Anthony Brenner Coaching

10/08/2026

10/07/2026

FOR THE COACHES....

Here is what nobody tells you about the control instinct in coaching.
It feels like responsibility. It looks like professionalism. And it is slowly teaching your players that they cannot trust themselves without you.

Every time you jump in before a player has the chance to figure something out, you are solving the wrong problem. You are solving today's chaos instead of building tomorrow's capacity. You are choosing the cleaner session over the more developed player.

And the painful truth is your players know it. They feel the difference between an environment where they are trusted to think and an environment where they are expected to execute. One produces players who come alive when the pressure is highest. The other produces players who look to the sideline every time the plan breaks down.

The coaches who develop truly elite players are not the ones who run the tightest sessions. They are the ones who have developed the awareness to know when to hold the reins and when to loosen them and who have built enough trust in their players to choose

empowerment even when control feels safer.
That awareness is not something you either have or you don't. It is something you build deliberately. One session at a time.
Today's action step: In your next team conversation step back completely. Listen fully before you speak. Notice what your players do with the space you create.

10/05/2026

Last week, I had the privilege of traveling to Iowa to work with a team that invited me in to spend two days going deeper into the mechanics and technique of the game.

We worked with two separate groups, focusing on first touch, passing on the ground with the instep, and long-ball technique.

The clips you’re seeing here are some of the teaching moments from our work with the girls on the long ball.

For me, these sessions are about more than simply showing players how to strike a ball. It’s about helping them understand the mechanics behind the technique, so they can begin to feel, recognize, and ultimately reproduce the movement for themselves.

I’m incredibly grateful to the coaching staff for their trust and for giving me the opportunity to work with such a kind, respectful, and engaged group of young women.

Thank you for welcoming me into your environment. I’m already looking forward to the next trip.

10/05/2026

It is not superstition,it is not habit for the sake of habit, it is because they have learned something that most players figure out too late that the body needs a signal to shift from ordinary life into performance mode.

And without that signal it can take twenty minutes or more of actual playing time before you are truly present.
Twenty minutes,in a ninety minute game. Think about what that costs you.

The Pre-Match Tuning protocol exists for exactly this reason. It is a series of simple, specific practices designed to bring your body and your mind into alignment before the session or game begins so that when the first ball drops you are already there.

Here is one piece of it you can use today.
Find a quiet moment before your session. Take your boots off. Stand on the grass in your bare feet for sixty seconds.

Feel the ground beneath you the temperature, the texture, the way your weight shifts naturally from foot to foot. Take three slow breaths and with each exhale consciously release whatever you carried here from the rest of your day.
You are not doing nothing.

You are arriving. And arriving intentionally is one of the most underrated performance skills in the game.

The question worth asking: What is your current pre-training or pre-game routine? Is it intentional or is it just what happens by default?

10/03/2026

I keep being reminded, week after week, why I do what I do.

A young player shows up to training and one of the first questions I ask is:

“What would you like to give some attention to today?”

And then we go to work on that thing.

Because I’ve learned something over three decades of coaching: if something is top of mind for a player, there’s usually a reason. Somewhere underneath it, there’s often a little uncertainty. A little doubt. A place where they don’t completely trust themselves yet.

So how do we influence confidence?

We help them turn a perceived weakness into a superpower.

We create understanding. We give them tools. We let them experience themselves getting better at the very thing they were unsure about.

And suddenly, something begins to shift.

Not just their technique.

Their belief in themselves.

In more than three decades of coaching, I haven’t found many things that impact confidence—and, more importantly, self-belief—as powerfully as helping a young person discover that something they once believed was a weakness can actually become a strength.

There is such a profound, very human lesson in that.

The things we struggle with don’t have to define us. With awareness, attention, intention, and work, they can become some of our greatest strengths.

This is why I do what I do.

10/01/2026

Last season, he was one of the top scorers on his MLS NEXT team.

Now he’s been moved to outside back.

So when he came to training, he knew exactly what he wanted to work on: crosses and service into the box from wide areas.

And just like every other technique, we started at the beginning.

Dead ball. No pressure. No defender. No complicated exercise.

Just understanding his technique.

His approach angle.
Tempo into the ball.
Body shape.
Foot shape.
Point of contact.
Follow-through.
Posture through and after the swing.

