Blog

Fixing the problem – A Carpenter with no Hammer Skills?

We all have seen how a carpenter can use tools, like a hammer to drive nails binding two pieces of wood together to create structures. 

But what happens when a carpenter does not have the skill or know how to use the hammer to drive the nails into the wood to bind two pieces together?

Youth Soccer Players often face the same dilemma. 

Parents signup players, players then come to practice and with the new Play-Practice-Play training methodology from US Soccer without any knowledge of foot skills. US Soccer assumes that players will learn them by watching other players. That eventually does occur. But in the meantime, what happens to that player?  READ MORE

Coaching Children Ages U6/U8 – Part 2

This is the second in a three-part series on coaching children at this young age.  Look back to the previous month to view the first part.

Introduction

Children at these ages are being introduced to just how much FUN it is to play soccer.  By providing a safe and fun environment you can ensure a positive experience for the children.

You are coaching because you care for children.  You may not even know much about soccer (well, not yet anyway), and that is OK!  What you bring to the soccer field as their coach is your personality!  Your enthusiasm for them will show through any misgivings you might have about your soccer coaching abilities.  Remember that these children may not remember what you teach them about soccer, but they will always remember how you make them feel. READ MORE

Vision and Awareness

Vision and Awareness are the New Buzz Words. How important are they?

Of all the pillars of player development, the two that separate an exceptional player from a good player are the level of Vision and Awareness.

Vision is the skill of seeing things quickly and in some instances before they happen in the game.

Awareness is a combination of feeling and recognizing opportunities to make and execute plays faster than opponents.

In team sports like soccer where interactions with team members are integral to ball possession, vision can be as simple as having your head on a swivel checking in every direction for clues as to what the opponent is doing and what you and your teammates are doing.  It allows a player in control of the ball to serve the pass to an open player, perhaps starting a possession sequence that could lead to scoring goals. Vison can also include a player not with the ball moving into open spaces, placing them in a situational dominance of defenders, making their opponent unable to match their pace of play and movement. READ MORE

Do you believe in Miracles? YES!

40 years ago, Al Michaels gave us this unforgettable call in the final seconds of the USA / Soviet Union Olympic Hockey Game.  Sports Illustrated named the “Miracle on Ice” the top sports moment of the 20th century.

In celebration of the 40th anniversary, our local sports stations have interviewed several players from that Gold Medal-winning USA Olympic team.  Recently I heard an interview with Rob McClanahan.  What I found of interest was what he said about his personal preparation for the August USA tryouts. READ MORE

You get what you inspect, not what you expect

When MOTI engineers began collecting analytics at the inception of our system, the thought was that training systems should provide feedback to all levels of users.

It always amazes me when coaches say, “I can come up with my own videos for training”.

What they fail to realize is do they have a system to monitor and determine:

  • Who is using the training content?
  • How often is it being used?
  • Is it being used effectively?
  • How does one encourage usage of training content?

Over the past few years we’ve seen enormous amounts of energy spent by coaches creating their own video training and wondering at the end why it has not worked as effectively as they desired. READ MORE

Something New – Integration at work

Making it Easy for the Administrator

Most of the organizations or teams we work with have a team management system. MOTI has an interface for some of those team management systems to make using our system easy for administrators. SportsEngine is one of them.

We recently upgraded our SportsEngine interface and will be doing more very soon to simplify roster management between our 3D Sports Soccer Training Platform Rosters and SportsEngine.

Onboarding

Our SportsEngine Roster Interface for Roster Onboarding is done by the league administrator. READ MORE

Coaching Children Ages U6/U8 – Part 1

This is the first in a three-part series on coaching children at this young age.

Introduction

Children at these ages are being introduced to just how much FUN it is to play soccer.  By providing a safe and fun environment you can ensure a positive experience for the children.

You are coaching because you care for children.  You may not even know much about soccer (well, not yet anyway), and that is OK!  What you bring to the soccer field as their coach is your personality!  Your enthusiasm for them will show through any misgivings you might have about your soccer coaching abilities.  Consider this:  these children may not remember what you teach them about soccer, but they will always remember how you make them feel. READ MORE