What Did You Do With Your Summer?
Summer's over. After Labor Day, that's it. The Sunstroke Classic in Sacramento has been played, the bleep tests are done, and now we're heading into the real thing.
Before it all kicks off, I want to ask you something: how was your summer? Not just in terms of how much you coached — but what did you actually take from it?
What I Did That Surprised Me
I spent a meaningful chunk of my summer doing something I've long said I don't really believe in: isolated technical work.
I don't like dribbling through cones. I don't like standing players in lines to practice a pass. For me, everything lives inside the game — reality-based learning, experiential, competitive, game-realistic. That's my methodology and I'll defend it.
But this summer I deliberately challenged myself. In one-on-one and small group sessions, I started breaking down body shapes, fakes, angles of reception, first touch mechanics. The kind of technical fundamentals I haven't really isolated since I was running grassroots camps years ago. Not as the core of the session — but as a layer alongside the game situations I usually work in.
And here's what I found: breaking things down that carefully gave me better language. When I'm now working in a team environment and a player needs to take a different touch in a positional play, I've got something more precise to offer than "take a better touch." I can describe the body position, the fake, the angle. That detail didn't come from the team sessions. It came from the quiet, methodical work of the summer.
The reflection: I was too quick to dismiss the value of it. Not because isolated technique should replace game-realistic training — it shouldn't. But because refusing to explore something means you never know what you're leaving on the table.
The Gift of Summer
Here's what makes summer different from the season: there's no game on Saturday.
No tournament prep. No league results to respond to. No state cup looming. You can be methodical in a way that the season never allows. You can try something, observe what happens, adjust, try it again. You can send a player home with a specific challenge — work on that first touch, play with that quick turn off the wall — and come back next session to see what they did with it.
The minute the season starts, all of that patience compresses. Now it's training last night, game tonight, debrief this weekend, prep for next week. The window closes.
So the question is: did you use the window?
Reality-Based Learning — and the Extra Layer
I was interviewed on KCBS this summer and they asked me: what is reality-based learning? I gave an answer I wasn't entirely happy with, which is why I want to revisit it here.
The label says what it is: you expose players to the reality of the game they're going to face. Opponent. Competition. Game moments. Decision-making under pressure. Not cones, not lines, not drills divorced from context.
But there's an extra layer I think about a lot. The reality of what that player is doing outside of training. Are they watching soccer? Did they catch any of the Women's World Cup? Are they seeing Premier League clips on YouTube, or highlights on Instagram? Because a player who goes home and watches the game, who connects what they're practising to what the pros are doing, is building a different kind of understanding than one who only ever sees soccer on their own training field.
I can't force that. But I can create the conversation. I can ask: what did you watch this week? Did you see anything that reminded you of what we've been working on? That question — and the habit behind it — is part of the reality I'm trying to build.
Two Teams, One Coach, Two Different Worlds
This season I'm coaching two groups that couldn't be more different.
One is driven. Aggressive. They push each other. They want to be the best. They show up wanting to be challenged and they're annoyed when it's too easy. The other group is there for the social element, for the joy of having a ball at their feet, for learning to love the game. They're not trying to make MLS Next. They're trying to have a good time with their friends.
Back to back training sessions. Completely different environments. Completely different needs. I've long said that coaches who work with boys and girls, or different age groups, or wildly different levels simultaneously are magicians. This season, I've become one myself.
Knowing that going in is half the battle. I'm not going to treat them the same. I'm not going to bring the intensity of the competitive group into the fun group, or soft-pedal the challenge from the competitive one because I want to match the other group's energy. Context, again, is everything.
Pre-flection
US Soccer's coaching education has made a clear shift. It's no longer a driving test — A, B, C, pass. Now it's about reflection. Are you growing? Are you honest about what isn't working? Are you a different coach coming out of this course than you were going in?
That shift in approach is the right one. And it applies to the summer too.
Reflection is looking back: what did I do, what did I learn, what surprised me, what would I change? Pre-flection is looking forward: what am I taking into this season, what am I going to do differently, what am I going to challenge myself on?
I feel like I used my summer well. I challenged something I thought I believed in. I found something useful in the place I'd been dismissing. I set myself up for two very different coaching environments. Now the season starts, and I'll find out.
How was your summer? What are you taking into the season?
Listen to the full episode: Ep. 77 — Summer Reflection
@LeeDunneSoccer