In this episode, I chat with Manya Puppione, the head women’s soccer coach at George Mason University! Manya shares her experiences as a player, coach, and wife! Manya had an amazing playing career, but had to deal with numerous set backs, including injuries. …

This post is brought about from numerous conversations, tweets, and texts about perceptions in team sports about successful programs, coaches, and players. Team goes undefeated and wins a championship! Perception: Great coach! Team doesn’t win a game all season. Perception: Bad coach. Team wins a lot of games in consecutive seasons. Perception: Great off-season workout/conditioning program. Team doesn’t win a lot of games in consecutive seasons.

The Coaches Corner Chats Podcast has been an amazing experience focusing on the coach, as a person … beyond the tactics, beyond the training sessions! — I look forward to chatting with more coaches as I have begun season 2 of the podcast! But I want more … more opportunities to share the coach journey of my guests! Couple of ideas I have to grow Coaches Corner Chats … Anchor.fm Podcast Continue to chat with guests on the podcast and post on Anchor.fm.

The more I get into coaching soccer, the more I continue to learn more about the great game of soccer! I have spent a lot of time focusing on Periodization. That has led me to focusing on Player Load (physical, emotional, cognitive). With the season over now, I am doing a deep dive into my program’s player weaknesses: Inconsistent quality of decisions. Inconsistent quality of executions. Decisions: For many of…

OBJECTIVE: Have the most talented soccer team in the program on the pitch for each game during the season who are the most healthy and fit, mentally and physically. — Layout of the Weeks Intro Week: I AM MiddiesSoccer / Zero Point Day Weeks 1–2: 11v11–8v8 / Extensive Endurance Training Weeks 3–4: 7v7–5v5 / Intensive Endurance Training Weeks 5–6: 4v4–1v1 / Extensive Endurance Training Session Types

Notes: Execution (Monday) — develop defensive vocabulary; field during the activity was too small; will need to make grid bigger for decision making (tactical) days. Tactical (Tuesday / Wednesday) — larger space was super helpful for the boys; players are recognizing that they don’t have to run so much and can still be effective; Conditioning (Thursday) — 2 games of 13:00 with 2:00 rest; effort good but room for improvement; must improve transitional moments individually and as a team.

Monday — torrential rain so cancelled this morning’s session. Tuesday — Technical focus (9v9 on smaller pitch): stress team communication; individual position, moment, direction, speed. Observations: communication is an issue; understanding communication such as “man on” = pass ball back (one touch) then look to play a forward pass (principle of play). Wednesday — Tactical focus(9v9 on smaller pitch): scenarios, question (what options are available? what if this happens, then what? etc.)

Recap of this past week. Wednesday: Team Meeting — set non-negotiable list; stress little things/expectations for summer sessions. Thursday: Zero Point Day — Objective: How long can we play at high level before the effort and quality of play drops (soccer fitness)? We played (11v11) 10:00 games with 2:00 rest…

I had a conversation yesterday with Tyler Wickham (@twickham06), assistant mens soccer coach at Notre Dame College, and he made a remark to a comment I made about “monitoring player training load”. Tyler said “increased load leads to increased stress”. But it’s what he said next that really caught my…