Floorball – Mourinho – Psychology and youth coaching

According to Mourinho he values the psychological factors the team above anything else, he wants his players to play with controlled aggression and self-confidence. Mourinho’s approach to youth football is simple.
He uses small sided games with high amount of ball touches based on the Dutch system, but he works isolated with the parts of his tactical system.
His requirement before any youth player is promoted to the first team, is that they master the color box thinking, tactics and have been through the 36 football drills at least once. Otherwise the youth players will not be promoted to the first team.

Youth floorball practices and drills

José Mourinho’s leadership is charismatic, trustworthy, and respectful and he uses an attitude of invincibility, which he seems to be able to move into his players.
Many times he uses the media and newspapers to focus on him, in order to remove the attention and pressure from the team.

He also uses the media in some cases to create a negative view of the teams possibilities of success or to create an enemy outside the team before big games, in order to motivate the players.

Floorball – Food is fuel

In order to incorporate these healthy snacks in to your floorball team, it’s a good idea to send home a flyer to the floorball parents outlining what is, and what is not acceptable as a floorball team snack. Make sure that everyone is signed up to bring a snack on floorball games and sometimes as well on floorball practices.

Floorball youth practices and drills

Food is fuel, and just like a high performance vehicle will sputter and die if you don’t have fuel, so will your floorball team and star players stumble and lose steam at a critical moment in the game, if you don’t have eaten correctly before the floorball game. Make sure your floorball players know about this and eat healthy and you’ll see a big difference in their performance in the floorball rink.

Floorball – Healthy snacks

Your kids have been racing up and down the field for a few hours. They’re tired, they’re thirsty and pretty soon they’re going to be downright cranky on you.

What do you give them to boost their energy level and keep their mind and bodies in the floorball game? Too many youth floorball players don’t realize just how important it is to eat a healthy and balanced diet in order to stay healthy as well as to optimize their performance in the floorball rink.

Floorball youth drills and practices

Provide a variety of healthy snacks that are nutritionally dense in order to both please your youngsters palates and fuel up their bodies in an optimal manner. Here are some suggestions to replace those doughnuts and ice cream bars at half time.

Here are some suggestions and healthful snacks to give your youth athletes:

  • Apples
  • Bananas
  • Baby carrots
  • Piece of bread
  • Sandwiches
  • Toast
  • Water

Each floorball game is a practice game, until you earn your living on it

Stress affects floorball performance

Performance connected stress arousal

The figure above is showing the performance of two equal floorball players (capacity, when they are at their best), the difference is on their stress levels. A players optimal performance might be in the beginning, middle or at the end.

The first line/player will perform well or at his/her best with lower demands and stress level, while player two needs and can play at his/her best with high demands and expectations.
Do you know these curves for your players? Who will perform well in critical situations and who will be at their best with low expectations? These curves are just two examples, you would probably have as many different lines as you have players.

Floorball practices, games and drills

Each floorball game is a practice game, until you earn your living on playing floorball. That’s a quite good attitude to have, to keep the right perspective on things and situations, to try to keep the stress level on an acceptable level.

4-1 System / Set Up Russia

I wrote earlier about the Swedish 2-2-1 set up and quite aggressive forecheck, if you then look at the World Champions in hockey Russia, you find almost the opposite, very defensive 4-1 or V set up. When the forecheck is started they have almost a 2-2-1 set up, that is transferred to a wall or trap when they stop the attack from the opposite team. Not maybe fully transferrable to floorball, but I hope this post still will create some thoughts outside the box…

Russia 4-1 system, set up, tactic in Hockey / Floorball