The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Teams, volunteers, and Chelsea With soccer registration finished, teams will be formed and your coaches will let you know where and when your first games will be played. Like all organizations, we rely on volunteers to help us to run the season and they vary from coaches to coordinators and fundraising. Luckily we have been blessed in most positions, but if you are a skills coach and would like to help improve of our players, we would like to hear from you. Our intent is to have skills coaches for each division. Last weekend I took a senior coaching course in Saskatoon that will help me to improve my level of coaching, but we need to do more. On May 6-7 the Phantom Lake Soccer Club is holding a youth soccer coaching clinic and will be run through the Manitoba Soccer Association. There will be a cost for this course because the travel expenses for the instructors from Winnipeg must be met. Without skills coaching our players will never progress. When I coach rep teams out of town, against teams at the same level, but have received skills training, the difference is obvious. If you're interested in skills training, and would like to take a youth soccer coaching clinic, watch this column for exact time and location. If there are any coaches who want to run a skills clinic for their team, let me know. I will try to help as many coaches as I can. The same goes for senior players. The Sportex will be used for this purpose and will be a great boost to our early season play. When dates and availability are finalized, we will advertise them. Referees Last year we saw some excellent referees develop in Flin Flon. Good games require good referees. If you're interested, the time and location will also be in this column. If you're new to coaching, why not take this course, there is no better way to learn the rules. During the upcoming trade and leisure show, the Phantom Lake Soccer Club will have a booth, details of the upcoming season will be available, and they will try to have an executive member in attendance to answer questions. It will also be the introduction of Phantom Soccer Clothing. Kirkham's coaching tipÐ short passing Passing the ball quickly and accurately to its intended target reduces the risk of losing possession. The instep (inside of the foot) provides the greatest accuracy for passing, but it's difficult to generate power and is easy for an opponent to judge the direction. For those reasons it's best to use this method for relatively short passes of 10 yards or less. Ideally you want to approach the ball at about 30 degrees, so you can follow through with the kicking leg. Place your non-kicking foot close to the ball and keep your eyes on the ball using your arms for balance. Keeping your ankle firm, bring the kicking foot through to strike the center of the ball (to keep it low), with the side of your foot. With this type of pass, you are trying to keep the ball low so that it's easy for a teammate to control. It's only with a good follow through that you will generate enough power for the pass to be fast and accurate. You will become better at judging the weight through practice. Next weeks coaching tip is long or drive passing. World competition A couple of weeks ago, if anyone would have said that Chelsea could fail to become the English Premiership champions, they would be laughed at. Things change quickly and Chelsea now find themselves only seven points ahead of Manchester United, with the tantalizing prospect of both teams playing each other on April 29, and having six regular season games left with 18 points up for grabs. Is it United's season again? On April 1, the first game of the new MLS season was played in Dallas, at the new, Pizza Hut stadium, against the Chicago Fire. The Fire are forced to play their first eight games on the road, until their own stadium is ready. The game was amazing with Dallas FC scoring in the closing minutes to win 3-2. If there is any doubt of the standard of soccer in the US, this game proved that the US will be no pushovers in this year's world cup. Until next week Ð keep on kicking!
