By Decentric - 30 May 2013 8:58 AM
One of the things that has occurred this year, is the differential between coaching a boys adolescent rep team, and doing weekly guest sessions at a premier women's team at a state league club. The boys have more skill, but the women, aged from 16 - 36, have so much better game sense and general football intelligence. You only suggest something once, or pose a question for the women to solve, which they often quickly find a solution for and it frequently transfers to instant knowledge!
One phenomenon that fascinates me, is that I saw a coach work last year with some of the male adolescents I coach now, imparting shoulder feints. The former players try to assure me they had never learnt them before. If I hadn't seen them train last year, I would have believed them!
Some of the adolescent male players will argue about doing things that are blatantly obvious to the senior female players. If you don't do training ground practice to reinforce things over and over, it doesn't seem to sink in.](*,) One state league senior coach, told me even as adults, some blokes just don't get some things that are so obvious.
In a session the other day, it seemed almost impossible for some male adolescents to do an exercise in two touches and move instantly after passing, to create a passing lane. A couple struggled to do it in two touches, after 45 minutes.](*,) The females picked it up immediately, and instantly took the first touch away from the opponent.
I had more previous experience with under 12s and below, but with a few coaching sessions of 15 year old women and above.
What have other people found who have coached a range of ages and both genders?
Edited by Decentric: 30/5/2013 08:59:13 AM
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By krisskrash - 8 Jun 2013 2:15 AM
I've only coached senior men's teams.
They can be a frustrating bunch, due to being a young coach had a few issues getting some respect originally from some of the team as they were older than myself. The key to solving this was setting up a leadership team that supported me.
The biggest key to working with them I find is communication. What I found when I started coaching, if I'd run certain basic drill some of the more experienced player would be like "Why are we doing this? This is junior stuff." After being asked that I explained why, and then they ended up putting a lot more effort in, and helping the less experienced players. So now I try and explain what is going to happen and why at the start of a session.
Eg- "Tonight we're working on passing and moving because I'm not seeing enough at the game and we're remaining too static which enables our opponents to mark us out of games, and read us like a book. We'll be starting off with a warmup drill, some unopposed passing shape movement, passing shape movements with limited pressure. 3v3 SSG and then a scrimmage." Then give a bit of info on why we're doing each drill before each one, and my expectations.
Also find that you need to be completely honest when dropping players down to the reserves or the bench. After I decide on the squads I'll contact anyone that has been dropped and let them know why before I announce the squad. Just good man-management and normally gets that player to try and prove you wrong on the field.
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