Customer Reviews

Thoughtful Soccer: The Think First Approach to Playing and Coaching

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Let me start by saying that I would recommend this book without reservation to anyone looking to coach ages 5 - 17. I have an extensive coaching and playing backround and have used methods and activities from this book at all age levels. I am currently coaching a varsity program here in the midwest and with the knowledge and approaches of Thoughtful Soccer we have been confrence champions for the past 5 years.

Sometimes books written by a parent coach without a great deal of experience playing or coaching the sport can provide a fresh and valuable perspective. However, this is not one of those books. I went into the book with an open mind but learned that it has some serious flaws. The Triangle Three defense is a figment of the author's imagination and is just not workable in the real world. The author states, "The Left and Right Fullbacks mustn't be too far apart. If one is beaten the other must cut across to break up the play." Anyone who has played or coached soccer knows that this is a ridiculous statement. How can a full back on one wing cover the full back on the other wing? The most natural thing is for the middle player in a 3 man back line to cover the outside full backs. Where is the 3rd player in this Triangle Three defense? Ahead of the full backs! I don't know of a single team in the entire world that plays a 3 man back line this way. There are many better books than this one.

Russ Carrington's approach - speaking directly from a player's perspective - is an excellent approach to soccer. Each exercise is both fun, and more importantly, specifically directed to address teaching particular elements of play that are often missed or neglected in other approaches. The exercises force unique and creative play decisions (by the players themselves) and begin to establish in the players' minds, certain fundamental decision-making that benefit play generally. For example, exercises teach the value of ALWAYS considering the option of dropping the ball back and/or switching the field, and moving the ball with limited touches - a further benefit of this, as well, is on the players who are not directly possessing the ball, but who must always be mindful of how best to support the player with the ball, by moving and providing options. Exercises also address different shot approaches, angles, bounces, etc. - experiences other coaching styles might only offer on the infrequent occassions such opportunities arise by chance in scrimage. Other exercises Russ outlines combine practice with dribbling and possession for one or more players, while offering defensive practice for others - in a way that forces dealing with certain situations. This is beneficial for players who might ordinarily always resort to the same particular "out" to deal with any and all situations, i.e. stop and spin to face backfield, or long touch and race to the ball, to pass (whether or not wisely) to the first teamate in sight, or cut and cut and cut to no particular objective. Finally, and this is the most important of all, Russ Carrington's approach to soccer is FUN - "drills" would not be the right word to describe these exercises - but "games" would be much more appropiate. Each aspect of a practice under this approach is fun in itself. Players enjoy the whole practice and don't just trudge along through boring drills just waiting to get to scrimage. I would absolutely recommend this book. Noticing that some reviewers here are posting negative reviews in order to advocate their own particular coaching styles, I would suggest that regardless of ultimate differences in how a coach might decide to organize their formation, or otherwise choose to direct game-play, this book nonetheless can provide invaluable supplemental exercises that could compliment any teaching/coaching program.

I have coached youth soccer for over twenty years, from the basic recreational level to State Champions. In addition, I have been involved with establishing soccer education courses. I was first exposed to the author's ideas six years ago and to his book three years ago. I have read his book and corresponded with him at length.

To me the purpose of a review is to help a purchaser decide if the book is worth the money or if another book or source is a better value.

The book has a number of flaws. First, it is written with the assumption that all people, regardless of age, learn in the same manner. That is wrong. Generally, children younger than eight learn differently than children who are twelve, and they in turn learn differently than adults.

Today, coaching courses across the world emphasize age specific learning. While every child is different and some are able to learn concepts and skills far earlier than others, the vast majority need lessons tailored to their age. There are many resources designed for beginning coaches targeted to the players' age. For example, the Novice Coach Series DVD's produced by US Youth Soccer split instruction into three age groups: 6 to 8; 8 to 10; and 10 to 12. A search of Amazon offers many books targeted at players by age.

A second flaw is the book's "multiple theme" approach, an approach that offers a few minutes of a skill and then moves to another activity with another skill, then to another and finally another that includes tactical instruction. At best only a few minutes are spent on any skill.

No matter the age, beginning players need to learn ball skills first. Once players develop a satisfactory level of ball mastery, the coach can move to elementary tactics. This book starts with tactical soccer from day one.

