In coaching high school soccer, you may wish to disagree but it’s true that communication is the most important aspect to get success. Coaching is an art of communication. It lets you speak to mind in the simplest way and allow the other to do the activity in exactly the same way.
When it comes to soccer coaching, I’ve observed that most of the coaches often are the ex-players. Yet, there are a number of issues that they are forced to handle. Majority of these issues come up due to communication lags. There are some major communication issues that you must understand as a coach to make your job easy and more effective.
Let me explain them to you one at a time.
When coaches watch their kids playing, they tend to become emotional. Instead of acting as analytical observers, they become more of spectators. They fail to notice the important points that could better their team’s performance. As such they lose the focus on directing the team towards a win by way of an effective conversation.
The coaches are generally not trained to communicate effectively although they have all the knowledge of the game. For example; use of flip charts and videos in soccer coaching is not applied by many coaches as they aren’t aware of them. The coach may be technically talented but if he not able to communicate properly, regular practice sessions get really boring for the kids.
In coaching high school soccer, communication becomes all the more important because the kids start to understand the game quite well. They have been executing soccer drills for a long time at different levels. And one of the ways to avoid the boredom of repeating important messages is to keep varying the format.
It may come as a surprise to you that coaches often forget that their training sessions are carried out by people. They get so absorbed in the training and coaching as a process that they lose their ground. When a coach tries to instruct something to the play but does not use that player’s name, it creates confusion and is an apt example of bad communication.
Some guiding principles for coaches in football coaching are given below:
• All messages from the coach are important for players. So it’s necessary that they are deduced correctly.
• Use positive language that encourages players to give their best shot. Help them to improve rather than reprimanding them for not playing well.
• Spend equal time with all players. It has come to light through various studies that coaches spend much more time with their top players (up to seven times more!).
• Adopt a proactive approach to identify the impending problems and solve them.
• Accentuate your player’s self worth by balancing praise with criticism. In coaching high school soccer, the balance should be a bit more towards the praise.
Accept as true. Application of these simple strategies to your training programs will have far reaching results for your team.
There’s lot more to know and understand about this aspect of soccer only if you wish to. Subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community and get tips, and tricks in form of articles, newsletters, as well as videos.
Andre Botelho is a recognized expert in youth soccer coaching. He influences well over 35,000 youth coaches each year with his unique coaching philosophy, and makes it really easy to explode your players’ skills and make training more fun in record time. To download your free youth soccer coaching guide visit: Coaching high school soccer.
Tags: Coaching high school soccer, coaching youth soccer, football coaching, soccer coaching