Great article by Chris Koentges last week in the Atlantic on the topic of how Finland became a hot spot—in the Daniel Coyle sense—for developing goalies. Here’s a link and six takeaways I had on the coaching front from reading the article. My observations are soccer-centric, but not hard to apply elsewhere I am sure. Love…
In my workshops I often like to tell stories about my home life and particularly my wife, Lisa, who is an incredible wife, mom, partner, etc. and who is so busy being those things that she hasn’t really had time to read any of my books. Bless her, she tries, but every time she starts to…
Part one of a really interesting (for me) interview I recently did with Soccer America’s Mike Woitalla is out and up today. You can read it here. The topic is Check for Understanding, which is perhaps the biggest challenge for any teacher… the hardest “endemic problem” in the job, to use Deborah Ball’s phrase. Two follow-up…
As many of my friends and colleagues know I am a big soccer (i.e. football) fan. Love the game and love thinking about teaching the game… because I find it fascinating, because my kids all play, and because there’s always vice versa- Thinking about how the things I’ve learned about teaching from observing classrooms do or…
I recently watched an outstanding soccer coach running an unsuccessful drill. He was teaching players to position themselves defensively and react to an opposition player with the ball who was trying to turn. He explained and modeled how to do it right. He asked them whether they understood. Then he sent them off to practice. Most…