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.
Consistent Parental Guidance: During soccer training parental influence is very important for the mental and physical progress of your players, mainly on the match day. “Parental responsibilities”, the brochure supplied when the term starts is not sufficient. Regular meetings should be arranged with the parents to highlight the key points again and discuss issues.
Developing soccer coaches: Training of soccer coaches should be an integral part of your philosophy instead of targeting the players. 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 drop out of players with great soccer skills is mostly because of non-selection. Studies reveal, that the players think that they would not get selected for a good team so they opt for a bad team. Hence, a fair selection system should be used so that all the players are given equal game time.
Time: The session should be started on time and the parents should also be told to be on time. When the start times and finish times are clearly defined, you can execute the session very well.
Excitement: Is it absolutely necessary that all the soccer coaching sessions are entertaining? 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. Therefore, the biggest obstacle that coaches face is to be creative enough to bring about new drills every now and then.
In soccer drills, keep increasing the level of difficulty for the player’s to grow. A method of doing this is to start a game, introduce a problem, and then find a solution of it in a drill.
Success windows: Try and include a success window for the season as a vital part of your training sessions. 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.
For instance, time frame of minimum four and maximum eight weeks. This can be achieved for both the team members and the individual members.
Do good and adopt a soccer coaching philosophy like this become a part of the development phase of your kid’s training once the basics have been covered. In order to be more resourceful, full of knowledge, and gain tips and techniques, enroll for 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.
