This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2015-16.
The first training session is on Monday!
I’ll return to Svedala this weekend. Aside from getting my domestic affairs sorted out, my first priority before Monday evening’s initial practice is meeting with the three American players. I will have a first full team meeting before Tuesday’s training session, but I want to talk about a few things with Camryn, Chelsey, and Mo that relate specifically to them and their status as the foreign players in the squad.
Right now I’m planning to do a playing-only session on Monday, which is a 2 hour slot at our secondary facility. Tuesday we’ll have a team meeting before we do the first proper training session in the main hall. I’ve asked that any “just training” or “want to try it out before making a decision” players be at the Tuesday session at a minimum, and Monday too if at all possible. My main meeting focus on Tuesday will be what I expect to see in training (behavior, attitude, etc.) and what the players can expect from me. I want “guest” players to know what my expectations are going in because they will be held to the same standards as everyone else.
Wednesday we have our first session of weight training as a team before practice. I’ll probably focus that on assessment with regards to a couple key exercises. I need to find out what the exercise club we’ll be using has for equipment, etc. Thursday is an off day. Friday night and Saturday morning will be regular training sessions of 3 hours and 2 hours respectively, though I doubt I’ll go the full time on Friday.
My main point of emphasis for the whole first week will be on seeing where the team and individuals are at in terms of both play and fitness so I can then start plotting our developmental path forward.
Schedule:
I found out this week that the revised schedule has been set following the late withdrawal of a team I mentioned previously. The plan is similar to the previous schedule where we were to play most teams home and away, but two teams close to us geographically another home and away round. Only in this case it will be three teams we play 4 times each rather than two, with Hylte/Halmstad added to Engelholm and Gislaved. The playoff structure was still being decided at last check.
The schedule for the pre-season tournament we’re playing in Denmark the last weekend of September has been released. It’s an 8-team tournament featuring a pair of 4-team pools. Pool A is Holte, Brøndby, Hylte/Halmstad, and Fortuna. Pool B is Engelholm, Svedala, Team Køge, Amager. So we’ll get to see the three Danish teams we have as competition in the Öresundsligan I mentioned before. Engelholm is also part of that league. Fortuna and Team Køge are both also from the Danish top division.
The third Swedish team in the Öresundsligan is Gislaved. It looks like we’ll play them the weekend before the above tournament as a 1-off friendly. Unfortunately, the timing of that is a bit awkward, as two of my players have been called up to the Sweden U19 camp next month in preparation for the NEVZA U19 tournament in October. Both have played for Sweden at the U17 level. One of those players is a middle, of which I currently only have two in the squad. Could make things a bit tricky in terms of line-up decisions.
From this point on I expect to shift the timing of these log entries. I won’t do them daily the way I did with Exeter in 2013-14 and 2014-15. This is mainly a function of having training or matches 5 days a week for the most part. That would just be too many entries and wouldn’t leave much room to write about anything else. I might do some daily entries in the case of very specific items of broad interest, but beyond that I’ll probably stick to a weekly publishing calendar and maybe post on Sunday or Monday.
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