I first met Jose Reyes in Carson, CA at the USSF C License course in July 2012. Quiet and unassuming at first, he quickly came out of his shell and proved to be very knowledgeable and collaborative with myself and our other classmates. I got to know him very well in the week and a half that the course lasted, and am happy to continue to have him as a colleague who I can bounce ideas off of and share resources. The following is Jose's response to my request that he contribute to this blog.
A great win, a tough loss, a scrappy draw are all examples of results at the end of matches in youth soccer. Often times we, as coaches, concentrate on the end result of the matches and as we go into the reasons for whatever the result of the match there are so many points that should be highlighted as the kids walk off the field and walk across to Mom and Dad. We often hear “let the game be the teacher” when speaking of training sessions but seldom do we hear the phrase used when dismissing our players from the end of a match. This is more than just a game. Soccer is a tool that the kids can take with them to help deal with positive and negative real life scenarios.
“The kids played fantastic, we kept possession, spread the field out, defended extremely well and gave the other team no space to exploit the space behind us as we finished every opportunity we had”
This is a great opportunity to reflect and remind teams how such a match was executed with fantastic efficiency. A match result like this would be due to proper planning, team organization, attention to details and those brief moments where risk versus reward were measured and dealt with. A coach can simply say, “This is a perfect example of a moment in your life where you will look back and understand that with proper planning, teamwork and execution you can accomplish any task”. The kids should know that their performance was not by mistake and that their formula for success can be traced to a buildup of proper planning, training and execution during the match through great teamwork. Let them understand the formula for success is there and should be duplicated week in and week out.
“We had possession the whole game and dominated the entire match, we had several shots on goal but just couldn’t find the net. They had one shot on goal and beat us 1-0”
This is a great opportunity to tie this into a life lesson where even though you prepared properly throughout the week and executed the plan at the beginning you need to follow through with the entire project. You did all of the research for your project, you built the model for your project, did your works cited, perfected your illustrations but you didn’t write your name on the project and the teacher had no idea who turned in the fantastic project so you got zero credit for the project. However, your best friend who walked in late to class decided to write his name on it and got a 98. Make sure that you not only plan correctly but you execute the entire plan all the way through no matter what you do in life otherwise you will always fall short.
“The kids looked flat, the other team was just going at us and the kids weren't able to really get their feet underneath them enough to really put up a fight to get an opportunity to take a shot on goal”
This is a great example of a team that did not plan at all, did not train correctly during the week preceding the weekend match and worse yet had no idea of what to do. The life lesson to be learned in a horrible scenario like this is that if you do not plan for the worst case scenario how could you expect to be able to pull yourself up from a gutting situation that would leave you in a state of disarray? In the toughest times in life you will be in situations at times when it feels like the world is collapsing all around you. This is not the time that you throw your hands up in defeat, this is where your mental toughness and your mental focus is tested. These are the situations where players decide to stand up for themselves and organize their team to begin taking care of the problems at hand slowly but surely working their way back into the match. Life is like this when you lose a job, lose a loved one, and get passed over for a promotion you deserved to just name a few examples.
In life, as in soccer, things happen to us and more often than not we react to these situations instead of absorbing the situations and dealing with them as if we have already been through similar situations. As coaches, it is our responsibility to begin to explain these various types of scenarios as a way to help prepare our players for life in general. We train kids to compete on the weekends, to win a starting position, to make a top team, to play for major universities and professional teams. Yet, sometimes we forget to make the various results relative to real life. As a coach, we are to help the kids not only be successful on the pitch but off the pitch. The best time to do that is right after a match when emotions are high and focus is very sharp with fresh individual moments as well as team moments that we can draw out of the match and use as a life lesson to help the kids understand that soccer is more than just a game. It’s a life tool to help them achieve every goal in their lives with proper planning, training, and execution of that plan all the way through because if you don’t you will only lose or draw, let’s get them to win and understand that this is much more than just a game.
Jose Reyes holds a USSF National C License and currently serves as the Boys Director of Coaching at the Austin Texans Soccer Club. In addition to his responsibilities with the Texans, Jose owns and operates the Reyes Futbol School of Excellence and works with South Texas ODP. Prior to this, Jose served as a staff coach at various clubs including Lonestar Soccer Club, Corpus Christi Fuel, and FC Padre Hurricanes. Jose also served as a director with the Corpus Christi Tigres UANL Academy.
1 comment:
Great article!
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