SOCCER CLUB COACHES NEWSLETTER
Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2015
A Message from the Technical Director
FCB Calendar of Events/Spring ‘15
I hope your year is off to a great start.
And even though we are in the thick of
winter, the spring soccer season is not
that far away. Outdoor practices will
‘officially’ start the week of February 16th,
that is less than four weeks from now, by
the way. However, NPL teams and teams
heading out of state for tournaments have
been training at the East Boulder turf
fields throughout the winter.
January 20-Feb 26 – FCB Athletic and Soccer
Performance Camp
Thanks for your patience in regards to
the FCB futsal facility. Even though it’s not
an ideal situation right now, I think you’ll
be pleased once we’ve got it up and
running.
Please make note of the following:
Pre-Season Coaches Meeting
Thursday January 29
6 PM
Calvary Church
(West of Pleasant View on Kalmia)
This past week we had a contingent of
FCB coaches attend the NSCAA Soccer
Coaches Convention in Philadelphia. This
is the largest gathering of soccer coaches
in the world. Look for articles, reports and
info from this event in upcoming
newsletters and on our website.
Those of you who want to get their
soccer fix in, come to the EBR turf fields
this upcoming weekend for some exciting
NPL games.
January 24 – NPL games FCB vs Rush.
January 25 – NPL games FCB vs Storm.
January 29 – FCB Pre-Season Coaches
meeting.
January 31 – NPL games FCB at Pride.
February 1 – NPL games FCB vs Arsenal.
February 7 – NPL games FCB vs Real.
Week of February 16 – Official start of
outdoor practices.
February 20-22 – NPL games FCB U18s at
Storm.
February 26 – FCB Team Managers meeting.
March 14 – Start of CSA league games and
State Cup play-in games.
March 19 and 20 – Start of FCB in-house
recreational games.
March 21 and 22 – State Cup games.
March 29 – State Cup games.
April 4 – FCB Fundraising Event
April 12 – State Cup quarters.
April 19 – State Cup semis.
April 26 – State Cup final.
May 16 and 17 – Boulder Cup.
June 5-7 – FCB NPL Regional
Tournament/College Showcase.
June 12-14 – FCB Rocky Mountain Cup.
FC Boulder Team Coaches – Spring ‘15
B18E – James Wagenschutz
B17E – Jeff Frykholm
B17P – John Siegrist
B16E – Luke Meadows
B16P – Carlos Real
B15E – Kyle Lineberger
B15P – Thomas Story
B15A – Bruce Mitchley
B14E – Caleb Dickinson
B14P – Ross van Osdol
B14A – Reed Beaupre
B14S – Colm O’Neill
B13E – Adam Hayes
B13P – Steve Lawley
B13A – Ross van Osdol
B13S – Andrew Syed
B12E – Tristan Jackson
B12P – Steve Lawley
B12A – Kellen Shepherd
B12S – Brenden Kugle
B12G – Tristan Jackson
B11E – Kyle Lineberger
B11P – Carlos Real
B11A – Salvador Mendoza
B11S – Alexander Carrie
B11G – Danette Giaio
G14E – Aaron Metzger
G14P – Steve Griggs
G14A – Jill Fletcher
G13E – Aaron Metzger
G13P – Balen Arenas
G13A – Arturo Ramirez
G12E – Ryan Henkel
G12P – Yamil Herrera
G12A – Lindsey Tubbs
G11E – Ryan Henkel
G11P – Thomas Story
NPL Game Schedule - Boys
All games are at East Boulder Rec Turf.
The NPL teams are organized
according to birth year (January 1
through December 31), unlike the CSA
league teams, which organizes its players
according to the dates of August 1
through July 31. Therefore, our NPL
teams are a mixture of players from
different teams and different age groups.
