The Minibus That Won Us a Game
Let me ask you a question before we get into anything else.
The training session you're running tonight — would you want to play in it?
Not "is it organised?" Not "does it have a clear objective?" Those things matter. But I'm asking something different. Would you actually want to be a player in that session? Would it be fun?
Because here's what I keep coming back to: fun is not the opposite of learning. It might be the environment where the best learning happens.
The ODP Arizona Story
I just got back from the Far West Regional Championships with our ODP 2011 boys. Best players we have at that age group. Committed, driven, watching the game, understanding the bigger picture — the kind of group you'd pick from the entire Northern California pool if you could have anyone.
We treated it as a performance environment. Everything was structured. Phones were handed in before bedtime, which I loved — one of my players averages nine hours of screen time a day, nine hours, and watching him actually engage with his teammates without a device in his face was remarkable. We had schedules, meal plans, activation sessions, set piece materials sent in advance. Everything controlled.
We lost our first two games. Flat. Rigid. The soccer we'd seen these players produce in scrimmages — the reason we'd picked them — just wasn't there. Stage fright was part of it, sure. MLS scouts watching, regional and national team staff in the stands. But something else was off. We'd over-cooked the environment. We'd made it so performance-focused that the players couldn't relax enough to actually perform.
Then came the lightning delay.
Eighteen Players, One Minibus
The field was cleared immediately. We had two minivans for eighteen players and three staff — one was parked on the other side of the complex. So all eighteen piled into one.
We didn't plan anything. We weren't running icebreakers or reviewing footage. The coaches got out because, frankly, the smell inside was extraordinary. Twelve and thirteen-year-old boys, closely packed. One player had the misfortune of getting on first and spent fifteen minutes pressed against the window deeply regretting that decision.
They were laughing. Telling jokes. Yelling at each other. Just being kids.
Fifteen minutes of complete chaos. Not one coaching point delivered.
When the lightning cleared and we went back on the field, something had shifted. It was hailing sideways, forty degrees in the Arizona desert, genuinely miserable conditions. Seven substitutes had every right to refuse to come on. But they played. The best they'd played all tournament. Scored late from a free kick to draw 1-1 against a team that expected to beat us.
I can't prove the minibus did it. Maybe everything we'd worked on in the individual performance reviews clicked all at once. Maybe after two losses there was nothing left to lose. But I couldn't shake the feeling that those fifteen unplanned, uncoached, unstructured minutes were the catalyst. They got loose. And loose is how these players actually play.
The Danger of Over-Structuring Fun
Here's what I see in training sessions — and I've been guilty of it too. Coaches build in something they call a "fun game" that isn't actually fun. The ball keeps going out of play. There are five players in a line waiting for a turn. The rules are so complicated that when a defender wins the ball, they immediately look up and ask "what do I do now, coach?" The game-realistic feel is gone.
Or the other version: players arrive, have a bit of unstructured time that's genuinely fun, and then the coach steps in and says right, that's enough, now we work. The fun gets turned off like a tap. And what you're actually saying to your players is that coaching is the serious part, and fun is the reward you get before and after.
A quote I heard at a convention recently has stayed with me: be demanding without being demeaning. That switch from fun to serious is where coaches can accidentally cross that line — where demanding starts to feel like a punishment for the enjoyment they were just having.
The U8 Warm-Up Experiment
My U8 boys — they show up to games, they check their kit because we always have someone in the wrong socks, they get the balls out, and they play. That's the warm-up. That's it.
Other coaches look at me like I've lost my mind. They've got structured rondos going on ten minutes before kickoff. Mine are just running around kicking balls and having a laugh.
But here's what I know: when they cross the line, their minds are on, their bodies are warm, and they know what we're working on that cycle. Nothing changes once the whistle goes. They're already there.
And yet — we've lost every significant game we've played. Finals, cup games, tournaments. Four of them. And I keep coming back to whether we change something for those games, whether the pressure of the occasion causes me to add structure to a warm-up that doesn't need it, whether they feel the tension from the coaching staff or the parents and it tightens them up.
My plan: next big game, I'm doing the same thing. Nothing. Let them play. See if the results are different.
Because the question I started with is the one I keep coming back to.
Is it fun? Is it fun for your players right now, in this session, in this moment? Would you want to be out there?
If the answer is yes — you're probably doing it right. If the answer is no, that's worth sitting with for a minute. Not because learning doesn't matter. But because for the players you're coaching, fun and learning might not be as separate as you think.
Listen to the full episode: Ep. 80 — Is It Fun?
@LeeDunneSoccer