A Guide To Soccer Coaching Philosophy
Here’s a really simple way to remember some of the key soccer coaching factors that are required in determining your team philosophy and run with it. This philosophy can be applied to your youth team with relative ease as it is easier than you think.
These are 6 elements; parents, coaches, excitement, selection, time, and success windows that are needed for a successful youth coaching philosophy.
Consistent Parental Support: When we talk about soccer training the influence of parents is vital in the mental and physical development of your players, most importantly on the day the match is taking place. A brochure of the “parental responsibilities” at the beginning of the season is not enough. Meetings with the parents should be set to discuss the concerns and reminding them the important points.
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. Assess and see if you can turn one of your kid’s parents into a soccer coach? They would be the best candidates, not required in the beginning, but might be an option for the future.
Selection: One of the biggest reasons why players with great soccer skills drop out is non-selection. Studies show that players would rather get selected for a bad team out of the fear of getting rejected for a good team. Thus a logical system which provides the players equal game time should be used.
Time: Start the session on time and tell the parents to be on time as well. When the start times and finish times are clearly defined, you can execute the session very well.
Excitement: Is it imperative that every soccer coaching session has to be enjoyable? Yes, try to make every session enjoyable for the kids but also understand that it may not be possible every time. So adopt “excitement” as a substitute for this.
When training the kids, it is certain that the coach will have problems with ideas on how to make practice drills interesting. 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 is a good idea to keep increasing the level of difficulty every time. A way of doing this is to begin a game, take note of a problem, and then remove it with the help of a soccer drill.
Success windows: Make success windows a part of a season for every training session. 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.
Favor yourself 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. For more information, join our youth coaching community which has a collection of relevant material and resources on youth soccer.
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.
