defenders, if they don't pick that ball cleanly out of the air and judge the flight of that ball, which is hard
for, you know, fifth and sixth graders, then the advantage is going to be for those attackers running onto it, waiting for it to bounce, skip past the
defender, and try and control it after the fact. And while that is a strategy to get the ball up the field and play, these teams had no other way to play.
And this really came into play in our last, you know, the couple of games as we started to get to grips with what was going on. my team started to pull back
further and further. Second halfs of most of these games, we dominated. We just couldn't score uh for whatever reason. But the teams that we're playing against, we would just say it out loud,
like just back up and absorb the long ball because they can't play any other way. And we were saying it right in front of their coaches. And the fact of
the matter was is they couldn't play out. So we would pull back. We would leave the defensive line with 20 yards of space and not once did they try to
play a ball short and keep the ball.
They just kept lumping the ball up.
because we had backed up. We just kept absorbing it and coming at them, coming at them, coming at them. But really, I don't understand like I I get that if
you know, if winning is all you care about, then maybe you go with this formula. And I'm not Some might say I'm a purist in terms of like, you know,
want to play beautifully and play nice out of the back, etc., etc., but the point is at this age, if you don't teach them how to do that, they don't have any
options as they get older in terms of being able to do that. One of a really interesting couple of threads on my subreddit that I'm on with other soccer
coaches is uh coaches complaining like, "Hey, my 11 v1 team, it's their first year in and you know, we used to be able to get in with our speed and get in
behind their other backline and, you know, have more scoring chances and now we can't seem to get the ball up and I can't get my midfielders to, you know,
connect with the ball, etc., etc." And my comment to all of them was did you do it in 77 and 99 or did you do what we
just watched on the video which is you just lump the ball forward every time you had an opportunity because if you did that for the past four years and you
had some winning success then your kids are programmed I'm going to lump the ball up. The thing that happens is that 11v1 field is twice as big as a 9 or in
some regards maybe three times as big because some of these 99 fields that these kids are playing on are super tiny. These kids who are in seventh and
eighth grade cannot kick a ball 60 yards in the air. Most of them can't. And if they are, they play an MLS or ECNL or someplace else. And so that strategy of,
hey, every time I get the ball, lump it forward, and my couple of strikers are going to stay way up the field and get it. Your strikers never get the ball
because it never gets that far. And so that's kind of my complaint, my rant. I don't know what it is right now, but it just got me fired up to make this video.
Are you coaches that have experience moving into 11 v1? and have some experience going there because I can tell you I have a whole town's worth that I watch. And we actually purposely
structure our 11v1 play around the fact that we can't lump the ball that far up the field, you know, when we play these other teams because again, the field
size difference is enormous. It's way bigger than you think it is if you've never moved to that level of game. And again, if your town is playing on 99
fields that are not actually 99 fields and now you're stepping onto, let's say, a high school field, that change is shocking. Shocking how big that field is. I'm not saying that there isn't a
point for direct football or soccer, like we do it, too. If it's shown to us, we do it. But the fact is is my kids have multiple ways of doing it. When
they're given short options, they play it. But when the other team is like, "Okay, we're gonna press right up because we don't think you could do it."
We're happy with playing medium and long passes. Uh that last game, I didn't show the clip. Uh my striker was standing and the other team had pushed so far up and
spread so far out. He was literally had 20 yards on either side of him where the two center backs were. My center back who was taking a goal kick because we
were going to play into the middle, looked up and just launched the ball 50 yards up the field and my striker just ran onto it. and for just for the fact
that it was turf and bouncing weirdly.
Basically would have had a breakaway.
Not afraid to play route one direct football, but it can't be the only thing you do. So, sorry if this is a rant. I'd really like to know what you see out
there. I appreciate all of you uh watching. Um if there's something from those video clips you want to see more of, maybe you do want to watch a game
with me. I don't know why, but if you do and that's interesting, I'm happy to do it. I did it at 7B7 and some P folks liked it, but I've been reluctant to try
it again. But all I can say is uh I'd love to hear more of what you're seeing out there. I hope you're having a better start to the season than I am here, both
weatherwise and results-wise. And I'll see you out in the fields. Uh see you real soon. Bye-bye.
