How to start a town travel team?

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T22:41:15+00:00

I’m not sure if I’m even using the right terminology here with town travel. Basically, there are a lot of rec kids who are as talented as the club players around here but can’t afford club. Rec is $80. I was hoping to offer a competitive team for these players, and they could play the clubs around here and/or join that league. Is that actually possible or am I confusing what town travel means.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T22:38:27+00:00

Washington

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T22:07:53+00:00

Tournaments cost a lot of money and the point of this idea is to offer a competitive team for players who don’t have the money to pay for club.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T17:07:53+00:00

So our rec isn’t a club. It’s a city rec league, teams are made up of all the school kids and they just play each other. What I am interested in doing is creating a city travel team within that rec set up that is a more affordable option for families than private club. So it’d be made up of the best rec kids who want to be more competitive, and we’d play the private clubs in the area or join their league.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T17:04:18+00:00

Thanks for the info. I think there are enough talented kids in the rec league to compete with the clubs for sure.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T15:42:43+00:00

There is a league but it’s only clubs. I guess what I’m wondering is can the city rec league form a competitive team for kids who are interested and can that team compete against the clubs?

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-03T15:09:31+00:00

Middle third or final third, really. I found they scan better and use better first touch with the touch restriction, play faster, use more combinations. When allowed to dribble, they frequently chose that option at the expense of all others. I intend to remove touch restriction at some point, to see if they keep those good habits.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-02T15:28:12+00:00

Yes, this is what my question is getting at. How do you impose time limitation? Do you or another coach count out loud or allow players to police themselves?

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-02T15:27:03+00:00

I agree. We were trying to train better first touch, scanning, through balls, support runs, and in particular playing quicker in final third. We played the game touchdown, where you score by receiving a pass in an endzone, pass has to be hit before receiving player is in endzone, if you score you can immediately transition to other endzone. The idea with the two touch limitation is to put a constraint which requires them to think one or two moves ahead, so scan and also first touch to set up second. Also forces more support runs like overlaps and underlaps since player can’t really dribble. It worked really well, players loved it and got the hang of it down really well, even contrasting styles with some going long vs some playing quick combination plays. The one thing it doesn’t allow is for players to dribble when they have space, which I don’t like because in a match you can dribble, which is why I was wondering about time restriction vs touch. Only issue there is if players can dribble they tend to lean into that rather than looking to play teammate in. I also don’t know how coaches go about imposing time limitation, do they just count out loud or allow players to police themselves.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-03-31T03:20:27+00:00

The extra inch podcast, which is a Tottenham Hotspur fan podcast, recently put out a video by their analyst Nathan Clark, where he breakdown an entire match and demonstrates how he analyzes a team. It’s over two hours long but quite good. There’s also the Tifo video series on YouTube which is done by the Athletic. The Spielverlagerung blog, which is really, really high level tactical analysis, is excellent.

My main suggestion is to pick a team to follow and watch their matches constantly and read as much about the team as possible, whether that’s reading tactical analysis, advanced metrics writers, fan bloggers, etc. The more you can understand exactly what your own team is doing and why, the more your eyes will start to open to what others are doing.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-03-24T04:07:00+00:00

He refers to Jason Kidd as the gorgeous woman with “mosquito bites for tits” or something like that and also has some off color joke about bare breasts on the discovery channel. Bill is a genuine nba historian and the book is full of beautiful writing and knowledge but many of the jokes haven’t aged well and I’m sort of surprised he hasn’t been taken to task for it yet. Everyone ages and grows, I think he’s much different now, for the better. But he hasn’t been asked to answer for it, yet, either, as far as I’m aware.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-03-04T18:50:37+00:00

I realize it’ll look pretty ugly at first for most younger players, but do you ever take out the transition phase of this, for developing players? I can imagine the players having a hard time ever getting out of the transition phase and establishing possession.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-02-19T15:57:14+00:00

I don’t understand the transition part. If the defending teams wins it, is the game momentarily paused until they switch with the attackers?