Because why wait years hoping precision eventually develops?

Let’s create the understanding—and then the conditions—for him to learn how to put the ball exactly where he wants it, with the appropriate spin, trajectory and weight for the situation.

“Just put it into the area” isn’t the standard.

Can you find the front-post runner?
Can you bend it behind the back line?
Can you drive it across the six?
Can you recognize the picture and intentionally produce the service it requires?

Today was only the beginning, but as you can see, he has tremendous capacity for this. I’m excited to see where it goes over the next several sessions.

The value of a wide player increases exponentially when the ball arriving from their side isn’t just a cross…

it’s a delivery with intention.

09/30/2026

Don’t waste the moments that didn’t work ….. He missed three chances, so we recreated all 3…..Your game is telling you what to train, just pay attention

Yesterday I had the opportunity to work with a very gifted striker from Triangle United MLS NEXT.

I start every session with the same question:

“Is there anything that showed up in training or a recent game that you want to give some attention and energy to today?”

His answer came immediately.

“I had three opportunities inside the box, and I wasn’t successful.”

Perfect. Now we know where to begin.

We recreated those moments.

Not simply to practice “finishing,” but to slow each situation down and look at everything that contributed to the outcome:

His movement before receiving the ball.
His positioning and body shape.
His decision.
His first touch.
The location of that touch.
His footwork and tempo to the ball.
His technique.
And even what he was seeing and thinking in the moment.

This, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful ways a young player can develop.

Your games are constantly telling you what you need to train.

Imagine beginning this process at 12 years old.

Play the game.
Identify the moments that didn’t go the way you wanted.
Recreate them.
Understand them.
Train them.
Then go play again.

Do that consistently for six years.

Think about the hundreds—potentially thousands—of situations you would have intentionally experienced, analyzed and trained by the time you’re 18.

Eventually, there are fewer and fewer moments in a game that feel unfamiliar becuase….

You’ve been there before.

Maybe not in that exact game, against that exact opponent, under those exact circumstances—but you’ve rehearsed the movement, solved the problem and experienced the moment both physically and mentally.

And to me, that is one of the greatest sources of confidence a player can have.

Confidence isn’t only telling yourself that you’re ready.

It’s having evidence that you’ve prepared for the moment.

09/30/2026

Watch till the end to understand!

09/29/2026

Yesterday I worked with an MLS NEXT Homegrown player who will be heading to Germany for trials in one month.

And I started the session with the exact same question I ask every player, regardless of age, level, or experience:

“What’s showing up in training or games right now that you want to improve? If you could wave a magic wand and be better at one thing an hour from now, what would it be?”

His answer:

Weak-foot passing. More accuracy. More consistency.

So we went all the way back to the ground floor.

No advanced drills. No complicated exercises because of the level of the player. We approached passing technique with a beginners mind and learning it for the first time.

There are a handful of details that influence the outcome of a pass that I didn’t include in this video, but I wanted to highlight two of the biggest:

1. Where your ankle bone goes, the ball goes.

If the ankle travels directly toward the target through contact and the follow-through, you dramatically improve your ability to send the ball where you intend.

2. Body-weight distribution matters.

If your weight isn’t properly distributed over the plant foot, through the ball and toward your target, you increase the likelihood of the ball leaving the ground when you’re trying to play a clean, pass along the grass.

Sometimes the fastest way to improve an advanced player is to stop treating the problem like it requires an advanced solution.

The level changes. The fundamentals don’t.

And when the margins become smaller at higher levels, those little technical details become even more important.

09/28/2026

You know that feeling when you show up to training and your body is there but everything else is somewhere else entirely?

Maybe you had a rough day at school. Maybe something happened at home. Maybe you are just exhausted in that deep way that sleep does not seem to fix.

And then the session starts and you spend the first twenty minutes feeling like you are playing through glass disconnected, slow, half a second behind every decision.

That is not a talent problem. That is not a fitness problem. That is an arrival problem.
The players who perform consistently at the highest level are not the ones who feel great every day.

They are the ones who have learned how to arrive how to bring their body and their mind into the same place at the same time before the first ball is played.

It starts with something so simple it sounds almost too easy.
Your breath.