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The night leading up to today was spent restless, tossing and turning! It is finally my and Kelly’s turn to lead the coaching session. Kelly (photo above) is a fellow raising Junior at USF, like myself, however she isn‘t too familiar with Tampa Bay. She is a center back at the University of San Francisco! Last week we were assigned with the theme of 1v1 and 2v2 defending and attacking, as well as perseverance. Keep in mind this entire practice is to be done entirely in Spanish! Aside from a few mishaps concerning the language barrier, the day was ultimately a success.

We warmed up with the numbers game. This is when the girls run around and dynamic stretch in an area, but when a number is called you must do the instruction assigned to that number. For example, when I called out “uno” they had to act like a pato (duck), “dos” was baile con companera (dance with a partner), “tres” was a circulo de ola (wave circle) and so on and so forth up to “cinco”. Next we introduced some different moves letting the girls attack a cone and soon after a stationary defender. This drill was designed to prepare the players for the offensive side of 1v1s and 2v2s. However, following that we were sure to touch on the defensive side as well with a bit of shadow play.

Before our 15 minute break between sessions we let the girls put their new skills to the test, divided up into a few teams and small sided fields, the girls were given an opportunity to use their newfound moves and defensive tactics.

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The second session was pretty basic, our main focus was just letting the girls play. With a quick game of “human jacks” and a few little tricks up Kelly’s sleeve to really get them practicing perseverance like switching the points of the winning team with the one behind, or assigning only one team with a restriction.

After that the day was pretty much cake. A quick 2v2 game with targets and then seven a side to goals. Our only restriction here was that each team had to come up with a name and organize a goal celebration, if after they scored they did not do it, the goal would be retracted…”no celebration, no gol!”