Blog

Personalizing Practice Plans – Part 1 of 3

Coaching Directors and Coaches have great training materials they have used
successfully in the past they need to share training with coaches and
player(s). These next three articles will demonstrate the process used to
create media elements (videos, links to other systems, Images, Documents,
Audio) and incorporate them into your practice plans right along with the
MOTI 3D media elements.

Creating Organization or Team videos to share:

Directors and coaches depending on the system rights provided by
their subscription my upload and make videos available to other coaches and
or players. READ MORE

New Year & Time for A Prediction

A New Year & Time for A Prediction: New Technology Will Continue to Change & Enhance the Sports We Love

The articles, magazines and reporting that flash across my desk, computer and phone are screaming at me about technology and the ways it will impact how sport is going to be consumed, played and coached. Following are some of the technologies that are going to influence watching, playing and learning sports in 2019.

The printed ticket for any sporting event has become nearly extinct, replaced with a barcoded impression or picture on your smart phone or a PDF sent to your email for you to print and produce at the event. I think they call it mobile ticketing or biometric verification – new technology that is searching for a stable nomenclature that has been embraced by everyone. It is upon us and only took the first few months of 2018 to gain acceptance. READ MORE

COACHS CORNER: Never Too Old To Play


Play is important, no matter your age. Playing soccer as an adult is a great way to get or stay active! No experience necessary.

It doesn’t matter if you are a retired youth player turned parent coach…or a newbie to the beautiful game as a parent cheering from the sideline, there are many ways to find opportunities to play:
-suggest an end of season parents vs. kids game
-organize parent free play/pick-up in a local park (could be a practice or scrimmage)
-find an adult recreational team to join, or start one with some of the other parents
-many communities that run youth indoor tournaments in the winter also include adult coed brackets
-if running is out of the question for you, research “walking soccer” – it’s a real thing READ MORE

Choosing How to Communicate


Choosing to communicate is important. “How” we choose to communicate is critical to making sure what we want our audience to hear or see is clearly understood.

Today young players and coaches are tethered to their smart devices. It just makes sense to have your training curriculum visually engaging and available on their devices.

In the past when a coach wanted to communicate the tactical activity or technique / skill they wanted the player or team to perform, they could:
• demonstrate the skill or walk the team thru the tactical activity
• use handouts with diagrams with a written explanation
• show a video with audio queues what is necessary to perform
• use the grease board with a verbal explanation READ MORE

Why do players leave the game


I cringe when I hear Sports Coaches, Players, family members and fans talk in terms of effort and performance “I gave, or my team gave, or my favorite player gave 101% 110% ….120% etc. blah blah”! These statements just do not correlate with my experience as a young player, as a high performing professional player or as a pro coach and as a coach of all levels and ages of Male and Female soccer players. Cutting to the quick I would tell you no one can give more than 100% and the percentage an athlete actually gives in most performances is never maxed out at 100%.   This is an unrealistic level to achieve and causes the athlete to place unnecessary stresses and strains on their desires to be competitive. The new concern being sent out by the American Psychological Association is that their reports, ‘show that recent generations of college students have reported higher levels of perfectionism than earlier generations’. The emphasis that is being discussed across medical institutions is that soccer players are putting themselves under so much pressure to get perfection in every sporting event that they play in. READ MORE

MOTI Tip: Drill Camera Controls

MOTI Soccer Camera Controls for Drills provides the user dynamic options to review and study drills.  From tracking a player on the field to viewing a drill from overhead to actually being the player, the camera controls provide a multitude of options.

The review of the camera modes will be divided into 4 different parts.  Topics for the 4 parts are:

  1. Motion Controls and Overview (this article) – Part 1 will introduce the motion controls available to the user (finger-gestures and on-screen joysticks) and provide a high-level overview of each of the camera modes.
  2. Pivot-In-Place and Rotate-Around-Location – Part 2 covers two modes that provide a very flexible overview of a drill. As a note, Pivot-In-Place is the default mode when a drill starts.
  3. Follow-Player, Follow-Ball, Track-Player and Track-Ball – Part 3 will explore the ‘follow’ and ‘tracking’ options. These modes facilitate focusing on specific player/ball in a complex drill.
  4. Top-Down Perspective – Part 4 reviews a viewing-mechanism of the field that will be very familiar with user that play some of the most popular real-time strategy games.

