Bavarian Soccer Club Coaching Clinic

On Saturday, March 15th, (Note, this was from 2013 or 2014, not entirely sure) I attended a coaching clinic sponsored by the Bavarian Soccer Club, where I coach.

Since all of the teams I work with are in somewhat of an in-between stage in our year-round season - transitioning from our winter Futsal season into our outdoor spring season - it was nice to spend the early part of the weekend learning from various coaches and interacting with my colleagues.


Our day of coaching education began with a session by our director of coaching, Bob Spielmann. His session was on "Preparing Your Players for Training". He ran his U13 boys team through various team building, technical activities, and small sided games.

He started with a Rock-Paper-Scissors warm up activity where some of the players asked coaches in attendance, including myself, to participate. In this activity, groups of two or three players played Rock-Paper-Scissors around a ball - the winner of which was required to flick the ball to hit the others below the knee. The focus of this activity was to get the players physically and mentally ready for training.

Note: Despite being new to this game, I managed to beat all of my partners soundly. And yes, they were thirteen year-olds!

After a "rondo" activity where the boys played a game of one-touch possession in a tight space, Spielmann took us through a "Brazilian triangle" partner technical activity involving various types of passing and a 2v2 heading activity. He ended his session with a 3v2+1 small sided numbers up game to encourage attacking play and transition.


Our next presenter was Marquette University Men's Soccer coach Louis Bennett, who worked with a U10 boys team. His session was on "Changing the Point of Attack for Various Age Groups", and focused on technical and small-sided tactical development of youth players.

He started with a passing and moving activity, which gradually progressed from simple passes to more complex combinations. He emphasized certain "cues" and communication in the game, such as eye contact, body language, and direction of play.

From here, he moved on to a game to targets, in which the internal players were required to play to the target through gates at the end of the field. Finally, he ended with a game to small goals. His coaching points remained the same throughout the session - focusing on teaching players to read the game and improving what he termed "Soccer IQ".


Perhaps the highlight of the event were two sessions by former USMNT and Kansas City Wizards coach, Bob Gansler.

Gansler began the day with a classroom session, where he talked about trends in soccer, based on his experience.

This post is unfinished, but is also interesting to me, so I will publish it.