Tomorrow kicks off the Quarterfinals in the Champions League. The 8 teams left play home and away series starting tomorrow. A cool visual of the tournament is here. Quarterfinal matchups are as follows:
TUESDAY Games:
PSG hosting Barcelona (Storyline – Vilanova returning to sidelines.)
Bayern Munich hosting Juventus (Storyline – Heynckes says “outstanding” Bayern…
Last Friday started another round of World Cup Qualifying matches. They resume tomorrow during this international break from league play. Here is a summary a Friday’s action and a preview of tomorrow’s:
CONCACAF: Update on the HEX
Standings here.
In case you haven’t heard, this round of the CONCACAF playoffs is referred to as the HEX. Group play consisted of three groups of four.
As I have posted on here before, I am concerned with the risk of brain injury to young players not necessarily resulting from head-to-head contact, or contact with the ground or goal post, but because of the cumulative affect of repetitive heading of the ball. The literature online is lacking. A few years ago, you could find nothing. I looked because I was coaching a U10 player (who is a…
I was reading the Sports Illustrated article Inside the Lakers’ Disaster and came across some interesting tidbits from Kobe Bryant regarding player development in basketball. Kobe grew up in Italy during is his youth basketball years. Apparently, Select Basketball (called AAU) has the same problems that Select Baseball does and soccer too. Kobe states:
“I feel fortunate that I was over in…
Yesterday started the beginning of the knockout round in the UEFA Champions League. In the two matches yesterday, both away teams scored critical away goals and secured results, all but guaranteeing them berth into the Round of 8. Juventus won 3-0 at Celtic in a game where the score is no indicative of the competitiveness of the match. Neal Lennon has rightfully complained post-match of t…
Soccer never stops giving. International breaks in soccer just mean more soccer! Today, there are some great friendlies on as well as some World Cup Qualifying Games, with the U.S. playing Honduras today! Here are some great matches today:
12:00 pm Spain hosting Uruguay
1:30 pm England hosting Brazil. I believe this game is on FoxSoccer and FoxSoccerTV has a delayed broadcast…
***NOTE ON SOCCERTHOUGHT.COM*** Recently, the blog has changed host. It was hacked prior (twice) but now WPengine.com is hosting and has constant protection. COMMENTS are back on as well (we turned them off because of spam).
We all know — games are more fun. More fun for the kids. More fun for the parents. In a typical training session, the most common question asked by t…
Today and tomorrow are the last group games in the UEFA Champions League. Only 16 teams advance to the knockout round of home and away aggregate scoring. With 14 spots already locked up, very few issues remain other than seeding — who will win the groups and who will be the 2 seeds. There are some battles for the (3) spot, which earns a berth into Europa League. Here is a rundown of all of t…
Here is a link to the Houston Express Blog – great article with Steve Branz, ex-professional keeper and current member of Houston Express Training Staff. I had the pleasure of meeting Steve at a coaching course – first class dude! Check out his Q&A on the Xpress Blog. Great work…
Yes! It has to because soccer is a competitive sport. When I say “competitive” I mean at the end of the match, there is a usually a winner and a loser. This topic has intrigued me for a while. At the same time, there are several sources that I have quoted here that have stated that our emphasis in youth games is a detriment to development. The problem is that if you take an 8 year old…