Did I let them down

Comment

Comment by Tim Horton on June 2, 2009 at 11:44pm

Hi Kempton,
I think as coaches we are always second guessing ourselves. I guess I would have a couple of questions for you. First, do you have every girl play every position in each game (except GK of course)? How many GK's do you use in the game?

I am also assuming that this is a Travel team and not a recreational team?

With regards to the player trying every position, I agree with that at this age. However on my girls U8 (5 vs 5) Rec team I started off with every girl playing a stint in goal each game. What I found was that this was a nightmare to manage and was not actually giving each girl an opportunity to play the position for an extended period of time. Some times in our eagerness to be fair and equitable about positions we loose site of the fact that we never really give each player a chance to settle into the position during the game and learn from the different situations that they will face by being able to play it for an extended period of time.

So what I did was change it so that only one player played in goal for the whole quarter. This made it much easier to manage substitutions, I could focus on coaching the players in the game and each girl gained a lot more experience at the GK position. I would suggest you could take this same philosophy with your team in that each girl plays no more than two positions each game (GK and Striker, Defender and Midfield etc). This makes your substitution choices much easier and now you can concentrate on giving them coaching points specific to the position they are playing and they will have a chance to get back in and try it out. If you plan your practice and games out you could even have the girls focus on the same two positions they will play in that weeks games during practice so you can now help to provide them position specific coaching they can take into the game. While this is more planning and work for you, it gives the player much more exposure and opportunity to learn and try things out.

I think sometimes as coaches in our eagerness to be fair and equitable, we miss the opportunity for real teaching moments during the game. If a player is doing well in a position and the light bulb is starting to click on where to position themselves, how to make a first touch away from pressure, gaining confidence taking on players, our job as coaches it to recognize those moments and encourage them. If it means they go back in on defense instead of moving to midfield for another rotation, so be it. Give them chances to succeed and that confidence will help them as they try another position.

So don't beat yourself up but think about giving the players more time in a position so they can learn it and get comfortable. They have to experience mistakes and successes in a position to work out what works. My last comment would be if the team is achieving some success in a game, maybe try keeping them in those positions for that game and experience success in scoring goals and possible winning the game. The confidence they gain from that one win will help them immensely and now you can challenge them to do it again but playing a different position.

I hope I did not ramble to much and that you find this helpful.

Cheers
Tim