This season’s NPL coaches are:
James Wagenschutz
Trevor Warren
Kyle Lineberger
Adam Hayes
- 1998s
- 1999s
- 2000s
- 2001s
January 24
11 AM – FCB ‘00 vs Colorado Rush
1 PM – FCB ‘01 vs Colorado Rush
Noon – FCB ‘99 vs Colorado Rush
10 AM – FCB ‘98 vs Colorado Rush
January 25
11 AM – FCB ‘00 vs Colorado Storm
1 PM – FCB ‘01 vs Colorado Storm
Noon – FCB ‘99 vs Colorado Storm
10 AM – FCB ‘98 vs Colorado Storm
February 1
11 AM – FCB ‘00 vs Arsenal
1 PM – FCB ‘01 vs Arsenal
Noon – FCB ‘99 vs Arsenal
10 AM – FCB ‘98 vs Arsenal
February 7
11 AM – FCB ‘00 vs Real Colorado
1 PM – FCB ‘01 vs Real Colorado
Noon – FCB ‘99 vs Real Colorado
10 AM – FCB ‘98 vs Real Colorado
The winners of the state league will
play in this summer’s regional
tournament with the winners of that
event going to Nationals. Good luck to all
our teams!
FCB U12 Elite at The Vegas Cup
By Ryan Henkel
The U12 Girls 03 Elite team traveled to
Las Vegas to compete in the Vegas Cup
during the MLK weekend. When the
brackets came out the work had to start,
as they would play San Diego Surf and
Dallas Texans in group play. The Colorado
weather was not really going be helpful,
so heading to Vegas the girls had trained
outside two times the week prior, so the
focus went from competing to win to
team building and developing for the
season ahead.
Friday evening the girls wandered out of
their cars onto the Kellog Zaher fields to have
an outdoor training session in preparation for
the next day. Focus was on organizing the
back line while getting some touches on the
ball. After a short, but successful session we
had a team dinner at the Macaroni Grill.
Playing a midseason form San Diego Surf
team was not going to be easy, but as the
game kicked off, we saw a strong 4-3-3 of ours
match up well against a true 4-4-2 that would
send both backs into the attack. We routinely
got into the flanks with time and space, but
since we had been indoors for such a long
time, we did not quite know what to do with
the time and space, so Surf were able to keep
us off the board in the first half. We felt pretty
good about the 0-0 halftime score. Surf scored
with 15 minutes left in the match, but a great
left footed strike from our central target
evened the final score at 1-1. We left feeling
that the score was a just result for either team.
Both teams tried to play attractive soccer and
both deserved a point.
Our second game was against the Dallas
Texans. The Texans played a 3-5-2 formation.
The first half of this game was played 100% in
our own defensive half. The good news for us
was that our players were resilient in
defending and our goalie was on point. At the
half, we took a sigh of relief and regrouped.
We chatted about two things, first is to take a
touch to control the ball forward, and then to
get out of the midfield as quickly as possible
and then join to support. Second was to match
the physical level of the Texans. The second
half was the complete opposite in terms of
possession, as we sat in their half for the rest
of the game, scoring on a corner kick to take a
1-0 win against a very strong team. We left
pleased and excited.
That evening the team worked on some
team building. We went through a set of
words that we wanted our team to represent.
We started with about 18 words and
narrowed it down to “effort”. We then split
our group into 3 teams and each had to come
up with a skit that defined the word effort,
which was judged by a panel of parents. The
skit “America’s Got Effort” took the prize
(okay, no prize really), and the girls headed
off to bed with a ‘winner-advances-game’ in
the morning.
The winner of our game against the
California Futbol Club would advance to the
Quarter finals of a 32 team tournament, and
the game started with this intensity. About 15
minutes into the match, you could tell our lack
of game fitness of having not been outside for
over a month, was starting to take a toll. CFC
took over the game. A very athletic team, CFC
scored shortly off a goal kick picked off and
put right back in, and then after the half they
came out and put two in on us while we tried
to get the goal back. CFC finished group 3-0,
and we left the tournament feeling like we had
much to be proud of. We played strong
defensively, had possession with purpose
against some great teams, and showed great
effort in all games.
After a long fought weekend, we continued
our team building by playing charades both
with individuals performing and groups
performing. The teamwork and the fun was
evident and we all headed to bed exhausted.
New to Vegas a year ago was the world’s
tallest Ferris Wheel. We broke the tradition of
going to the New York New York Roller
coaster and gave this a whirl, and the new
tradition has begun. 40 people to a car, 30
minute ride, views all over Vegas and into the
mountains, music blasting, and selfies galore.
