As a professional soccer coach the main thing that keeps me going is of course soccer. In the summer this is still soccer, but it’s a little different than in other seasons. This is because the company I work organizes summer camps. This means that during the day we have a lot of children who we teach how to play soccer. In a regular season we mostly work in the evenings because the players are in school during daytime.
The alarm goes at 7.00 AM o’clock and I mostly jump out bed, ready for a new day. I start with preparing myself by making and eating breakfast, taking a shower, brush my teeth and do my hair. I will leave my place around 7.45 AM. It’s a 20 minute drive to our facility. Because we have inside and outside fields our camps always go on. Last week it was really hot and some other companies cancelled their camps. We can take our children inside, where they don’t have the burning sun on their faces all day long.
When I arrive I’ll go inside and make myself ready. Putting my socks and shoes on. We’re setting up the sign-in for the camps. The children have to sign-in in the morning and the parents have to sign them out in the afternoon. We make sure we know their aren’t children who leave on their own. The sign-in is from 08.30 AM till 09.00 AM. At 9.00 AM one coach starts with the warm up. The other coaches are cleaning up the sign-in stuff. At 09.30 AM the warm up finishes and all the coaches are on the field. After the warm up the players will be divided in groups, based on age and skills.
For each camp we are using a premade curriculum. We work with an curriculum because not every group haves the coach each day. The curriculum makes sure we can cover all the most important topics and don’t work on the same topic 3 days in a row. I used the curriculum for a regular day in the rest of this article.
At 09.30 AM we started with practicing passing moves. I did the U12 group last week, so they should be able to do some passing moves. I started with some easy moves. Because they were able to them pretty good I moved up to the more difficult passing moves. We practiced these moves until 10.15 AM. After the passing moves we did a 1v1 tournament. For every win the player receives 3 points, a tie is 2 points and a lost game is 1 point. The player get an additional point for every goal they scored. With my coaching I always try to make the connection between different drills. Because we did the passing moves previously, I was coaching on this topic. Some of the players used the passing moves we practices successfully. Even though there we a lot of breaks, a 1v1 is very intensive. The players have to work real hard. Around 11.00 AM we had a winner of the tournament. After this tournament we did a juggling contest till 11.30 AM. At 11.30 AM we have the lunch break.
In the afternoon we start at 12.30 PM. In the morning we usually work more on technical skills and how to use them. In the afternoon we work on more tactical topics, if the age and level of the players allows us to do so. With the U12 group I could work on some tactical topics. From 12.30 AM till 01.15 PM we worked on how to get open. We did this in a 4vs2 possession game. After this possession game we did a fun game, kickball. It’s kind of like baseball, but you kick the ball away. The field team can’t use their hands. At 02.00 PM we started our daily returning 4vs4 tournament. We play this tournament every day of the camp. Because we rotate the players in each team every game we will get an individual winner at the end of the camp. This is the most prestigious trophy the player can win. The camp end at 03.00 PM.
There are 2 possibilities after the camp finished. It’s possible that I have evening practice with our summer select teams. If so we are working on stuff based on the tournament we played in the weekend before the practice. If I don’t have a practice I’m finished to the day. Mostly I try to watch some other practices, games or work on some planning. Or I write for GreatSoccerCoaching.com. I don’t really take time of from soccer. If I’m off soccer is still the thing that takes almost all my time.
