January 3rd Practice & Fun Day
The following players are confirmed for the January 3rd 10AM practice and fun day:
- Aidan,
- Dylan,
- Francois,
- Richard,
- Hunter,
- Justin,
- Gustavo
- Aeddon,
- Philip,
- Shar,
- Cameron,
- Nathan
- Daniel
U12 Lightning's Home
Coliseum Match
This video cover pretty much the entire match at the Coliseum. It is missing only one goal (which happened while I was tending to Shar who was injured). Stoppages were removed, leaving 25 minutes of footage.
It is quite educational, for example to see how the goals occurred. Fantastic hat trick by Aidan, and amazing saves by Francois.
Goals:
BL 8:34
NH 9:20
NH 10:05
NH 11:45
BL 17:50
BL 19:55
NH 21:35
Missing: Aeddon's goal
22:40: The save of the match, outstanding throughout the match.
Watch full screen in HD (select 1080p) if your computer is fast enough:
New Team Cheer
Here are a couple of new team cheers for us. We have the whole winter to practice them.
Players: Please Register Now For RunOttawa 2012
Last year, Gustavo, myself and Jacob ran the 10Km, and Francois ran the 5Km. In May 2012 I'd like the entire team to run the 10K with us.
This event is a *a lot* of fun. It is one of the top annual events in Ottawa. All players who register will get a really nice shirt, plus a medal.
As players and parents know, working on our fitness is of great importance for soccer, to the team, and to the coach. Anyone can run the 10K event, it's just a matter of preparing. At the same time, it will automatically make our team fit, endurance-wise, so it's a win-win. In addition, it may well get the kids hooked on running for life. There are 8-year olds who run this race!
Use this link to register ('The Races' link on top left, 'Register');
This event always sells out well in advance. Please register now.
World Club Finals
Santos defeats Kashiwa Reysol on the first semi-final of the World Club Finals in Japan, 3 beautiful goals. Like bending the ball? Take a look at the last goal! Next: Barcelona?
Fantastic December Playing
The bravest, toughest, most soccer-crazy, and the best kids! We set a new record by 2 days, December 11th, latest outdoors soccer day, with 14 wonderful players!
Steve Nash And Soccer
Ottawa Citizen: Steve Nash is among the best basketball players of all time. Small by the game's standards at 6-3, he has fast feet, fast hands, remarkable hand-eye co-ordination and a superlative reading of the game.
So what's this Order of Canada boy from British Columbia doing shilling for the Canadian Soccer Association?
Soccer: Pass It On is a justintroduced 30-second public service announcement that mixes soccer stars Christine Sinclair and Julian de Guzman with Nash to encourage Canadians to share the passion.
"It was an easy decision to get involved," he explained in an email exchange. "I'm just really excited about the growth of the sport. I hope more and more kids at a young age have the access and interest to start playing. Being a part of a team sport can teach a person so many life lessons they can use as a child all the way into adulthood."
Too right.
The power of the game is dear to Nash's heart. So much so that he's established his Steve Nash Foundation aimed at fostering healthy kids who might otherwise be passed by because of poverty, illness, abuse or neglect.
"Why is soccer so important to you," I asked?
His reply is heartfelt: "It's such a passion of mine and has been for as long as I can remember. Being a young kid and being able to play with my friends and family was such a great part of my childhood."
The family influence surfaces continuously. His parents came from North London - Tottenham to be exact - which accounts for the Nash family being addicted to Premier League Spurs.
Dad John Nash played professionally in South Africa, which is where Steve was born in 1974.
They moved to Regina when he was 18 months old, by which time the word "goal" was a part of his vocabulary. Then it was on to Vancouver and Victoria.
Soccer became part of life for Nash, his younger brother Martin - who played 38 times for Canada - and his sister Joann, one-time University of Victoria captain.
Some say Steve was a better player than Martin and he has modestly suggested he would also have played for his country. However, he tells me: "My brother is definitely better than me, no question!"
He didn't decide to pick up rather than kick the ball for sport until he was in Grade 8, but even switching to hoops from goals never dimmed his passion for soccer and, in particular, his beloved Spurs.One more thing for anyone who is still wondering why Nash is such a passionate advocate for soccer: He was an original investor in the Women's Professional League, which launched in 2009 and he is part owner of the Vancouver Whitecaps.
Nash has soccer as well as basketball DNA running through him so it is absolutely justified to ask for his take on where the game is going in this country.
"Canadian soccer is improving immensely, with having three Major League Soccer teams to the growth of academy structures, soccer is really developing at the grassroots level," he says.
What's most important to growth? "Exposure and access ... whether it's providing more kids the opportunity to play, or more exposure of the professional franchises, it's important to keep building on the groundwork."
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Spurring+interest+soccer+Nash+goal/5839907/story.html#ixzz1gEBzCvVn
Groundhog Day Penalty Kick
A prize to all those who can explain the referee's decisions on this bizarre penalty kick.
Hint: There are a lot of things going on during this pk, but take a look at the 10-yard circle around the penalty spot.
