NorCal Coaching Symposium: Part 1
A plethora of coaches showed up to the Oakland Roots’ training facility in Alameda on Friday and Saturday to attend NorCal Premier Soccer’s latest world class Summer Coaching Symposium, featuring instructors from all over the world.
Day one began with a Roots training session led by new head coach and former US National Team player Benny Feilhaber before Hoffenheim U19 manager Tobias Nubbemeyer, the first coach to ever win the U19 Bundesliga and U19 DFB Pokal in the same season, led a pair of field sessions with an emphasis on finishing in the final third and counter attacking.
Interspersed within these field sessions were two classroom lectures from acclaimed sports psychologist Dan Abrahams, the author of four books, one of which Gareth Bale said changed his life.
For Abrahams, the goal was to explore the psychological aspect of the game by creating a competitive mental framework for individual players and teams and to help the coaches on hand integrate sport psychology into their coaching practices.
“It was interesting to hear details about what goes on in players’ minds in those high performance situations and how self talk is such a huge part of the game at all levels,” said Fremont Soccer Club Director of Development and Performance Phase Travis Cabral. “It’s so important to create a general rapport with each player so that you learn about how they think and what their thoughts are. Positivity goes a huge way in having a high performance mindset.”
Day two introduced two new clinicians: Dutch coaching legend Frans Hoek and AC Milan Youth Academy Director Professor Vincenzo Vergine.
Hoek led off the morning with a lecture on the transition from goalkeeper to goal player, the idea that since the back pass rule was changed by FIFA in 1992, goalkeepers have had to become better with their feet and help out in the build out phase of the game instead of just picking up the ball and punting it long.
His field session that followed covered how to best defend against breakaways using a goal player and one or more defenders.
Then Nubbemeyer retook the pitch to deliver another training exercise, this one showing how counterpressing can act as a playmaker in its own right.
“This session is more about creating habits than introducing tactics, but creating habits is just as important as introducing tactics,” he said. “If the habits are bad, there’s no point in the tactics.”
Nubbemeyer argued that because not every team has a player as special as someone like Lionel Messi who can score and set up goals, that it’s important to find alternate situations.
“Obviously Argentina won the World Cup with Messi, who didn’t press at all, so it’s not right or wrong to play one way, it’s just the way (our team plays),” Nubbemeyer said. “We don’t need a Messi because we create our chances by counterpressing.”
After Nubbemeyer, the Professor finally took to the field, assisted by NorCal PDP staff for a series of demonstrations on how to build physical coordination among younger players so that they have the athletic ability to compete at the highest level.
The exercises, which were performed by the U15 PDP Girls Residency Squad, included all kinds of kinesthetic activities such as summersults, cartwheels, and spins, as well as other coordination tests with the ball, designed to help players grow into their bodies and learn to move in the most efficient and dynamic ways possible.
“The professor talked about player development and all of the activation modules that he goes through and the scientific method is so applicable to the young ages in my club,” said Atletico Santa Rosa Girls Director Rick Hewko. “There’s such a great opportunity to implement the coordination and activation that he teaches, which is so in line with development. I’m really excited to bring all of this information back to Atletico.”
