Let me show you a neat way to remember a few vital soccer coaching factors that are instrumental in ascertaining your team’s philosophy and fulfilling it. Using this philosophy for your youth team can be very practical; and simpler than you may think.
There are 6 factors; parents, coaches, excitement, selection, time and success windows which are required for an effective youth coaching philosophy.
Communicating with Parents regularly: Parental influence is the key factor for soccer training which is essential in the mental and physical growth of your players, particularly on the day of the match. It’s not enough just to provide the parents with the brochure, “parental responsibilities” at the beginning of the term. An effective strategy would be is to have regular meetings with them to remind them the essential points and share problems.
New soccer coaches: An important part of the philosophy is that you should not only concentrate on development of the players, but also the coaches. You may try if one of your kid’s parents can become a soccer coach? They would be the best candidates, not required in the beginning, but might be an option for the future.
Selection: The greatest reason for players with great soccer skills to lose interest is non-selection. According to the research, players go in bad teams saying that they are fearful of not getting selected in a good team. Thus a logical system which provides the players equal game time should be used.
Time: Observe punctuality and tell the parents to be punctual as well. When you define the start times and finish times clearly, it helps you deliver the session effectively.
Excitement: Is it a must that each soccer coaching session is interesting? You must definitely try to make each session a delight for the kids but then, its not possible all the time. So adopt “excitement” as a substitute for this.
While training the kids, it is natural for every coach to run out of ideas on how to make practice drills exciting and enjoyable. So, the biggest challenge in teaching soccer is to be creative enough and keep introducing new and innovative ideas so that the kid’s remain interested in the game.
In soccer drills, it makes sense to keep escalating the difficulty aspect so that kids get skilled. One way of doing this is to start with a game, identify a problem and then eliminate it by performing a related soccer drill.
Success windows: Make an effort to create a success window for the season as an important part of your training. This actually requires you to determine a lower limit and an upper limit of time with a view to measure the level of success that needs to be achieved.
To take an example, time frame of minimum four and maximum eight weeks. This can be done for both team as well as individual team members.
Do yourself a favor and have a soccer coaching philosophy like this become a part of the development phase of your kid’s training once the basics have been covered. If you would like more such knowledge and resources, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community.
Andre Botelho is the author of “The Expert Youth Soccer Coaching Guide” and he’s a recognized expert in the subject of youth soccer coaching. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make coaching sessions fun in less than 29 days! Download your free pdf guide at: Soccer Coaching Drills.
Tags: soccer coaching, soccer drills, soccer skills, soccer training