Soccer Video Reviews
- Aleks Mihailovic's Soccer Skills and Strategies
(Set of 5 including, In the Beginning, The Possession Game, The Art of Finishing, Demands
of the Game).
Excellent with nice reggae music. Aleks has
skill and these are all showing small groups of skillful players doing skill work of all
types. Lots of ideas. Aleks is now men's coach at Jacksonville FL, but these were taped up
in the Chicago area.
- Tactical Development of Modern Soccer (Set of
5 including The Striker, The Midfield Player, The Defender, The Goalkeeper and The Coach).
The short answer is these tapes are not very
good for their intended purpose, and have almost no tactical content, just technical
content and a lot of talking. Interesting to watch, but would not provide a beginning to
intermediate coach with a huge amount of tactical training ideas or explain really the
tactics to the point that the coach could prepare his own material. Some of the stuff is
even misleading, for example, the striker tape starts out with the first exercise as a
possession game. What's the idea ? Possession or speed of play ? Then the tape goes on so
that you can watch players doing calisthenics. Hardly what we'd want to emphasize on a
very short tape about coaching strikers. Lots of nice game footage however.
- Hubert Vogelsinger's Video Coach (Set of 5
including Ball Control, Dribbling & Feinting, Soccerobics, Kicking and Super Skills
& Heading).
I like them very much, can't imagine not having
them. Technique, technique, and technique. If your kids could do all this well, your team
would dominate every week. Technique first, then the head comes up and kids can read the
game and make decisions. That is tactics.
- Franz van Balkom's Soccer On the Attack (Set of 3
including Dribbling, Fast Footwork and Feinting and Shooting and Heading).
Must have. Great historic value, but, better
still, lots of the moves are clearly shown from at least two different camera angles, at
full speed and slow motion. Most of the moves are seen with different players as well.
Very helpful. Best collection of attacking moves on tape (Vogelsinger has several good
ones shown as well on his tapes.)
- Dario Gradi's Soccer Skills for the 90's
Dario is well known, and the fields up on Gresty Road at Crewe look like the typical wind-blown northern England landscape you would
expect. This tape is sort of medium to good on the helpfulness scale. One of the better
parts is actually Roby Jones showing his favorite change of direction move and shot, which
we call a kick turn (a variation of pulling the ball behind the standing leg). Anyway,
just some basic skill training, decent foot tricks on the ball, shown in slow motion so
even dummies can understand what is happening. Does give you a good idea of small group
training in England, some nice match snippets from English league games. Good practical
turning moves, emphasis on keeping ball away from defender.
- Soccer Fundamentals with Wiel Coerver (Set of
3 with The Basics, Beating an Opponent-Slide Tackles and Creating and Converting Scoring
Chances) Apparently, there is also another Coerver series, 1-2-3 Goal (Set of 3) and Skill
Drills (Set of 3)
Must have. Technique galore. No coach will ever get all these skills covered, but what fun they are.
- The Ajax Training Method (set of 2 Coordination and Speed Training)
I like them but have read several places that
they are a distortion of the actual program in place, in that they spend so much time in
speed training. However, that is the title of the set of tapes, so who knows. At least the
concepts they are teaching are clear, and you can bring a lot of the speed training to
your training without a lot of equipment.
- The Dutch Soccer School (Training Games and
drills for offensive soccer and Attacking from the Back)
Many very nice attacking patterns that finish to
goal, with two, three, four, or more players. Many of the sequences numbered so you can
transcribe easily. Very attractively filmed from two different angles, one high behind the
goal, so you can see the development of each exercise. You can develop movement off the
ball, combination play, crossing attack, finishing, and 1v1 attacking stuff from this
tape, and the goalkeeper gets a lot of work as well. Must have tape.
- Frank Hoek's The Soccer Goalkeeper (Set of 3 Defending, Distribution and Drills)
Good stuff, especially for intermediate to advanced coaches with little keeper training experience. Lots of ideas.
- The Dutch 4 v 4 Training Method (by the Dutch
Soccer Federation)
A collection of games. You watch the coach
organize and observe the practice, and the kids play games. Very elementary coaching
points. Easy to understand, slow moving however - graphics are slow enough that you can
write the coaching points down on paper without rewinding the tape. The best thing you
could get from this tape are the coaching points, and, if you watched carefully, you would
see the coach adjust his position during observing the game and get an idea how he is
making corrections. Your practices should look like this.
- Tom Bouklas (3 tapes including Attacking
Skills for the 90's, Advanced Skills Beating an Opponent 1 v 1 and Small-sided Games for a
Functional Warm-up.)
There's less than an hour of video on these two
tapes, total. However, like the Soccer on the Attack tapes, you will some excellent
presentations of attacking moves, backed up with a lot of game footage showing these moves
in match situations. The demonstrators are fairly smooth. You will love the Brazil team
clips - great composure on the ball, what soccer is
really about. Overall, this two set package is probably a must for beginning to
intermediate coaches.