This was a great way to end a trip of team
building, playing national level teams, and
doing our FC Boulder club proud. Go FCB !
FC Boulder Alumni Update
As some of you might know, Shane
O’Neill has been training with the US
National Team at the Home Depot Center
in preparation for games against Chile
and Panama. Here are some brief
comments directly from Shane:
“Today was a challenging day but all
days have been extremely physically
demanding. We start with breakfast from
7-8:30 AM then we drive ourselves to the
stadium and need to be there no later
than 9:30 AM to get our massage and get
ready to train. We train from 10-11:30
AM and then go back to the stadium for
lunch. At 1 PM we have a tactical session
in the classroom, then from 3-4 PM we
are in the gym. After that you are free to
go back to the hotel or you can stay for
treatment, ice baths and massage. It is
great to be surrounded by top
professionals such as Clint Dempsey, Matt
Besler and Michael Bradley. It is inspiring
to see how they take care of their body
and how they prepare themselves each
day”.
Good luck Shane!!
More alumni news – Former FCB player
Ryan Carruth has been appointed Head
Coach for Heidelberg College, a division
III program on Ohio. Congrats Ryan!
The following FCB Alumni update comes
from Don Harmon
FC Boulder alum Shane Wheeler went
out to the USL pro franchise Rochester
Rhinos (NY) for a tryout and picked up an
injury (grade 2 ankle sprain). Due to this
injury, Shane missed his pro combine in
Orlando and will miss his tryout with USL
pro franchise Wilmington Hammerheads
(NC) this weekend as he recovers and
maintains cardio. Shane’s next
opportunities will be tryouts with the
Tampa Bay Rowdies (FL) of the NASL, the
Tulsa Roughnecks (OK) of the USL and
Arizona United SC (AZ) also of the USL in
February.
FC Boulder alum Angelo Rieder is
currently in Thailand. He had a
preliminary game yesterday at a 2nd
division club where he said there was no
competition in the group. He claimed that
the FC Boulder men's team would have
steamrolled through the first day of
games. Angelo will be evaluated by the
top team’s coaching staff today
(Wednesday over there) as he will be
training with the actual team. He has had
no setbacks in his ankle recovery since he
was injured playing indoor soccer in the
PASL with Avery FC a month ago.
Good luck to both players as they are
pursuing their dreams of playing
professional soccer.
Former FCB player Duane Pelz is the
founder of the Maji Safi Group, a disease
prevention and health promotion project
that empowers communities in rural
Tanzania to fight waterborne and waterrelated diseases.
As is the case in most places in the
world, the kids love to play soccer, and
Duane has used their passion for the
game as a source of motivation. In order
for the kids to be able to play in the soccer
games they are required to attend lessons
about disease prevention. Check out their
website at majisafigroup.org
The following is taken from the FCB Guide
to Competitive Coaching.
Principles of Age Appropriate
Development
U15s and U16s
1. Technical
- Improve on technical deficiencies.
- Continued training on 1 vs 1
attacking and defending
techniques.
- Technical training under game
conditions.
- Possession games with conditions
to add pressure.
- Building out of the back.
- Midfield play.
- Attack vs defense.
- Wing play and crosses.
- Defending as a group and as a
team.
- Playing in the various parts of the
field.
- Passing into the target.
- Rhythm of play.
2. Tactical
- Being able to make tactical
adjustments according to
weather, field, opponents and
game situations.
- Team tactics in respect to defense
and offense.
- Understand the concepts of high
pressure vs low pressure, man for
man and zonal defending.
- Creating numbers up situations.
3. Physical
- Soccer specific strength training.
- Soccer specific speed and
quickness training.
- Soccer specific endurance
training.
- Soccer specific agility training.
4. Psychological
- Our players should be able to
think constructively about the
game and add comments and
thoughts (half-time/postgame/etc.).
- Our players should be able to
keep their focus and
concentration for extended
periods of time.
- Our players will play in a
disciplined manner.
- Our players have an
understanding of the role of
nutrition in athletic development.
- Our players are introduced to
imagery and visualization to
prepare for training and games.
Moving on:
- The U16 player should be able to
play one and two-touch soccer.
- The U16 player should be
confident in the 1 vs 1 situation
both on defense as well as offense.
