OFF SEASON
There are opportunities to play this sport year round no matter where you live. Even in the places that are subject to snow and ice, you'll find indoor soccer.
What can you find indoor?
Training
Camps
Futsal (various forms)
4v4, 5v5, 7v7, 8v8
Bizarre forms (there's a local league which has a BLUE card to put a player
in a time out, much like hockey).
Regardless of indoor or outdoor, is year round soccer a good thing? It depends on the player and should be more up to them to do. All too often, there are coaches that make off season soccer near mandatory, with unrealistic promises or veiled threats of consequence. Let's take a look at this.
First of all, coaching influence outside of season is just plain wrong. You may think that you have the best interests of the player in mind - but do you really? Does the player get better in off season work?
Camps : taught by someone other than you. A camp may last a week, perhaps two. Whatever great skills and cool ideas they learned in that time, how much of that is going to be remembered or used if not reinforced by you? And when do you reinforce it? During season is the only time you have that availability, so odds are whatever they learned in camp is long gone.
Off season soccer leagues? Again, who is coaching them? Are they even getting coaching, or just playing games. If they are being coached, does this coach teach what you are hoping to be taught?
What about insistence that the soccer player compete in Cross Country or Track and Field in the off season so they "get in shape for soccer"? Do you really think that any cardiovascular gains made several months prior to your season will still be in place?
Finally, and most important, you risk burn out. Not only the psychological burn out of taking something fun and making it a chore that never seems to end, but the physical burn out. You are setting up the athlete to repetitive injury.
My advice? If you have players that WANT to do off season work, by all means help them out. If not, let them rest, heal, and hit the season fresh!
There are opportunities to play this sport year round no matter where you live. Even in the places that are subject to snow and ice, you'll find indoor soccer.
What can you find indoor?
Training
Camps
Futsal (various forms)
4v4, 5v5, 7v7, 8v8
Bizarre forms (there's a local league which has a BLUE card to put a player
in a time out, much like hockey).
Regardless of indoor or outdoor, is year round soccer a good thing? It depends on the player and should be more up to them to do. All too often, there are coaches that make off season soccer near mandatory, with unrealistic promises or veiled threats of consequence. Let's take a look at this.
First of all, coaching influence outside of season is just plain wrong. You may think that you have the best interests of the player in mind - but do you really? Does the player get better in off season work?
Camps : taught by someone other than you. A camp may last a week, perhaps two. Whatever great skills and cool ideas they learned in that time, how much of that is going to be remembered or used if not reinforced by you? And when do you reinforce it? During season is the only time you have that availability, so odds are whatever they learned in camp is long gone.
Off season soccer leagues? Again, who is coaching them? Are they even getting coaching, or just playing games. If they are being coached, does this coach teach what you are hoping to be taught?
What about insistence that the soccer player compete in Cross Country or Track and Field in the off season so they "get in shape for soccer"? Do you really think that any cardiovascular gains made several months prior to your season will still be in place?
Finally, and most important, you risk burn out. Not only the psychological burn out of taking something fun and making it a chore that never seems to end, but the physical burn out. You are setting up the athlete to repetitive injury.
My advice? If you have players that WANT to do off season work, by all means help them out. If not, let them rest, heal, and hit the season fresh!