Nature
In the meantime, searching for the snow owls, we found this on the Ottawa river, not far from our field (click to enlarge):
Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Sousa Vieira de Oliveira
A legend is lost. Dr. Socrates, M.D., Will be forever remembered for his soccer, elegance and intelligence.
Watch his exquisite goal vs Russia in WC82.
Tribute to the 82 team:
December Practice
December, we made it! 14 players today.
What's that white stuff?
Is there a game going on?
Bending it like Bekham.
Video:
LTPD Slides
Some slides from the LTPD meeting.
You want to progress? Good luck finding your way here...
Next steps:
Practice November 26
Another beautiful day in November, 22 really nice players came, and we played full field.
Video:
Practice Saturday
The snow is gone, temperatures will remain above zero. Practice in on this Saturday.
Many thanks to the 3 committed players who responded.
Fun game is on as always.
LTPD Meeting
This Tuesday I attended a meeting with Alex Chiet (7:30PM to 10:30PM!). The meeting was only for club head coaches and technical directors, but Alex had invited me as we had corresponded about LTPD and he knows I am a supporter.
It was a great meeting. There were about 25 head coaches/TDs attending, people as far away as Belleville.
Some points:
The courses structure is changing. Starting immediately for 2012, people who want to coach U12 and older teams do not need to take all 4 courses, and will only need to take the Soccer For Life course (last one) plus a short MED course (Making Ethical Decisions). The cost for SfL course by the OSA is $125, and whatever overhead costs are added by the giving club. This is a fabulous chjange and more people will want to become coaches now by removing a big barrier. Current diplomas will be grandfathered for existing coaches, but recertification will be coming at some point.
With regards to LTPD, it comes from above, Sports Canada and applies to all sports. Also, FIFA's Grassroots initiative is similar.
You may have seen in the newspapers LTPD being criticized by some people who don't really know what it is (e.g, a club president who was denied his silly medals after his teams won several leagues). LTPD focuses on the kids skills development, and fitness for life, and not on winning. The current approach is all wrong. We in Canada can surely attest to the total failure of the current mentality in soccer. LPTD will eventually get rid of standings, promotion/delegation for the younger ages (under U13) as well as current 'winner takes it all' tournament structures.
LTPD also favours a 3:1 practice to match ratio, and emphasizes fun matches, just as I have been doing for years. Lots of fun playing time, sounds familiar? :-)
LTPD will eventually eliminate the 'medal/trophy/winning' mentality that has gotten this country's soccer into this deep hole. It is not against competition, quite on the contrary. It will achieve better performance, and more skilled players, by doing the right things with the kids.
OSA did a lot of data searching. A chart was shown showing the tracking all ages over the last 5 years. I can't remember the exact numbers but, for example, for the U15 year in 2005, out of about 15,000 in year 1, only 3,000 to 4,000 stick with soccer by age 19. The numbers start much larger for younger ages, but have similar shapes, a bigger dropouts as the kids get older. These are really sad numbers. The charts show huge steep and gradual drops. This is what LTPD also tries to change (sports are for life, fitness for life)
To my pleasant surprise, out of the 25 people there, only one was against it, I don't know from which club. Most of the rest were very supportive, some quite vocally, including the Capital United HC who was sitting in front of me. He said loudly this was 25 years too late! How long has it been that Canada qualified to the WC? ;-)) Another passionate defense came from the HC of the Hotspurs, he says people forget that this was for the kids development, not about a team winning. This is about the kids learning soccer, and not a coach winning either. It is for the players.
Getting rid of standings relieves a huge pressure from coaches, as we know quite well (and hopefully will eliminate those bonuses for wins that some clubs pay their coaches!). There are coaches out there who scold their kids for losing a game or doing bad plays, as we saw this year. The person was was defending "winning" said that he had asked his 15 year olds if they would like getting rid of standings and most had said no. That is because they have been in this system for too long are conditioned to it. He also said that hockey (always bloody hockey) is quite successful in Canada and has always been about winning. He was immediately rebuked by another HC who said he was also a senior hockey coach and said that now much smaller hockey nations like Sweden and even Germany (and even the US in terms of hockey) are catching up, by using LTPD approaches, and Canada is falling behind. That is quite true too. The rest of the world has changed. Hockey is changing too, and change is difficult..
Other points: Success for the kids is not measured by a team winning a tournament or placing first. Success is measured by how the players improved during a season. Players will be assessed by individual improvement along a season (and we have some outstanding examples in our team). Winning comes naturally, that is the long term goal.
There are many other aspects of LTPD, including getting rid of chronological age systems, and looking at developmental age instead. I have always found so silly that players born in say Dec 1999 could not play with players born in February 2000. There is NOTHING wrong with mixing different ages.
Change is not easy. LTPD will be phased in through many years, it has already started at U9 this year in some leagues, I think including EODSA, and will progress from there, so unfortunately, not many immediate changes for us.
They seem to be doing something right.