Research demonstrates that players who are skilled will enjoy soccer more than unskilled players and stay in the sport far longer. It is imperative that players learn basic skills, like "first touch." This research indicates that an average player requires six hours to gain enough proficiency to perform a skill in a game with a reasonable chance of success. With most recreational programs having only one practice a week lasting about an hour, a multiple theme practice diminishes the time players have to gain proficiency with any one skill. The result is players who know a little about a lot, but cannot perform any skill successfully.

A practice for beginning players that focuses on one skill and then encourages players to work on that skill within a practice scrimmage results in far faster learning. A single theme practice does not limit players to only one activity in the practice. The theme may be how to receive the ball; however, players still pass the ball and dribble. The focus of the coach, the corrections made, and the scrimmage, are each designed to increase opportunities to perform the desired skill. The next practice is then planned to introduce a complementary skill: e.g., one week is dribbling; the next is how to tackle. This allows the coach to reinforce what was learned the previous week, while focusing on a new skill. A good coaching book will show the coach how to construct such a practice. This book fails in this regard and suggests a format that will slow your players' learning.

A third flaw is the book's suggestion that a coach need not know skills to teach them. Rather a player can repeat the skill multiple times, without instruction, and learn through repetition alone. This is the hoary idea that "practice makes perfect." As one coach I know likes to say, "Practice only makes permanent". If you are practicing correctly, repeated tries will reinforce the correct technique. If you are practicing poor technique, you are cementing bad habits. Nothing in this book guides the coach on what is correct technique, how to recognize flaws in technique or how to correct the flaws when they are spotted. A recommended coaching book that approaches how to plan a practice is "Developing Youth Soccer Players", by Horst Wein.

A fourth, and a serious flaw in a book that seeks to be thoughtful, is the robotic nature of the drills, called "thoughtscrims". Soccer is a player's game; not the coach's. There are no time outs, few stoppages in play, and a constantly evolving situation. Coaches can rarely influence a game during play. This means the players must learn to analyze play and think for themselves. When players move to basic tactical play, the best coaches teach the players to see and select the best options. Rather than fixed solutions, the good coach teaches fundamental principles of the game so the player learns how to think and can exploit those principles to control the game.

This book does not do that. Rather it suggests a problem, and then a single solution that mandates the players to act without thought. Teaching players to think is the essence of being a good soccer coach. Giving a fixed solution harms a player's development for the player does not learn to adjust as the game changes. A far better book that offers examples of how to coach player's to think from the earliest ages to more advanced levels is "The Principles of Brazilian Soccer", by Thadeu Goncalves.

Finally, many of the exercises in Thoughtful Soccer are little more than recipes for disaster. No one other than the author has reported any success with the exercises and strategies he suggests, such as the Triangle Three. Also, situations where the author claimed his systems were used turned out not to use his systems of play.

There are some valid activities in the book; activities that have been used for years by others. There is no reason to purchase this book for these few activities. They can be found elsewhere.

If free this book would not be worth the purchase price.

The author attempts to lead inexperienced coaches down a path of genious only to complicate the subject. The triangle thing is not a good method.

I was very impressed with Thoughtful Soccer! A friend recommended it to me and it significantly broadened my knowledge of the game of soccer, from the perspective of both coach and player. I recommend this book to anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of this great game, no matter which level you are at!

I have read this book cover to cover, and here is my assessment:

As far as the composition goes, I think it's fairly good. For the most part it's easy to follow, and definitely written in "layman's terms" so the beginning coach or even non-soccer person can follow it. It's laid out for the most part in a logical progression; at least the first 2/3's or so is. Toward the end it changed to a mish-mash of activities, but most of the book flowed pretty well. The writing style is OK for the most part; one thing I didn't care for was frequent starting of sentences with the word "And".

Now, for the soccer content - the author says it is geared toward beginning/novice coaches, and I would agree with that. It's 95% rec-level material, maybe 5% intermediate-level material (like "soccer tennis", which takes a decent amount of skill to play without chasing the ball every 5 seconds).

The activities were explained pretty well I thought, clear instructions and all that. Quite frankly though, I found the little cartoon stories at the beginning of each chapter to be condescending and annoying. After about the 5th or 6th one, I stopped readying them. I guess the author was going for the analogy approach, but I am not 6 years old; I don't need to be reading some made-up story about a squirrel running through a maze while "wise old Yazoo" watches. Soccer ideas geared toward adult coaches should just be presented clearly and intelligently. If the audience is adult-age soccer coaches, present material that is consistent with that audience.

Another thing that I didn't care for was all of the "proprietary" titles for things, then many of them turned into acronyms. Like "High Impact Skill Activity", or "HISA".

