With only two weeks until their first scrimmage, the Los Lunas High School Tiger soccer team is getting a little help from overseas in preparation. A pair of English soccer players are doing the coaching this week at the high school pitch, as Tiger head coach Eliseo Aguirre watches from the sidelines.
The camp is put on by British soccer players on behalf of Major League Soccer.
“This gets us going, since I can’t coach until next week,” said Aguirre. “This is just a different voice; it works the fundamentals that we want to see, which means a little less coaching I have to do next week.”
Aguirre is not allowed to officially coach the team until next Monday, which is also the first day of school in Los Lunas. That makes holding two-a-day practices impossible. But, despite the loss of a practice time next week, Aguirre is unconcerned.
“It won’t hurt too bad because we have a scrimmage scheduled, and that will let us know where we’re at,” Aguirre said. “It will hurt us conditioning-wise, but I’ll just take a few more kids to the scrimmage to keep us rested.”
This week at their mini-camp, Aguirre is mostly concerned that the guest coaches work with the team on their touch more than running the team’s legs off.
“I consider touches on the ball to be conditioning in itself,” Aguirre said. “During most of the game, you just pass and move — conditioning will come on its own. Right now, we’re just worried about working together and touching and receiving the ball because most of these kids haven’t touched the ball since the last game of last season.”
Another bonus to having the mini-camp, besides getting the players out on the field together, is, in Aguirre’s opinion, that the players hear the fundamentals from someone other than himself. And the players agree.
“I think these guys have played some professional ball in England,” senior forward Omar Vargas said. “When you hear it from them, you know their not lying to you.”
The Tigers have been in the race for the state playoffs for the past couple of years, and, according to Aguirre, they feel like this will be the year they break through.
“We were close last year, but this is beginning to sound like a broken record saying to us ‘close, but no cigar’,” Aguirre said. “We were a goalpost away from going to the state playoffs last year, and it’s time to do something.”
To get ready for the season, the Tigers are practicing three hours per day this week to make sure they’re ready for the season.
“They (the guest coaches) are getting us mentally focused and prepared for the season,” Vargas said. “They’re giving us some background on skills, because we mainly play in practice and we don’t work too much on skills.”
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April 18, 2024
