Barca wins Futsal Championship

In a dramatic overtime 12-10 victory over Mission White, Barca won the futsal playoffs and took the futsal championship trophy home. Barca went undefeated in futsal over the winter, with a perfect winning record.

Glens/Barca win Juventus President's Cup

Barca teamed up with Glens, both putting in half their team, to play in the Juventus President's Cup. It was their first experience with the big field and 11-aside soccer. The kids made new good friends and played confidently against a Juventus team from Redwood City, Atletico Santa Rosa Chelsea, and a National Soccer Academy team, outscoring them 15-1 in the group stage. Also in the bracket were the San Francisco Seals and Real Madrid from Newark. We took the final and the Bronze championship with a nail biter 1-nil victory over Santa Rosa.

Bad Defending, Part 2

Another mistake by David Luiz, this time losing track of Chicharito for an easy header. For most of the play, Luiz tracked his mark, but as the play continued, and switched sides of the field, Luiz eventually cracked, and ball-watched, rather than getting a body on Hernandez. Watch here.

Coach Po awarded District 1 "Coach of the Year"

Coach Po has been awarded "Coach of the Year" from District 1, the region stretching from San Francisco to the airport. He will be honored Saturday night in Modesto at the annual CYSA Soccer Expo.

Barca wins U12 Alameda Indoor Soccer Championship

In a thrilling final vs. Argentina Crece at the Bladium, Barca narrowly won 7 to 6. The game was 5-5 at halftime, but tighter defenses by both teams turned it into a real nailbiter. Congrats to all the kids, playing tough in a league a year older.

Bad Defensive Habits, Prime Example (VIDEO)

This video shows a goal by Aston Villa last weekend against Chelsea. It demonstrates perfectly, in a single play, two very bad habits that lead to poor defending - first, Mierles doesn't put pressure on the ball, and allows straight ahead dribble penetration - and second, David Luiz watches the ball (the dribbler) and doesn't track the striker behind him, so he gets dragged out of position.

Barca United Tryouts 2012

Currently playing U11 and 8-aside, we will switch next year to 11-aside soccer, so we are looking to add the best players possible. We much prefer extended-tryouts, we believe the one-time tryout is a difficult situation for any player, let alone a 5th grader. During winter of 2012 we have put two teams into the Bladium indoor soccer league in Alameda, and one team into the local futsal league. We rent a gym for indoor practice on Monday nights and usually practice Thursday nights at South Sunset. So even though some might call this an off-season, it's still been a lot of playing time for the players. We play year-round and attend at least four tournaments a year (more last year). If anyone is interested in trying out on Thursday nights, please contact Coach Po at po_bronson AT yahoo.com.

In addition, in case there are players who want to take soccer seriously but who don't want to travel, we have a second team, Barca Tigre, which is 5th graders but plays "up" in U12 Rec. They made it to the U12 championship game despite being a year younger. Barca Tigre plays three or four seasons a year (four last year). They practice at Miraloma field. please contact Coach Po and I will put you in touch with Steve Courlang, the Tigre coach.

Juventus of Redwood City Coppa de Oro

Though undefeated at the tourney, a frustrating tie in the Saturday night game, despite dominating possession, only got us into the 3rd place game, where we had a terrific, high-intensity match under the lights in San Carlos with South San Jose Arsenal. Barca prevailed in penalties.

Champions, Golden Gate Invitational

Barca has worked hard to improve its intensity and work rate defensively. This finally paid off in a hard fought weekend at the Golden Gate Invitational in San Francisco at the Crocker Amazon soccer complex. In each of our bracket games, it was hard fought and tight and close for much of the game, but Barca eventually broke the games open late, scoring 14 with 2 against over the three games. In the final against an excellent MFRC Earthquakes team from Redwood City, Barca scored early and then withstood a long-ball attack during the second-half to win 1-0. Thanks to all the 8 teams in our age group who pushed each other to better performances.

Clarendon Stairs Club

Ten soccer players (and sometimes a dog or two) run stairs twice a week prior to school, at 9 am. Join them! Here's their most recent running times.

Here too is the link to the San Francisco Staircases you can run.

About Barca United

If you spend a little time clicking through old posts on this website, you will learn a lot about the Barca United team. Until now, only players and their parents have visited this site. This post is here to familiarize others with the team and our philosophy.

Most of the Barca United players are in 5th grade; two are in 6th grade and one in 4th. We play year-round, but we actually encourage kids to enjoy other sports simultaneously, and we accommodate conflicts. United has lost only a handful of games through the indoor, spring, summer, fall and tournament seasons. Far more important than winning, though, is the quality of play. We are teaching Barcelona-style modern soccer: maintaining possession, rapid passing, and advanced-passing combinations. Using pass-counters, we track the number of passes the team makes during a game. In the fall of 2010, for instance, the kids averaged 170 passes per 50 minute game - a rate equivalent to over 300 passes in a 90 minute game. This has increased at the U11 level.

I frequently make quick, short videos for the kids to watch during the week, so that our practice field time - a precious resource - isn't squandered with a lot of speechifying about big concepts. Instead, we use practices to model and correct. The big concepts come across in training videos or letters.