Motion Controls

The motion of the camera can be controlled by finger-gestures and by the on-screen joysticks.

Finger Gestures

Common finger gestures are used with the touchscreen.  The effect of the finger gestures will change based on the camera mode that is selected.  The individual effects will be outlined in the article that contains the camera mode.   The following terms in these articles will be used to describe motion on the touchscreen.  Currently, the finger gestures are: READ MORE

The Joy of Coaching at Multiple Levels – Part 1


Part One – The Young Player

When coaching the very young player or a player very new to the game, one must gather all of your faculties, your organizational skills, and your nurturing instincts, in order to maintain a positive practice environment. There is nothing quite like seeing the grin on the face of a young player who has just completed a skill element and see the satisfaction of accomplishment beaming across their entire set of teeth.

These young players may lack physical strength, power and range but they are there to enjoy the game as they develop their coordination, gain a repertoire of technical moves, and confidence with a ball. They will quickly build some muscle memory from their very astute imitation and visual memory instincts. At this age they play for themselves and are very egocentric. As a coach, you give them some boundaries – cones, some supervision, do some demonstrations of moves or guide them to a 3D animation skill library. Coaching points should always be motivational and a boost to their effort. Encouragement drives them to develop quickly so that basic techniques are assembled in all the players so that introductory games and exercises bolsters their motor skills.

The introduction of small sided games 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 ensures that they are all getting huge numbers of touches and opportunities to dribble, control and pass the ball. This is a great time to gain Coaching knowledge that focuses on teaching techniques specific to the player’s position while moving from offense to defense to learn the game. When teaching and coaching at this age you must take into account all of the physical, physiological and physiologic aspects of each stage of childhood and adolescence. Remember a young person is not a small adult and one should always treat each individual appropriately.

There is a need to make a distinction between growth and development characteristics’ with a very positive and encouraging practice environment that nurtures all players and allows them to grow in the game while having fun and enjoyment. So the training session you are trying to produce goes a little like this:

  • Player with ball in a one on one duel
  • Focus on a repertoire of technical moves and confidence on the ball, coordination skills and technical moves using all the surfaces both feet, chest and thighs.
  • Introduce variations on simple exercises
  • Introduce dynamic movement, rhythm and ultimately getting up to full velocity
  • Have players get their heads up to develop creative offensive minded play and consistent efficacy of pass and movement
  • Increase speed of play on execution and making the correct choice from options in front of them
  • Training through progressive practice plans, exercises including drills, technical exercises and playing in small sided games to ensure as many touches as possible.

    • READ MORE

    MOTI Sports Updates and Announcements

    MOTISports.com/app, New MOTI Soccer App, Sports Engine & Team Snap Integrations

    MOTISports.com/app
    Our old site coachespage.com is re-directing you to motisports.com/app which is under our motisports.com domain. We are doing our best to eliminate confusion for our customers and make it as simple as possible to access our system. So you can now access motisports.com and gain access to the website via the “SIGNIN” at the top of the screen to access the web based Team Pages, or “My Account” to access your subscription account, or simply use the MOTI Soccer app as a player or coach and enjoy the 3D Skills and 3D Drills as you always have.

    New MOTI Soccer App (previously known as MOTI Mobile)
    The MOTI Soccer mobile app is undergoing performance improvements which will enable MOTI to load up faster, operate smoother, and expands into other areas in the future while lowering overhead in your mobile device. As this release goes into the stores we will require you to upgrade to version 2.8.0. So just go to either iTunes or Google Store and conduct the upgrade. Thank you!

    Sports Engine & Team Snap Integrations
    Alternative Logins – This will allow coaches, whom are utilizing team management systems to login to MOTI Soccer App using their MOTI username, go to their rosters and IMPORT their team roster from their team management system using their access credentials to either Sports Engine or Team Snap. From that point on, coaches and players can simply click the ICON of their team management system and login with those credentials.

    Here is a brief video on how the integration works –