Finally my coaching blog is back, sorry it took so long! I couldn’t upload for a while due to a system error and so for this post I want to talk about a birthday event that happened last month.
In October, I put on a soccer event for the birthday of a 7 year old boy at the Tokyo America Club, a super modern and well-equipped private members club here in Tokyo (I want to say how grateful I am to be asked to such a wealthy place!)
The event was a Soccer X English combination, and we got on with the game whilst speaking in a mix of Japanese and English. There were 16 children and two coaches, myself Yuhei and Alex and we divided the time between practice drills for key skills – dribbling, passing – and then the match itself.
Amongst these friends was a mix of soccer abilities but even so we didn’t put up with any crying and everyone had smiles on their face from the beginning of the event right up until the end. To finish things off, we all formed a circle for the birthday boy!
To put it another way, I am very grateful for being asked to coach at an event where I get to share such a precious time with young soccer players. Thank you! Creating such fun, frustrating and celebratory moments through football – I think they really wanted to grow up!
Yuhei
