Mini-Rage Practice Week of 16 March 2021

Overview:

We will follow our standard structure with one variation. That variation is that during the Practice portion of the training session coaches are free to run their own skills training to prepare for the collective exercise that everyone (except the Bumblebees) will run. Details will follow below. Additionally, the practice is from 6-7pm to facilitate coaches making their high school try-outs. I cannot say enough how excited I am for your try outs and how thankful I am that you are willing to coach and play at the same time. Please remember to take full advantage of all the time you have to get your homework done. With your player season beginning and your coaching season about to get into full swing you are not going to have a lot of time for homework. So, make sure you make the time to get your homework done so you can play and coach. 

Practice Focus:

• Build-up out of the defensive third through the middle third
• Spread out
• Look around and pass

Key Words:

• Spread out
• Heads up and pass

Play 1 (Small Sided Games):

6:00-6:10 pm

Small sided games on the teams normal fields. DRIBBLING is not allowed! Players have unlimited touches, but cannot pass. Other players must spread out, make supporting runs and pass. Bumblebees will play as normal. If both coaches are present and you have sufficient number of players recommend having two small sided games/fields. 

Agility:

6:10-6:20 pm

The name of this game is Tails. The purpose of this agility session is to get the players making sharp left, right and backwards turns and cuts. Additionally, to be successful the players have to keep their heads "on a swivel" looking all around them. Split your half field once again in half. Have all of your players except three put tails on. A tail is a penny tucked into the back of their shorts that hangs out like a tail. Make sure the tails are hanging out and the players don't just have a little nub sticking out. 

Rules:

• Divide the team into two groups. One with three hunters and the rest with tails
• Players with tails have a penny acting like a tail hanging out of the back of their shorts
• Players without tails (Hunters) (starting with 3) try and pull out the tails from the players with tails
• When a tail is pulled out that player becomes a hunter
• Players are NOT allowed to protect their tails with their hands and arms (no arm guards). They can only protect their tails by running and turning.
• Once all the tails have been pulled out this turn is over

Water:

6:20-6:25 pm

Give the players a very short water break. Make them run to their water and back. 

Practice:

Update: Based on what we learned Tuesday we will modify Thursday practice in the following manner.

6:25 - 6:40 pm skills

Coaches will run their own skills focused exercises. The focus for those exercises is trapping, passing and spreading out. 

6:25-6:35 pm Skills, 6:35-6:45 tactical

All of the teams except the Bumblebees will do this exercise. The Bumblebees develop a practice session focused on dribbling, defending and or shooting. 

The practice phase will be separated into two phases. The first phase is skills focused where coaches should focus on developing the technical skills of passing and trapping. Coaches may pick their own exercise or do the one below, but they must clear their exercise with me prior to practice otherwise I expect they will do what I have listed below. Once the skills phase is done we will do an exercise focused on spreading out and passing the ball. 

Skills building phase:

In this phase coaches should demonstrate the proper way to pass (push pass and long pass) and trap. Make sure as you demonstrate have the players focus on watching your body posture and foot and leg positioning. 

Organization:

• Divide team in half (put one team in pennies)
• Create 4 7x7 yard boxes along the periphery of the field
• Put a player from each team in the box
• Put a play from each team in the middle of the field
• Put a goalie in

Rules:

• Player in the middle of the field calls out the name of a player on his team with a ball and moves to him to receive a pass
• Player whose name was called out gives a good pass along the ground to the receiving player
• When the player in the middle traps the pass he then passes it to another player on his team who does not already have a ball
• The player in the middle who just passed the ball then moves towards a different player on his team with a ball and calls out his name repeating the process
• Either middle player may pass or receive from the goalie
• The two teams are playing around each other and not against each other.

Coaching focus:

• Quality of the trap
  • good body posture with bent knees
  • up on their toes
  • giving with their foot as they receive the ball
• Quality of the pass
  • Plant foot pointing to target
  • Kicking the ball with the inside of their foot
  • Kicking the ball just at or below the middle of the ball
  • Following through with their kicking foot pointing to the target

If, as the coach, you need to pull a player off to the side to give some one on one this is a great time to do it while the other kids keep passing. If you do not have enough kids to fill all the boxes just reduce the number of boxes filled

The focus for this exercise is to get the Blue team (focus team) to successfully build up from a goal kick. The Red team will focus on pressing in Blue's defensive third in order to intercept the ball and score a goal. 

4 Boxes Passing and Spreading out Practice  

Organization

• Play half field
• Place cones for 4 7x7 yard peripheral boxes
• Create one full team (focus team) in pennies
• Create opposing team with the players you have left
• One ball

Rules

• Blue wants to score five points by controlling the ball in any of the four cone boxes
• Red scores and wins if they score a goal in the big goal before Blue scores five points
• Blue starts with ball in the goalie's hands and all six players on the field anywhere they want
• Red starts with one player in Blue's half of the field. The rest of red is at the mid-field line
• Each time Blue controls the ball in a box they get a point. They cannot score back to back points in the same box.
• Each time Blue scores a point one more Red player comes into the game. 
• If Red gains control of the ball they attempt to score and Blue transitions to defense.
• If the ball goes out anywhere it returns to the goalie's hands and play begins

Coaching focus:

• Blue - spread out on offense and look to pass the ball
• Blue - make sure they have assigned positions with two defenders, two midfielders and a forward
• Blue - pass the ball to where Red is not
• Reinforce trapping and passing as done in the skills exercise

Play 2:

6:40-7:00 pm

The focus for this scrimmage is for coaches to build their formations, build up from a goal kick and spreading out and passing. If they do not do the goal kick well, have them do it again. Remember, it is critical for your left back to be a player who can quickly trap the ball and pass it forward. 

This scrimmage will not have any coaches on the field as players. 

16 March:

We will create a new field for the Lions to play against themselves. To enable as many players as possible playing the following teams will give up players:

• Bears - send 2-3 players to Tigers
• Pumas - send 2-3 players to Lions

Focus:

• Coaches - create your line ups
• Players - spread out and pass
• Players - Goal kick and build out of the defensive third (if they do not do it correctly have them do it again)
• Players - Aggressively press in our attacking third when the other team does a goal kick

18 March:

Due to varying number of attending players I will make the match-ups once practice starts and we see how many players each team has.