OK, so we have come to the end of a very intense college soccer pre season campaign. This involved practicing two times a day plus playing 4 pre season games. We start our regular season schedule this week. Pre season was a success for us. In terms of numbers we won 2 and lost 2. [...]

So, everything has been going so well with our pre season, but today we suffered an injury setback. One of our new international recruits, went for a ball and landed awkwardly and dislocated his elbow. Ugly injury, but fingers crossed it is not going to be too bad. We are hoping that he will only [...]

OK, so once all the players were finally cleared to play, we got them out onto the pitch. The day started at 6.30am with a disciplinary measure since one of our players showed up 2 minutes late to a team meeting. As a result all of the players had to meet me at the track [...]

Ok, after 10 months of hard work, we finally met all the players today as they reported to the first day of pre season training. It was great to see all the players, to say hello to the returners and to meet the new recruits. We took care of all the NCAA requirements, then brought [...]

OK, so if you have read Tip #1 regarding equipment and Tip #2 regarding the Warm Up, your players should be organized, in the right gear and warmed up ready to go. Now if you are coaching club players, high school, college etc, you will then go into the “meat” of the practice and work [...]

OK, I have written 5 Tips for a new coach about to carry out the first soccer practice. I know that it is a daunting task running a soccer practice for the first time, I ran my first practice 26 years ago! Tip #1 concerned equipment and also covered a couple of ways of taking [...]

Last night at practice I put together a drill that worked on 10 different topics: 1. Side foot driven pass 2. Sprint 3. Body shape 4. First time lay off 5. Movement after the lay off to follow up 6. First touch 7. Driven shot 8. Rebounds and first time finishing 9. Communication 10. Runs [...]

We finished the regular conference games this weekend extending our unbeaten run to 11 games. We have only conceded 6 goals in the last 10 games, so our defense deserves a lot of credit. When I say our defense, I should really say our defensive play. We have to defend from all positions all over [...]

Wow, we are having a great season. The stats show this is the best season for this team since 1995! We are currently enjoying a 6 game unbeaten run with 4 wins and 2 ties. I have learned a tremendous amount this season so far and I am sure over the remaining 5 games of [...]

After losing on Wednesday 1-0 away from home, we decided to dedicate Thursday and Friday’s practices to shooting and finishing…boy did that idea pay off!!! We played away against a school who had a record of 19 wins and 1 loss against us over the last 10 years. In that time we only scored a [...]