Have you ever imagined how lack of soccer coaching and playing experience can affect the proficiency and confidence of a coach? Allow me to present different angles of a coach’s persona that can aptly be called the traits of a soccer coach.
Personality: Experience is an effective tool but it’s not nearly as important as personality. How successful a coach is, is determined by his/her personality, whether the end-result is a fun game without any physical and mental pressures or the creation of a consistently strong team.
Knowledge of the game: It’s imperative for a coach to be ready to learn new strategies and latest techniques in soccer. Understanding of the game’s rules, strategies, and tactics is a basic prerequisite for gaining player’s respect.
Enthusiasm and interest: In the course of a soccer training program, become a salesperson. When they begin to like the session, inspiring them becomes an easy task. It’s also vital to be open to a player’s needs with respect to team goals, no matter what their age. If the kids freely ask questions, their interest in the game is sustained.
Persistence and Patience: It is bad to ignore the inability of the player to perform soccer drills. When a player cannot perform well, he or she does not show the inclination for lessons. Putting up unreal goals leads to frustration in young players. Therefore, be patient and persevere as players try to motivate themselves in moving from one session to another.
Ability to manage priorities: Devise a step-by-step method of learning that meets the needs of all players in the team. During soccer coaching, players must get sufficient time and opportunities to practice the lessons learnt during training. Only after the old skills have been mastered, should you move to the new skill.
Single-mindedness: A coach must take a genuine interest in the skills and social and moral behavior of each player. If you remain sensitive to their needs and aspirations, you will surely win them over. In order to be a great player, strength of character in victory as well as in defeat builds the foundation for a player’s success.
Understand the learning process: A concise understanding of the process of learning results in overall team development. Inspire the players to go all out in doing exercises that make a difference to their thinking and acting.
Motivate the players to learn soccer skills through participation, demonstration, and guidance. The learning process ends only when the kids do what they have been taught. Learning requires active experience and not just plain teaching.
Imagination: Make situations that challenge the player’s imaginations, bring them pleasure in performing tasks, and serve important game drills. Cheer up the players to make their sessions more innovative and pleasing.
In your own interest, use these soccer coaching attributes and you will see yourself rise to the heights of soccer coaching. You can subscribe to more of such simple yet effective tips and techniques on our youth coaching community pages, so join today!
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 Practice.