Even then, the best thing about Barca United is the chemistry between the kids and their families. Many of the parents are former or current players, and real fans of the game. We try to expose the team to the true culture of soccer, and pass along our love for the game.

Capital Valley Open Tournament, Sacramento

Braving 95 degree weather (in the shade), Barca's two wins and one tie got them into the final of the CVU Open. Though dominating the run of play in the final, Barca could not manage a goal, and a great goal by the CVU Elite team on a well-shaped corner kick and hard header into the net gave CVU the win. Congrats to CVU, and thanks to all the eight teams in the age group. It was a fun weekend in Sacramento over Labor Day.

CUFA Tournament, South Lake Tahoe

Barca took 11 players and their families to South Lake Tahoe for a tournament. At first, playing at 5,000 feet in the heat was very hard on us who live at sea-level. But Barca still managed to win its way into the final. It played one of the best teams it's ever faced, a truly amazing NorCal Premier team from Sacramento, from the Inter-Rage club. Playing defense most of the game, Barca kept it close for awhile, but Inter-Rage got one before the half and eventually found creative ways to get more, beating Barca 4-1. It was a great challenge for us, an honor to play them, and we hope we meet again somewhere.

El Cerrito Tourney

Barca went undefeated in the El Cerrito Jamboree over Memorial Weekend, outscoring opponents 38-1. Honestly we should have been in a different tourney, and we'll ask to play Gold at CUFA Tahoe.

Think Like a Midfielder

This video is not instructional, it's philosophical - it's all about how to think like a midfielder and understand the midfielder's job on the pitch.

Futsal Homework/Inspiration

We will be playing in the Dave Fromer Indoor Soccer league in Marin.

For inspiration, here are two videos to watch. Note the passing combinations, the deception, and especially how the players trade positions continuously to throw off the defense.

- highlights from UEFA futsal 2010 world cup (click for video)

- a very good men's team competing against average men's teams. (click for video)

Love the Game!

Reminder, here is the page for Barca videos, pictures, and training slide-shows.

Juventus Tourney!!!

Well, we didn't have the excitement of motels and pools and dinners together like in Redding, and a fair number of kids had to miss games for school commitments, but the Juventus tourney grew into a super-exciting weekend, with an extra-time penalty shootout in the final game Sunday afternoon. The work we put into penalty technique in Redding really paid off. Our only loss was to a Class 1 team (the Earthquakes, from the East Bay), and we might have given them a tougher game if all our team had been able to attend. Nevertheless, we learned a lot from that one loss - the Earthquakes were not faster than us, nor stronger than us, they were just more technical, positioning themselves better without coach help. They were inspiring and a model for what we should become with another year of training together.

Player Tracking Explained

Some parents have asked about the Player Tracking boards that are occasionally done on the sidelines. Rather than yelling at kids, it helps to show them their actual performance statistically. Player tracking is a nice way to do this, and for those who do the tracking, it's also a good learning experience. Most games, we track a coupla players. How they did in any one game is not important - it's just a way over time to draw their attention to their possession-turnover ratio.

On the board we put a "P" for a pass, an "L" for a loss of possession, a "D" for a successful dribble around an opponent, and an "X" for a defensive steal or interception. When a player gets subbed out, we can show them how often they turned over the ball.

Rather than show you one of our kids', the above graphic is the Player Track that Kiran filled out when watching Stanford's star striker, Adam Jahn, during the first 30 minutes of the game against St Mary's. It was interesting that most of Adam's L's came at a certain spot on the field.

Don't Overrun the Hole

this video explains the concept of "not overrunning the hole" - staying put to stay open, rather than running forward into the defense, eliminating the pass opportunity.

Italian Style Defending Line

This video describes the defensive tactic we had to implement in Redding because we were playing older teams. Rather than pressing full-field, we dropped back and began defending at the top of the center-circle. This crowded our opponents, forced them to pass, and when they booted it ahead it usually went to us, to start counter-attacks.

Redding Tournament of Champions

What an incredible weekend for the kids, and what a treat for us watching.

The kids had to play U11, up a year, but made it into the finals and lost by a goal.

We succeeded in letting every kid start half the games and get equal playing time.

The kids keep saying they want a rematch against Kaos Rage, since we actually dominated possession in the second half of the final.

Man-Marking vs Zonal Marking

For the most part, we play a zonal defense with ball+ cover tactics, the sweeper usually providing the cover. However, there are specific situations during games that we need to be alert and man-mark: on throw ins, corners, free kicks, and on the backside when the opponent is attacking. This video explains it best.

Success in the Last 25 yards.

This video looks at nine great goals scored recently in England and Spain. It then breaks each goal down into common pieces - pieces that we regularly teach at practice:

1) Coming back to the ball and passing it off

2) Dribbling sideways to build space, not into defenders

3) Cut-back pass on the ground into the penalty box, rather than a cross in the air

4) sprinting ahead into the box to provide man-advantages on attack

Advanced Tactics for Strikers & Forwards

This video introduces advanced movements for Strikers and Attackers - the importance of sideways runs along the line of the defense.