The author seems to think that he invented this creative, innovative approach to coaching soccer. It's just not there. The "creative" part, in a way, maybe. Some of the customized activities with the cutsie made-up names, like "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", I'll admit are "creative". It's just not effective soccer material. As I said 95% of the book is just rec-level material. It's kind of like soccer coaching for kindergarteners; not kindergarten-aged players, kindergarten-aged coaches! I'm just not seeing anything that "new" in the material. Some of the activities are ones that are done all over the world, like soccer tennis. Others are variations of activities that are widely used by coaches in various ways, like conditioned scrimmages. The names, and the specific rules of some of the activities may be a little unique, but that's not an innovation. The bottom line is they are conditioned scrimmages set up to teach a certain concept; there's nothing "new" about that.

Some of the philosophies may also be different from what a lot of experienced coaches use, but that also does not make them "innovative". For instance, the philosophy of "tries" as an approach to skill development is neither "innovative" nor new. I'm sure there are thousands of coaches all over the world who just set up skill activities and let their players have a go at it; I have personally witnessed this many times. Coaches could do this for a variety of reasons - maybe they believe in letting the players have some "free time" in practice to work on things without coach involvement; maybe they just don't really know how to teach the different techniques and figure "un-guided" skill practice is better than no skill practice. Or maybe like the author they just put the emphasis on lots of repetition, and believe players will develop the skills adequately through all the repetition. Either way, there's nothing new about that approach.

Reading through the activities carefully, I feel strongly that it is essentially beginner-level material. If this material is really meant for coaches to use, then what I find alarmingly absent is the component that explains the thought process and rational behind the activities in regard to reading the game. The book talks about the merits of "requiring"(forcing) players to do certain things, then they eventually "get it and start doing them on their own". I believe this is doing nothing more than turning them into trained robots, doing things without truly understanding why. For instance, telling them to play drop passes to help them keep possession is not truly explaining why. That's jumping to the end result without teaching the thought process of how to read the game and know when it is the right/good time to play a drop pass. There is a disconnect in the material and in the learning process using the activities as they're written. The author mentions these "coachable moments" many times in the book also, but I don't see anywhere where it explains what exactly the points are, or the details of how to teach these mental skills to players. I've read other soccer coaching books that cover similar topics, and every one of them went into great detail on the coaching points involved. When writing a book like this, leaving information like that out is a problem. Just making vague references to "coachable moments" and completely omitting key information that coaches need to effectively teach players the game doesn't cut it.

If the author really understood how to teach the "when" and "why" of important soccer topics, he had a golden opportunity to present those thoughts when he wrote this book; he didn't do it.

There are many other books for new coaches available that are much better than this one.

I have coached youth soccer for five years. Age groups U-10, U-12. This book is the best soccer coaching practice planning book that I have read.
The Book contains many different games that are used to teach individual soccer techniques and tactics. The games used are also set up to be competitive, repititious and lead the players to think about what is happening in the game. The book is written so that the first time and experienced coach can understand and setup a successful practice session.
Most importantly the games are fun to the young soccer players which should be paramount to all youth coaches that want what is best for young players.

After using the games in the book practices are much more FUN, focused, active and I can see the players individual improvement.

The book also shows examples of how to practice effectively when just a few players show up for practice which is a real world situation. The book has been well thought out. The players can remember the names of the games and can play them without the help of the coach in some cases.

This book is just great. I knew as soon as I picked it up, it was easy and fun to read and had the kind of info I needed. I coach two kids soccer teams and I got many great ideas to help my practices. Lots of books are just pages and pages of drills, and others are just theory. The nit-pickers who picked on one page out of this book they did not agree with are missing all the other great stuff here. No book is perfect, but I got more usuable ideas from this book than I have from any other, and I've read scores of them.

Thoughtful Soccer is good for the relatively inexperienced coach who finds themselves coaching a U8 to U11 age team. The book provides a good overview of technical and early tactical elements of the game. These elements can be transmitted to the kids in game related activities included in the book.

No real soccer knowledge is needed to apply these concepts. The book tries to take a common sense approach to elements of the game that don't require you to have outstanding personal soccer skills to teach the kids. It won't teach you to teach kids how to "bend" a ball. It helps you put kids in soccer related activities so they can learn the basics by doing it.

I'm not a big fan of the author's terminology, but I recommend it as one of the first few books you buy as a beginner coach.