U12 Academy - Training Week Reflections (Jan 10 - 16)

This week kicked off our first training week for the winter season. It has been a difficult period due to the weather (snow cancelling training), COVID cases, timing of practices due to weather and light (causing many players arrive late) and limited hours of training time in the first place. In addition this week we had some new players trialing so it just added to the noise. The key here to remain patient. The players have been off for some time and the lack of consistency in training days makes it difficult to get the wheels rolling again at the pace we were at near the end of the fall season.

Training (1.13.22)

In training this week we worked on our macro principle of Possession, particularly the Sub-Principle of Creating and Exploiting space.

First Part

• However given some of the challenges mentioned above, I was forced to adapt the Warm-Up and Technical activities of the practice - by mainly focusing on a 6v2 transition rondo in a 12 x 24 grid. I actually thought the ball circulation in the exercise was great. The players were moving the ball and thinking quickly, and were pretty consistently stringing together 10-15 passes.

• This allowed us to introduce some elements of our macro principle: counter-pressing (Press to win the ball) as well, since the defending players were conditioned to try to switch the ball back over once they won the ball.

• Majority of players seem to have an appreciation for the principles of possession but still need to improve the counter-pressing reaction at ball loss: this really at its essence is a quick attitude change from possession to recovery mode.

Second Part

• For the second part we shifted into a 8v8 Positional game - where the two strikers where not allowed to come into their half to defend - essentially making it an 8v6 once in the opponent's half.

• We were able to create some well constructed chances but there is still a lack of utilizing the entire field, thinking ahead and make the ball work.

• I will also slightly fault the activity layout though as the pitch was overly wide and didn't allow for optimal positioning to establish possession - in the future the pitch will need to emphasis more depth so as to favor the offensive and allow them more room to establish possession.

Match (1.16.22)

We were quite short on players for the match and had to move some players around to serve in different functions. Overall I actually thought we started the game well and were creating better chances than our opponent - however, we didn't have a keeper and two weak chances were actually turned into goals. This drove our spirit down and it took us a while to come back from it. In the second half we caught a second wind and started to believe a bit more - we were able to score 4 goals in the second half.

Strengths of performance:

• Good sequences of possession - CBs and WBs did well to establish Positional Balance in our Build-Up play

• Some good sequences of switching play, at times I felt like the players themselves were thinking the switch without me telling them

• Good individual play to create chances - we remain to be a highly creative team in the offensive third

• Collective play to create chances - intelligent movement and passes to penetrate

• Positivity from some players

Weakness of performance:

• We continue to lose the ball too much on throw in's there is no concept of how we can retain the ball from these restarts

• We continue to struggle to defend corners - our body language shows like we don't want to play them: got scored on twice because of them

• Our deliveries from corners were poor: can we play the short ball?

• BIGGEST ONE: our heads went down when were 5-0 down; we NEED to be more positive, we NEED to always believe

• Our team shape was very disorganized - we had a lot of new players, this shape will improve as we continue to train and play games.

• Need to be ok playing with the GK

For Next Training Week

• A warm-up or technical activity that involves throw in's

• Defending corners

• Sub-Principle: Build from the Back with particular focus on Sub-Sub-Principle of Switching Play through a Pivot (especially with the GK).