Arrigo Sacchi
Hat tip to Maciej for this interview with Arrigo Sacchi, the prior Italian and Milan's coach, published today by the U.K.s The Guardian.
Team unity: playing as one.
"... It is not a question of 4-4-2 or 4-2-1-3, it is a question of having a team which is ordered, in which the players are connected to one another, which moves together, as if it was a single player," "Today few teams know how to do this. Few teams work as a unit – few, really few teams. They are all made up of little groups. There is no great connection, nor a good distribution of players around the pitch.
"Barcelona has this. You saw it against Manchester United [in this year's Champions League final], this was the big difference between the teams. One was very much a unit, all 11 players were moving as if they were one. The other was moving as individuals who happened to be in proximity to one another. ...."
"He thumps his fist into the table as he lays out his vision of how the game should be played, espousing total football concepts of a team who attack and defend as one. "You see defenders today who follow an opponent everywhere," he protests in one of his more heartfelt monologues. "The defender's point of reference should never be his opponent but a team-mate.""
Specialization is Bad
"What Sacchi found in Italy's youth teams disgusted him. "I see kids who are 14 or 15 years old who are already specialists. But football is not a sport of specialists," he says. "I was watching the under-15s the other day – 14-year-old boys – and the central defenders arrived and all they did was mark their man. They took themselves out of the game. This is suffering, this is not joy, this is not football. If someone does just one thing over and over, they will get better at that thing. But is football just one thing?"
Opening up to different ideas
"But to achieve such goals a new generation of coaches is required and it is here that Sacchi's most radical and most strongly held beliefs come to the fore. Having never gone higher than the amateur ranks as a player, Sacchi believes fiercely that it is time football opened itself up to the idea of more non-footballers becoming coaches, citing the examples of José Mourinho and Zdenek Zeman as supporting evidence. As he famously put it when questioned during his own coaching career: "I never realised that to become a jockey you needed to be a horse first."
"I would let everyone – from pharmacists to porters – any person – become a manager. This way, in my opinion, we will end the domination of a single way of thinking. Instead we will have a thousand different ways of thinking. The more thoughts you have, the more you can grow."
Foundations
"When you build a skyscraper, you make really strong foundations – if you don't make the foundations you will never see the skyscraper," he says. "If you build a shed, you don't need those foundations but it will never be an important building.
The Need to Win: LTPD!
"... where the need to produce immediate results has led to a suspicion of youth. "When teams lose two games they sack the manager," says Sacchi, noting how fans will even go so far as intimidating the directors in order to affect a change of coach. "There is a great tension, a great pressure from the press but even more from the fans, a great violence.""
Rockets in The Soccer Field
Some work better than others!
Fuel is vampire blood. The mixture of blood and air was not quite right the first time.
(Sorry, camera was set to Tungsten mode.)
Prettiest Goal of The Year Candidate
Neymar's goal for Santos on this match is one of the candidates to FIFA's Prettiest Goal of the year (3rd goal), but Ronaldinho steals the show in Santos.
Some Notes:
- first goal, the way Borges controls the ball. An amazing touch, similar to what we practice for ball reception (backward spin) but in the air.
- 2nd goal also by Borges, note how he is cleverly never offside, always keeping behind the defender until the ball is passed.
- Neymar's 1st goal: a mix of Cruyff with cow feint; His 2nd goal, a subtle touch
- Ronaldinho's free kick goal: brilliant He always puts the ball over the wall...
Note also Ronaldinho's magic playing for Flamengo, 3 goals.
Show Your Respect: A Week Of Silence
What do you think? Yelling at the kids was banned for a week at a couple of clubs around Toronto, and the kids loved it.
Watch Video. (CTV at a couple of clubs around Toronto)
"Cheering at Aurora, Ont. soccer fields this week has been muted after the town's youth soccer club introduced a "week of silence" to remind parents, coaches and spectators the goal of the game is to let kids have fun.
The Aurora Youth Soccer Club implemented the week of silence after learning from other soccer associations the idea was popular with the players.
"The kids overwhelmingly said the game was more fun; they liked playing and not being yelled at," says a statement on the league's website.
However, some parents were finding it difficult to muffle their exuberance.
"Parents admitted to having a difficult time initially remembering the silent part," the statement said.
On Monday, the idea was put into practice and only clapping was allowed.
Coaches were also barred from yelling, and were instructed to only give coaching instruction pre and post-game, at halftime and to players on the sidelines before and after substitutions.
Coaches were also told they should only address referees to request player substitutions.
The week of silence applies to both boys and girls age seven to 18 and runs until Friday".
Practice November 12, Antonov
This was our practice/match day number 85. The weather is still being incredibly kind to us. 18 players were there for the fun match, some again wearing shorts and t-shirts, and a spectacular sight overhead.
Radar: The winner received a prize, highest speed was 78Km/h.
And the spectacular fly by a Volga-Dnepr Antonov 124 overhead. The thing looked like a giant alien ship moving slowly in the sky.
These were around yesterday:
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