ASU women’s soccer head coach Graham Winkworth and his assistant coaches like to be active during practice drills. The staff is always in the middle of the drill, giving instructions and aiming to improve the players’ skills.
Through these reps, Winkworth and his staff hope to instill upcoming game plans in their players to the point that they know their next move regardless of the situation.
Unlike sports such as football or basketball, where coaches and coordinators can call timeouts, give play calls or communicate a strategy directly to their team, soccer is more free-flowing. Players have to make split-second decisions on the field and it is their work in practice that prepare them for these moments.
"There's no two moments really identical other than on set pieces," Winkworth said. "We've got to teach the girls to know how to make decisions within the game. We've got some pretty smart girls out here, so that's part of the coaching, to help teach the girls to know what decisions to make in different moments."
The coaches start collaborating on a strategy for their next games based on film study sessions. Each assistant coach has a specific area of the field that they work with and those individual observations are combined to create an overall gameplan.
Assistant coach Ross Alexander specializes on the defensive side of the field, assistant coach Hollie Loud contributes to the offensive attack and assistant coach Ali Hanif assists the goalkeepers.
Implementing a game plan starts from the first practice of the week. Hanif, for example, puts the goalkeepers through specific drills that closely imitate game scenarios.
"If I'm doing a crossing and shooting session for the goalkeepers, nine times out of ten, you're going to see a cross ball before you see a shot," Hanif said. "It's just trying to think about the logical order that the goalkeepers will see things in and their perspectives, and then making sure training replicates that order."
These lessons allow the players to be comfortable with a variety of circumstances within the game even when they cannot constantly talk with their coach. However, the coaching staff still communicates whenever they have the chance to convey information to their team.
"We definitely make a lot of in-game changes," Winkworth said. "For example, Kansas was very direct and played a lot of long balls, and so at that moment, we didn't feel like pressing them would have been any good for us. So we dropped back a lot deeper and allowed them to have the ball in certain areas, and that was something that we tweaked as the game went on."
Hanif added that there are instances during the game where he can communicate with junior goalkeeper Pauline Nelles through "hand signals" or "snippets of information" that she understands because of their extensive preparation in the lead-up to games.
While coaching is an integral part of the sport, the Sun Devils’ collective on-field experience gives them an advantage. This group has played with each other for long enough that communication comes easier to them.
"I think I say (the seniors) are more confident, but our freshmen are still confident as well," junior defender Grace Gillard said. "They'll tell us how it is and I think being able to speak to each other like that and trust in each other is very important for us."
With their final game of the year being a rivalry matchup against the University of Arizona on Oct. 25, every Sun Devil knows they need to be on their A-game.
"You can almost throw the rest of the season out of a window for one match," Winkworth said. "It's your rivalry game … so you got to be up for it for sure."
Edited by Henry Smardo, Sophia Ramirez and Madeline Schmitke.
Reach the reporter at pvallur2@asu.edu and follow @PrathamValluri on X.
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Pratham is a sophomore studying sports journalism with a minor in business. This is his second semester with The State Press.