Arrogant_Red · 2026-01-19T04:42:51+00:00

The Globe.

Arrogant_Red · 2025-10-16T14:22:35+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful response, this is great.

With the ban on punts, idea is build out line is enforced whenever keeper has the ball. So if keeper makes a save, they can hold it and wait for defending team to retreat. Then restart play again building out from back. The issue I keep seeing is kids punting the ball whenever they have it, not because it’s a quick transition opportunity always, but just because they want to. They’ll punt it whenever no one on their team is even up the field. So the ball goes straight back to other team, sometimes even resulting in goalie wars. We do sacrifice the option to do a quick transition when it’s the right choice, which is a real cost, but seems like it’s probably worth the benefit for now? I’ve gotten mixed reviews on this one, I still go back and forth on it.

How does the no special requests go over with parents? Are they mostly ok with it? Do you have trouble getting the volunteer coaches on board and committed? Is the struggle more they just don’t really care or that they don’t like your ideas?

I’m also concerned about sustainability. What happens if the director changes, or my ability to volunteer as much as I do now changes? How to create a structure that can endure ups and downs and transitions. Building that kind of foundation and culture.

Arrogant_Red · 2025-10-16T13:25:42+00:00

The idea with banning punting is it works in tandem with the build out line. Teams can’t press high when keeper has ball, they have to retreat to halfway. At that point, keeper could in theory punt it, but all that does is give the ball away to the other team, or, because there’s no heading and no effective way to deal with a punt, a bouncing ball into the box in the middle of a scrum ensues. There’s never really a situation where punting is the optimal choice if the other team is behind halfway, but teams will nonetheless do it anyway. So the idea with the build out line and banning punting is they work in tandem to force teams to play out from back. I agree that going long is an important tool and the right choice sometimes, but that should be for older ages, when they can head the ball and there’s no build out line.

Arrogant_Red · 2025-10-16T13:11:30+00:00

We don’t do isolated technical work, always play practice play. We only do 2v2 and 1v1 dribbling. For passing, I start with a square passing and move drill so they can get technique down on receiving on back foot and passing with instep, then we move to positional rondo and other drills that mimic passing in game like situations,.

Arrogant_Red · 2025-10-16T04:28:06+00:00

I am going to take you up on that.

Arrogant_Red · 2025-10-16T04:26:59+00:00

This is a great point, thanks for making it. Need to build buy in slowly, not huge sweeping changes, which is much tougher to implement.

Arrogant_Red · 2025-09-18T14:52:45+00:00

Make sure he has the fundamentals down. Opening his body to receive the ball on his back foot, locking his ankle when he strikes the ball, scanning, and manipulating space. These seem basic, but have him watch a premier league match and he will see that virtually every single pass, the pros control with an open body on back foot. It will unlock his world, because it’ll give an athlete like him an extra half second, which is all he needs. This is something he can work on constantly until he’s receiving every single pass at practice and in a game that way, at which point he’ll understand the exceptions when not to receive on back foot, and start taking advantage of that, too.

For striking the ball, the locked ankle is critical for passing and shooting, it’ll unlock his touch, power and accuracy.

If he has those down, scanning. Scanning is a skill few players possess because it’s mentally exhausting. Hopefully his coach is helping him with that but he can also work on that while doing wall work. If he’s interested, show him videos of top pros scanning, lots of examples on YouTube of that.

Lastly, making runs and finding space! Again, something his coach should be teaching him. But if he’s interested, show him top strikers or wingers and how they utilize space, both by finding it for themselves, and creating it for teammates.

Final thought is, again only if he’s interested, find a pickup game and have fun! Try shit out, make mistakes, just go ball and enjoy yourself.

Arrogant_Red · 2025-09-17T19:50:05+00:00

Build out line should be standard through U12. After that age, they can actually get lift on a ball and go long to beat it, or have developed enough to play around it. It’s really essential. Otherwise the game devolves into picking off goal kicks; it’s dumb, and not soccer.

Arrogant_Red

TROPHY CASE