Euro U21's

Talk about other football teams at all levels. AND ANY Glos City related threads, even if talking about the groundsharing.

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Shade
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Location: Cheltenhamshire
On Sky Sports 2. Thought Eurosport usually showed it but Sky appear to have raped that from us non-subscribers as well.

For anyone who doesn't know, it started today in Israel and England v Italy is at 19:30 BST.
Last edited by Shade on 05 Jun 2013, 17:23, edited 1 time in total.
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Joey
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I've seen Sky Sports advertising it.
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Shade
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Joey wrote:I've seen Sky Sports advertising it.
Sorry, I just noticed after I posted!
baggy89
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Joined: 20 Nov 2009, 12:55
Surprised there's not more on this, on here.

What does everyone make of the failure of yet another England team? And the subsequent blaming of the players by Psycho?

From my own personal point of view this is a cultural thing, endemic to the whole of the UK.

I coach youth football at Under 8 level and have recently lost half my team to one of my co-coaches (himself a failed non-league goalkeeper) who in my opinion is attempting to relive his life through his child or salve his ego, dented through a life of being not quite good enough. His child himself has no interest in football and spent most sessions "wrestling" his team mates. This "coaches" idea of a youth football training session consisted of a warm up of running round the pitch, then doggies, relay races before about and hour of a free for all match (which the team containing his son would have to go win, or the session would be extended until they at least had a draw. One of the parents phoned me up back in January bemoaning the fact that I wasn't teaching the kids long ball: "That team we played on Saturday all they did was play long diagonal balls up to that one lad they had that was good and he scored each time, why couldn't we do that?". Another of his gripes was that another of our coaches and I don't shout enough instructions at the players, unlike the one that has left. You knew when he was taking a game as all you would hear is "Go on *** tackle him", "Shooooot", "get it OOOUUUT".
My response: "Because we're trying to teach them to play football not win games at this age. An important part of that is the decision making process. The teams that do that now will fail because none of the kids will be able to make a correct decision for themselves as they all develop".
This is the danger of a competitive culture in youth football, forget the kids it's always competitive for them, the danger is the parents and coaches. Which is why the thetoric out of Call me Dave last summer was a load of ill informed political spin.
I know within academies parents are not permitted to watch training and are not allowed to utter a word during matches and that is a good thing, but until this culture of win before development is eradicated at grassroots level the FA can create as many Future Game documents as it likes, it will make sod all difference. Dare I say it but I have a feeling that I may be coaching the parents of the generation that may make a genuine impact on the world stage.
Si Robin
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What team do you coach Baggy?

My lad is 6 and he's started going to a football club on a Sunday morning in Pershore. He enjoys it as he's with a few friends, but the main part of the session is around 20 mins with the ball at feet, learning to dribble, followed by a 20-30 mins match, which is basically just a kick around and more often than not ends in a fixed draw.

I don't think it's all that bad, given his age, but I'm concerned there's not enough structure and worried about when it should start to be more structured, towards playing games.
baggy89
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I'm in Wiltshire. I won't profess to being an expert, I only did my Level 1 last year and have just completed the first Youth Module. I have to say I learnt far more on the YM1 than the Level 1, in fact I am unsure why the FA offer the Level 1 as the minimum for Grassroots coaching, IMHO YM1 should be the minimum required.
Regardless a lot of the practice from this other coach was so obviously poor.
If your concerned things that I would be looking out for are;

A warm up that focuses on the ABC'S (Agility, Balance, Co-ordination and Speed)

With the session you should be able to, at the end as an adult, be able to pick out what exactly has been the focus of the session. i.e. spacial awareness, protecting the ball, receiving the ball, control of the ball. I think a good coach will encourage the players to work things out for themselves by trying things rather than telling them the answers.

The game at the end although important needn't be more than 10 minutes and needn't necessarily be a straight forward game. Things like 4 goal games to try to encourage use of the whole pitch , or bingo soccer which starts off as one on ones and progresses.

The fixed draw thing is a bit odd though while it is important that the adults don't get carried away with winning I think it is important that the kids learn to win and lose in an appropriate manner.
Si Robin
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When I say fixed draw, I mean if one side are clearly better than the other the coach tends to even things up with the teams so as to not have the losing team get demolished and downhearted, which I think is better for them at this age.

I can see a definite improvement in my lad from when he started, I just wanted to make sure that it was going in the right direction.

The match at the end is always treated as a bit of fun, almost like their prize for doing all of the other stuff.
baggy89
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Si Robin wrote:When I say fixed draw, I mean if one side are clearly better than the other the coach tends to even things up with the teams so as to not have the losing team get demolished and downhearted, which I think is better for them at this age.

I can see a definite improvement in my lad from when he started, I just wanted to make sure that it was going in the right direction.

The match at the end is always treated as a bit of fun, almost like their prize for doing all of the other stuff.
TBF that sounds Bang on!

The balancing things up is something we as a club do in games against other teams.

The main thing is that they all have fun. That is the most important thing at all ages, as long as all in that team are developing, regardless of the pace of that development.
Robin
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Joined: 20 Nov 2009, 11:19
Going back to the originsl subject I believe the reality is we are not as good technicslly as other nations and posts such as Baggys highlight why. That said we play way too much international football in my view and it should be cut right down to just major tournmaents but fifa, Uefa and our FA will never agree due to the loss of finance that would entail.
RegencyCheltenhamSpa
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Joined: 21 Nov 2009, 03:27
Go back to the 50s where we didn't play any proper internationals but still knew we were the world's best.

(Until Hungary came to Wembley)
baggy89
Posts: 567
Joined: 20 Nov 2009, 12:55
Spain win Euro U21 championship beating Italy 4-2. That's them currently champions of Europe at U19, U21 and full international plus world cup winners.
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