No matter how experienced you may be in the field of soccer, a query like how to coach soccer gets you into a thinking mode. After all, youth soccer coaching is a dynamic and a difficult job and it is not easy to keep the players motivated to deliver under extreme pressure.
I wish to give to you 5 easy yet effective tips that have the potential to better your team’s performance with time.
1.Make comprehensive plans: Careful and meticulous planning is essential to achieving success in coaching. When deciding the team goals and the timelines to achieve them, involve the players and take their opinions into consideration too. If the desired results are not achieved within the stipulated timelines, your team’s growth is hampered.
Once decided, stick to the plan but leave some flexibility for minor changes as needed. There are unanticipated situations that require changes in even well made plans.
2. Practice sessions should be a whole lot of fun: Boring and repetitive training drills are bound to bring down the enthusiasm of young players when performed regularly. This can be done a lot of ways. For example, after the practice session is over, divide them into small groups and introduce fun games that not only relax their mind but also promote team spirit among them.
3. Both freedom and discipline should complement one another: A coach should always give priority to discipline in the team. But, what is important to understand is that freedom is also as important for the kids to feel strongly towards discipline. In teaching soccer, freedom and relaxation are extremely valuable.
Allow time to players in between drills to do their own things, simply relax, or share stuff among them. In preaching how to coach soccer, it is also extremely important to venture out with the kids on a picnic or an outdoor get together.
4. Be Supportive and tolerant: Always inspire the team to experiment on new things and when they make mistakes, be tolerant. Keep a close watch on their activities. If you must intervene to correct a potential blunder or a silly mistake, do it without reprimanding them.
Know that when you punish, the players get distraught while being compassionate and encouraging leads to good ideas and positive energy.
5. Keep a balance: A training field is the best place to help the kids recognize their soccer skills and talent. When we talk of a team, it is sensible to acknowledge that there is a mix of good, the bad, and the worst performers. As a coach, it is your duty to use your best players to inspire and motivate the others.
Befriend the good and bad players together so that stay with each other maximum and share the techniques during and after the sessions. It is also important that there are no comparisons drawn out amongst players at any point in time.
Your objective now is to make sure that you use these tips to improve your approach about how to coach soccer.
You can also join our youth soccer coaching community to learn more and dramatically improve your coaching skills.
Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Youth Soccer Training.