SoccerBlogs

OK, so if you have read Tip #1 regarding equipment and Tip #2 regarding the Warm Up, your players should be organized, in the right gear and warmed up ready to go.

Now if you are coaching club players, high school, college etc, you will then go into the "meat" of the practice and work on technical and/or tactical (functional) sessions.

OK, I have written 5 Tips for a new coach about to carry out the first soccer practice. I know that it is a daunting task running a soccer practice for the first time, I ran my first practice 26 years ago!

Tip #1 concerned equipment and also covered a couple of ways of taking control of the practice as well as setting the tone of the practice.

OK, so you volunteered to be the soccer coach of your kid's team, only problem is, you've never coached a soccer team before...YIKES!

Not to worry, we are here to help.

I will be posting 5 Tips to help you get through your first practice...

Here is the first one:

TIP #1 Equipment

Cleats must be soccer cleats, no baseball cleats.

So, as the EPL reaches its climax who do you think will go on and win it? What a difference a weekend makes!

In my opinion the momentum has swung back in Manchester United's favour even though they are still one point behind.

Sir Alex Ferguson has been here before, has the video and wears the t-shirt.

Friday witnessed the changing of the guard as my college team had its end of season soccer banquet.

I said goodbye to my players and handed over the reigns to the new coach in an entertaining, fun and emotional night.

The players were wonderful and gave me a book of stories and messages as a thank you and I have posted some of their comments on the "Testimonials"page.

So, tomorrow we go ahead and play away against the current conference tournament champions.

The first time I coached against this team was three years ago and we were 6-0 down at half time! Game finished 8-0.

We were then beaten 3-0 by them the following year.

Last year we tied them 0-0 after double overtime.

OK, so we have come to the end of a very intense college soccer pre season campaign. This involved practicing two times a day plus playing 4 pre season games.

We start our regular season schedule this week.

Pre season was a success for us. In terms of numbers we won 2 and lost 2. That does not sound impressive, however the performances of the team as a whole plus individual players really were very good.

OK, so back down to earth with a bump after a 2-0 loss today.

We went up against our cross town rivals who beat us 4-0 last year. They are currently ranked 8th in the nation in NAIA, so obviously they are a good team.

We got off to a bright start and could have been up 1-0 early on. They then scored a very fortunate goal after twenty minutes.

Ok, so tomorrow we play our second pre season game of the season. We go against a team ranked 13th in the nation, who last year had their best season on record. They have started out slowly this year losing their first three games 0-1. They beat us last year 4-0, so they will be looking at this game as a way to get back on track.

OK, so we played our first pre season game tonight. I had come to think I had scheduled this game too early, but I think we got it right. We only started pre season 6 days ago, but the players needed to get out on the field for a game.

I had the luxury of fielding two completely different teams for this game.

So, everything has been going so well with our pre season, but today we suffered an injury setback.

One of our new international recruits, went for a ball and landed awkwardly and dislocated his elbow. Ugly injury, but fingers crossed it is not going to be too bad. We are hoping that he will only be out for a couple of weeks.

So we just posted an interview discussing our upcoming season at Pre Season Interview.

Check it out and leave a comment.

Let's Talk Soccer!

OK, so once all the players were finally cleared to play, we got them out onto the pitch.

The day started at 6.30am with a disciplinary measure since one of our players showed up 2 minutes late to a team meeting. As a result all of the players had to meet me at the track at 6.30am for a "team building" exercise.

Ok, after 10 months of hard work, we finally met all the players today as they reported to the first day of pre season training.

It was great to see all the players, to say hello to the returners and to meet the new recruits. We took care of all the NCAA requirements, then brought them all in for our first team meeting.

I have put together a very simple survey which will take you 60 seconds to complete.

The theme of the survey is about planning soccer practices.

Please click on the link and take 60 seconds of your life to answer 6 basic questions.

Click here to take survey

The results will be analysed and it will help me help you with your planning of soccer practices.

So here we are waiting with bated breath for the FIFA World Cup Final to begin tomorrow.

Can you imagine how the players are feeling right now? I wonder what they are thinking and how they are preparing both physically and mentally. Can you imagine being in their shoes right now?

So, if you are preparing your team (at whatever age or level you coach) what kind of things do you do to prepare your players?

OK, so I have been saying this for weeks, we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel and our recruiting efforts are nearing an end.

I am the only part-time temporary coach in the conference and it is a tough job to recruit while holding down a full time job and having a wife and two kids.

Last night's practice was a little disappointing. It is amazing to me how much I must be aware of the level of motivation and effort both at each practice and throughout the practice.

The players seemed to be going through the motions a little too much and it started to have an atmosphere as just a kick around and a fun scrimmage.

I just received the following reference from the coach of a potential recruit for my college team. I don't know about you, but the way he describes this player gives me goosebumps!

"He is very much like Brendan, a stalwart in defense, probably better skill on the ball than Brendan, not quite as big, but very tough and physical, takes smart angles, learns his lessons quickly, knows his strengths and plays to them.

OK, so I am now beginning to come out of hibernation in regards to my college soccer team. I am the only part time, temporary coach in my conference, so once the season is over I slip into semi hibernation. In the Spring I appear from my cave and work furiously on helping all of our possible recruits to make the decision and commit to our school and our team.

So, now that England has lost its captain, Rio Ferdinand, has the momentum for this game swung towards the USA?

By the way, it is freaky that Germany (Ballack), Ghana (Essien), Ivory Coast (Drogba) and now England (Ferdinand) have all lost their captains before the tournament has even started.