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This was my first year coaching high school soccer. It was one of the best soccer experiences of my life. I know some of my coaching friends out there are curious about how it went...
First - by far the most rewarding aspect is getting to know and work with a bunch of wonderful young people.
Second - I am so blessed to have excellent assistant coaches!
Second - I am so blessed to have excellent assistant coaches!
A couple of my goals and motivations to coach HS were:
- to play a positional style of soccer in HS and get results
- develop player fitness thru soccer training
- reduce injuries
- create a joyful soccer environment for the players
- to play a positional style of soccer in HS and get results
- develop player fitness thru soccer training
- reduce injuries
- create a joyful soccer environment for the players
Part of our game model was to build out of the back. I expected us to make more mistakes and concede some goals, but we really didn't (almost though!). In fact we only conceded 6 goals in 12 section games (fewest in the section). So we showed it's possible.
Here is a sample of a variety of our build outs, including against playoff opponents It helped to have goalkeepers with good distribution ability! We played well, but there is a lot of room to improve...and that's exciting for next year!
We had 9 of our matches analyzed by InStat. In those we had at least 50% possession in each game, averaged 362 completed passes at 71% completion rate. InStat is amazing. It's going to entertain me all winter reviewing our video and data (I'm a nerd).
To monitor fatigue and soreness, we use the daily Fit for 90 questionnaire. We adjusted individual player training loads to let minor strains heal and not cause players to miss games. We had very few injuries but we did have 2 serious injuries.
We had a non contact (change of direction) ACL during a summer scrimmage and a non contact ankle injury when our goalkeeper's cleats stuck in the turf on a slide. Both required surgery.
Our fitness was fine but could be better. I intended to do more SSGs in pre-season to be able to play at high intensities longer. Instead we played more 11v11 than planned in order to better teach our game model. Next year we will do more pre-season SSGs and less 11v11.
All in all it was a great season. We played a positional style in HS and got results. We developed fitness without non-soccer context running. We had few injuries (although 2 were serious). I learned a lot and there is room to improve, so I am excited for next year!
