With a flu bug sweeping round York, numbers were low, but we still had some amazing futsal to watch, and today’s session was not easy.

We had two new girls come and try futsal for the first time – welcome Evie and Eleanor – we hope you had fun and look forward to welcoming you again very soon!

We continued the work on working out of possession. The main aim for the day was to introduce the idea of lines of defence, what is best and how can you achieve this. The game centred around in and out of possession – when you lost the ball in the opposition’s half, you couldn’t tackle to win it back, interceptions OK, and to score you had to have every player in the opposition’s half. As expected, this led to a bit of confusion as to when and where what you could do, but as the session moved on, we saw players thinking about the positions they need to take up and how they could affect the game. Hard work but ultimately another step forward for the players, really enjoyed watching.

Click the image below to download this weeks session plan

Notable Players of the Session

1st Session – Mandy M – she never stops working and as one of the oldest players in the groups really does set the standard for the session. Top job Mandy and great effort today.

2nd Session – Florence L – Junior, as she is affectionately known, is such a talent, running rings round much older players. She struggled at the start with the understanding of the session, but she stuck at it, and in the end really flourished, amazing to watch.

3rd Hour – Aria P – this was not for the playing but for the brilliant attitude, and an apology from me. Not going into details on why but just to say Aria really went up in my trust of her today, such a mature attitude and made me very humble, thank you!

4th Hour – Katie H – Still full of cold and shattered from a match the day before, she helped with the little ones, stayed 4 hours, and still ran herself into the ground. Such a fantastic attitude from Katie!

Final thoughts of a coach – Today I saw one of the most amazing moments in my coaching journey that I have honestly ever seen. We often get asked if we can let the older players come and help with the younger ones, sometimes to help with their Duke of Edinburgh awards or just to see whether coaching is something they may like. As anyone who has tried to coach will tell you, it ain’t easy! So today we had a young player, I’m not going to name them as I know they will be embarrassed, come and help. I set them up to work in a 2v2, with the two young coaches being the goalkeepers to help and aid the younger players. 

As I often do, I stand back, and watch and most importantly listen. The coach was very encouraging, lots of praise and great info to the players…. great start. Then the moment of brilliance. The coach was saying to the players, I need help, I can’t see your feet, drop in….one of the players does this ready to receive a pass and the coach says…and wait for it…. thank you! Boy it blew me away…thank you…what an amazing thing to say to a young player – I wish I could take the praise for telling them to say this, but I honestly didn’t, it came from them alone. It honestly stopped me in my tracks, wow, why had I never thought of this? Every type of praise I have come up with and I have never used this….

I spoke to the young coach afterwards and told them what an amazing moment this was, the smile said it all. Coaching is not always about the player; it is also about the journey the young coaches can go on. I love to encourage players to try to coach – it is not for everyone and not everyone will succeed, but for moments like today, it is so very worth it.

Coach Chris