- The U16 player should
understand the concepts and
purpose of possession games.
- The U16 player should show
tactical understanding of
defensive and attacking concepts.
- The U16 player should show a
willingness to work individually
on deficiencies.
Save the Date: FC Boulder Annual
Spring Event
Saturday April 4
6 – 11 PM
FC Boulder Indoor Training Center
(555 Aspen Ridge Drive, Lafayette)
This year’s theme is the 2015 Women’s
World Cup hosted by Canada.
A Player’s Ability to Focus and Adjust
By Dan Abrahams
Being a game of fractions, milliseconds
and inches soccer is won and lost the
world over through human error more
than anything else. More goals are scored
or conceded due to a player being
distracted than for thrilling moments of
excellence. Defeat is driven more by error
than brilliance.
Performance focus in soccer is vital – a
little like the importance that a steering
wheel has to a car. You can have the selfbelief and confidence (engine of the car)
but without the necessary focus and
concentration on the field (steering
wheel), a soccer player’s game will be
erratic and inconsistent. A player can be
immensely talented, and yet his career
may falter due to poor focus.
Lose performance focus and you can
lose your technical game and tactical
execution. Switching off leads to mistakes,
to indecision, to a lack of awareness and
to slow anticipation. Take your mind off
the game for a second and you can cause
an array of problems for yourself and
your teammates. Switch off as a defender
and the opposition striker can nip in front
of you and get a shot off. A distracted
midfielder won’t see the runs of his
teammates or the movement of the
opposition. An unfocused striker will fail
to find space or lose his marker.
Performance focus underpins
coordination, game intelligence and speed
of thought. To me it is that invisible
mediator of success.
So how does a coach go about
developing a soccer player’s focus? It’s
not about helping players develop more
focus. It’s not about helping them go into
some deep trance state. In soccer it’s all
about where they place their focus.
When a soccer player switches off, to
my mind he is not shutting down his
focus. He is merely switching his focus to
the wrong thing. So a defender might
focus on the ball too much rather than
focusing on both the ball and the
opponent. This isn’t a lack of focus rather
it is a focus in the wrong direction. A
striker might focus on his marker rather
than the space to move into.
It’s not just things external to you that
can destroy performance focus. A soccer
player may be too focused on his inner
voice. He may be talking to himself about
the mistake he made five minutes ago, or
how many minutes there are left in the
game. If he’s focused internally on either
of these he won’t be focusing on the tasks
he has to execute in the game.
The concept of “controlling the
controllables” is a cliché in the world of
sports psychology – largely because it’s
such a pertinent and powerful statement.
It rings true and is an underpinning
component of the ability to focus the
mind correctly as one competes. A soccer
player who allows his or her focus to slide
onto the things he or she can’t control is
one who is likely to be substituted due to
a series of errors.
As a coach you must help your players
to focus on the things they can control
and ignore the things that are out of
control such as the officials, the score, the
field conditions, the weather and the
outcome of a game. Too often these things
tend to attract the attention of players – a
damaged focus that negatively impacts
the execution of responsibilities within
their role.
By clarifying the concept of
uncontrollable your players can make
giant strides towards a more focused
performance.
Mastering the Mundane Separates the
Good from the Great
Taken from nscaa.com
I recently got my hands on an old book
called The Secret Millionaire Next Door. It
was a popular book and a study on how
and what decisions people made to
become millionaires. What the authors
exposed was that these “next door
millionaires” developed a habit of doing
simple ordinary everyday things with
their money. There was nothing too
exciting, complicated or sophisticated. In
fact, the first of the book’s seven rules
was: “Always live below your means.”
Now I’m not writing this to give
financial advice, but rather to discuss
what successful people have a knack at
doing: “mastering the mundane.” It’s the
boring, simple and disciplined choices
that players and parents can make that,
over time, will separate the good from the
great. A strong focus on the amount of
intentional touches on the ball, coupled
with guidance from qualified coaches and
support from parents can create our own
“next door millionaires in soccer.” It’s
important to note that doing these things
over a period of time (days, weeks,
months, etc.) compound the results,
slowly but surely.