- FA Tactics and Skills Set produced by Charles
Hughes for BBC (Set of 7 including Goalkeeping, Shooting, Passing & Support, Creating
Space, The Attack, Set Plays, Defending)
Classic stuff from the now "out of
favor" Charles Hughes. Kevin Keegan and Peter Shilton star, with Elton John music in
the background, filmed at Bisham Abbey, a training facility in the UK. Perhaps the best
stuff is on creating space, where they really show you how much useful work you can do
playing 1 - 1v1 - 1 in a 10x20 grid, teaching players to check back at an angle to the
ball to create space, and so on. Not great video quality by today's standards, but clear
enough. Probably the tactical concepts shown would help most coaches working at and above
U12.
- The Winning Formula with Charles Hughes (Set
of 4 with Direct Play, Winning the Advantage, Defending to Win, Goalkeeping)
Oh dear, direct play again. There's about 5
minutes wasted on each tape giving the sales pitch for Charle's idea that most goals
happen after three or fewer passes, so you have to get right to goal. Overall an
interesting set, but not the most valuable set of tapes for most coaches. Too
self-important, too pious. Lots of examples from games, and nice diagrams, but again, not
the first set to buy.
- Brazilian Soccer: Skills and Tactics with Zico
(Set of 3 with Skills and techniques, Positional Play and Tactics)
What fun stuff. I have only the 2 CD ROM set,
not the tape, supposed to be the same stuff. This is mostly about skills, and there are a
lot of fun skills on the CD that I had not seen in 20 years, so I think most of you would
find this to be a lot of fun. Some of the skills are goofy, but a couple are quite
practical and will solve game problems for some people. For example, a trapping move done
with a full body turn to allow a midfielder to trap, turn, and shield a high bouncing ball
in one smooth move. Zico speaks Portuguese, and the voice over is a little amusing, but
fun still. Great stuff. I want more.
- Dynasty: UNC Women's Soccer
Not about training, just a two tape set with
game highlights from the last 10 years or more interspersed with an ongoing interview
with, I think, Tisha Venturini, Mia Hamm, Wendy Gebauer, and probably one other player. I
lent this tape out 4 months ago and it's making the rounds, I don't think I will be
getting it back soon.
- Youth Soccer Practices the FUNdamental Way by
Karl DeWazien
I like Karl's books, never saw the tape, it has
been mentioned favorably on coaching bulletin boards.
- Soccer Games by the Soccer Academy (Set of 2
for 5-9 and 10 and older)
The 10 and older tape has a lot of fun games
useful for technical warm-up and for pre-match tension breaking. Stuff as simple as
musical balls (yes, you can figure out the rules). Extremely slow paced, so you will have
to fast forward as you transcribe, and this is not a tactics or technique teaching tape.
Just games. Now, most coaches in the U8 to U15 range should be able to snap into any of 10
or 20 games during a practice or warm up at any time to make practice fun, so it's really
not a bad tape at all.
- The International Tactics Series (Set of 5
with Individual Tactics, Individual Defending, Group Attacking, Group Defending and
Methods of Training)
Must have. Not tapes with exercises you will
bring to practice. These tapes are coaching for the coach. If you did not play club and
college soccer, buy these so that you can speed up your learning process. You have to get
an understanding of the game before you can answer questions and explain with authority,
and really understand what you are trying to accomplish. I think that you will end up
watching these tapes over and over. Don't take notes, just watch and think. Hint: watch
every tape through the credits, keep them running past the end a ways. One tape has a fun
surprise on the trailer.
- The Pro Training Skill Factor (with Alan
Shearer)
Must have. Nothing to do with skill, it's all
about the tactics of pressure, shape, and transition. I have the tape and the CD, tape's
on loan. Both great. U12 competitive and up.
This tape was developed for and distributed to
coaches at the 1994 USYSA Region III tournament in Greenville, South Carolina. It was
provided by the South Carolina Youth Soccer Association, and features Mark Berson and his
assistant Doug Allison (South Carolina), Trace Leone (Clemson), Karrie Miller (Charleston
Southern), Ralph Polson (Presbyterian), and Rick Wright (Anderson College). Berson gives
about a clear a demonstration of checking back at an angle as you could ever see and a
simple exercise sequence to make it happen. Karrie Miller gives a very nice skill sequence
on controlling to feet and passing between partners. May still be available from SCYSA or
the Greenville Convention and Visitor's Bureau.
- Tom Tutko's Coaching Clinic
Why are you coaching ? Why is the player there ?
Motivation, working with players and parents, character building, and athlete's rights -
what your players should expect. Dr. Tom is a faculty member out in California, and he'll
be asking you some pointed questions about your motivation. Perhaps you feel your team
chemistry is not what you want, you don't have the respect of the players, or you feel
that you can't seem to muster the charisma to motivate your kids. Maybe there's a hint in
here, or a least some ideas to help you put it in perspective.
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