So what type of simple little things are
we talking about? Brace yourselves for
this…
From a club perspective, a choice our
players and parents can make every
training session is simply wearing the
proper training attire. This may sound
easy and not a ‘game changer’, but that’s
precisely why it’s important. The routine
of lacing up the boots, tucking the shirt in,
having matching socks and shorts is a
part of creating a winners attitude. The
way our players approach training
(urgency and mindset) will carry over
into how players approach a game.
Admittedly, fostering a professionally
structured training environment is a
coach’s responsibility as well. But our
players need to come ready to compete
and look the part. Taking pride in the
team and club and feeling a part of
something bigger than just ourselves is
part of why we want our kids in team
sports.
A “boring” action our parents can
master or create a habit of doing is
sharing a victory with their child. As a
parent we can ask our child “tell me
something you did well today at practice”,
or “I really liked your effort in today’s
game.” These things may sound empty or
may be met with indifference, but what
we are telling our kids is that we believe
in them, we are celebrating with them
and that we care about them, not the
result. A common mistake we all make is
asking questions or making statements
that relate to specific individual short
term success to their worth (i.e. Did you
score? Did you win? Did you start?).
These are only two small ideas. But if
routinely done over time we are teaching
the players the importance of consciously
being prepared and also showing the kids
that no matter what, we are in their
corner and we see success in them.
Welcome to the 2015 FCB Indoor
Training Center Mural Drawing
Contest
The winning art-work will be displayed
on a 40’ wide by 20’ high mural on our
new Indoor Training Center wall along
with the artist’s name, age and FCB team.
The winner will also receive $100 worth
of FCB Spirit Wear. Deadline:
1/18/15…but will be extended…
Check out our website for more details.
Positive Coaching Alliance
Continued
At Positive Coaching Alliance, we
define culture as “the way we do things
here.” The underlying problem is that
youth sports has slid into the professional
sports way of doing things.
Professional sports is an entertainment
business with the goal all businesses have
of making a profit. This requires
entertaining fans, which in turn usually
requires a winning team. Thus at the
professional level, a win-at-all-cost
mentality too often prevails. And because
winning seems so important, pro sports
fans tend to see their role as doing
whatever they can to help “their” team
win.
Because youth sports resembles
professional sports – in rules, equipment,
strategy – many people make the crucial
mistake of thinking the two are the same.
But pro sports and youth sports are
fundamentally different. Youth sports is
about developing young men and women
into great people who contribute to their
society and achieve success in their
careers and family lives. That means that
youth coaches need to behave in an
appreciably different way from coaches
and athletes involved in professional
sports.
Honoring the Game is a more robust
version of sportsmanship. Unfortunately,
sportsmanship has lost much of its power
to inspire and now seems like a list of
“don’t-do’s.” Honoring the Game is a
concept to inspire and motivate people to
live up to their best, rather than simply to
be restricted from acting down to their
worst. We want to teach our youth how to
compete in sports with grace and
humility.
The ROOTS of Honoring the Game
describe the behavior we want to teach
and model, where ROOTS represents
respect for: Rules, Opponents, Officials,
Teammates and Self.
Rules: We want to win the way the game
is supposed to be played.
Opponents: A worthy opponent is a gift.
We are challenged when we have a
worthy opponent, one who brings out our
best.
Officials: We respect officials even when
they are wrong. There is never an excuse
for treating officials with disrespect.
Teammates: Behave in a way that one’s
teammates would be proud of.
Self: Respect oneself. Individuals with
self-respect would never dishonor the
game because they have their own
standards to live up to.
Coaches are positioned to have a
dramatic and positive impact on their
players, well beyond the playing field. If
you make a commitment to teach and
model Honoring the Game with your
players, you can be part of the answer to
our society’s hungering need to elevate
the way we treat each other.
Many people talk a good game
regarding sportsmanship, but the test is
how one acts when something important
is at stake. Behavior speaks louder than
words. Harp at officials, and your players
will also. Stay calm and focused, and they
will emulate you. Thus your first task is to
ensure you have the capacity to be an
effective role model and teacher of
Honoring the Game.
In the next issue:
- Prepare Yourself With a Self-Control
Routine.
- Prepare Your Players (and Parents) to
“Keep a Cool Head”