Soccer Coaching Drills

Let’s face it that like confidence, self-control in coaching high school soccer is an option that players can choose. Self-control strategies in soccer coaching depend upon the relationship between emotions and thoughts. It is a known fact that our emotional state influences our feelings and as a result of it, our performance is strengthened.

With a view to help the players in learning the skill and discipline of self-control, there is a 12 step strategy which I shall discuss with you. But make sure that your player’s only take these steps when they are sure of its value to them.

Also, players must be ready to take full accountability for their actions. The 12 steps are explained below.

1. Awareness: Help the players figure out their weak points during the course of coaching youth soccer. Let them examine when, where, and why loss of control has occurred previously on field.

2. Understanding: Make the players realize why their thinking changed and how it caused them to lose their emotional balance.

Coaching Youth Soccer

3. Differences: Let the players recall situations in the past when they did and did not lost control. Let them gauge the difference in their attitudes, emotions, and behavior.

4. Problem: When it comes to coaching high school soccer, try to point out the real problem. For instance: It may be the guilty feeling in a player that he let the whole team down due to his acts.

5. Belief: Help the players raise their own expectations including self-control as one of the character. Encourage them to change.

6. Reinforcement: A change in behavior is promoted by reinforcement. To make the improved skills of players as their permanent skills, you, being a coach, must reward them.

7. Goals: Set a series of small goals for players that will lead them along the road to change. Help the players understand the connection between thoughts, feelings, and actions.

8. Techniques: Build a series of behavioral techniques for maintaining confidence. For example: If a certain situation happens, this is the course that players must follow.

9. Plan: In football coaching, teach the players to pursue their goals in a planned and systematic way.

10. Progress: Tell them to be patient. Let them know that improvement always comes in a series of ups and downs.

11. Setbacks: Teach the players on how to live with the setbacks that are unavoidable. So, the better is to use these to learn new ways to tackle these.

12. Remembrance: Last but not the least, help the players understand that there is a reason behind their attempts to change. They must understand the importance of what they are doing. How important the change is for their future?

It is well known that a soccer player must act swiftly and yet comfortably to be perfect performer. In other words, the stress-free efficient performance.

This is of utmost importance. You must include relaxation techniques in coaching high school soccer and train the players on how to control the thought process so that they can keep themselves stress-free.

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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: Soccer Practice Drills.

I don’t know a thing about you, but I’ll bet that the attitude and behavior of the coach in coaching high school soccer strongly influences the performance of the players. In order to have a team that is mentally strong, the coaches should plan a course that strengthens a positive winning mind-set.

The coach plays an influential and a key authority figure in the player’s career. The coach’s body language, mind-set, and expressions can shape, strengthen, or harm the player’s confidence.

In coaching youth soccer, mental toughness is about meeting challenges with positive self control. Therefore, the coach must be the starting point in both practice and competition.

After the match, the coach should follow a disciplined routine to help him or her staying away from getting too high or too low. A competent coach will draw on ideas, narrative, and symbols, videos, and like that to shape the collective outlook of the team and ready them to be mentally strong on the playing field.

Coaching Youth Soccer

In football coaching, the coach who wants a mentally tough team must demonstrate a controlled way to deal with emotional setbacks despite personal feelings.

If the coach shows an unwavering belief in the team’s ability to achieve despite the obstacles, then the team has a framework for building the same mind-set and will become increasingly motivated.

In coaching high school soccer, another critical area for which the coach is responsible is handling mistakes and failure. The coach’s reaction to failure is the key to player’s motivation and desire to work hard to correct mistakes. There are two option for the coach to choose from.

Utilizing failures as an opportunity to give feedback to the players and guiding them towards their improvement can be opted as the first choice. The players should be persuaded to recommit themselves to the challenge with improved inspiration.

Second, use failure as evidence of the player’s inadequacy and proof that they cannot meet expectations. Players will get de-motivated because of this emotional overreaction.

By making the players to accept the responsibility for their judgments, outlooks, and dealings and rejecting all possible excuses, players can be made mentally tough. During the course of soccer coaching, coaches can help by questioning and listening rather than always tell the players what they did wrong. They should be encouraged to talk about what they could have done better.

This exercise is known as self-reference. The coach can take part in this by always encouraging the players to self reference. Instead of giving the players a definition of the situation, the coach can ask the player his or her reactions. For example; “How do you feel you played?” or “Why do you feel you behaved that way?”

This way the players must think through and account for his or her reactions which are a vital part of the learning process.

So, start applying the methods you just learnt, in coaching high school soccer.

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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: Kids Soccer Drills.

If you are like me, you probably know that in coaching high school soccer, the journey to becoming a complete player begins by building confidence. Often when you say that the players have to play under pressure in a game, it indicates your player’s lack of confidence to handle any situation. This is simply because success is the outcome of being confident of achieving it.

Like many choices we make, confidence as an attribute is also chosen by players. When coaching youth soccer, illustrate this point by telling them the behaviors of two parrots sitting on either shoulder.

One of them is the positive parrot, always urging the player to face up to the challenge saying “You can do it.” The other parrot has the tendency to de-motivate the players saying “You can’t do this.” Without a doubt, it’s the player who has to choose which parrot to take note of.

Once the choice has been made, teach them to take responsibility for their actions. And this may be an everyday decision. Prepare a team of successful players full of confidence by directing their attention, energy, and enthusiasm in practice towards their role in past success.

Coaching Youth Soccer

When it comes to soccer coaching, let it be known that blaming somebody or something else is a symptom of insecurity. As a matter of fact, players should be trained on taking every setback as a lesson to become even more confident and not to feel discouraged.

When coaching high school soccer, condition the players to see every lost opportunity as a lesson and they should keep telling themselves “I’ll get the next one.”
Thus, confidence for the next strike is remains unaffected because of the distress of the miss.

One of the keys to managing a successful team is your ability to make quick judgments regarding a player’s ability to survive the demands of competition. While football coaching, it is relatively easier to judge physical readiness than judging mental readiness.

Understandable and apparent messages are required to make such judgments possible. Look for both verbal and non verbal messages that the player is sure of his or her ability to succeed in the game.

Confidence comes from success. And success in soccer is more likely when you know you have done everything you could to get ready for situations that might build pressure. “If you are not preparing to win, you are preparing to fail” is a phrase often used to motivate players.

Confidence is built on experience. Players must be conditioned to take in their stride all fears, mistakes, defeats, and criticism to build the foundation of experience they need. It is the feeling that he or she has the knowledge, has been there before, and knows what to look forward to.

Don’t take it for granted. Building of confidence is an everyday task in coaching high school soccer, so players ought to reflect on positive and main steps for their realization.

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Andre Botelho is known online as “The Expert Youth Soccer Coach” and his free ebooks and reports have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Learn how to skyrocket your players’ skills and make practice sessions fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Soccer Coaching.

You might disagree, but hear me out on this when I say that in coaching high school soccer, communication is the first step to success. The term coaching signifies the 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.

In soccer coaching, I’ve come to notice that generally the former players have assumed the responsibility of being coaches. Even then they have to deal with many issues in coaching young players. Most of these issues are a result of lack of communication. Your role as a coach would become far easier if you just pay attention to some most important communication issues.

Let me explain them to you one at a time.

Coaches generally allow their emotions to become involved while watching their kids play. They tend to become spectators rather than analytical observers. As such they are not able to see the key points that could make all the difference in their team’s performance. They therefore lose the opportunity to have an objective conversation aimed at winning the game.

Though the coaches today are complete professionals fully acquainted with the game, they lack communication training. For instance; most coaches don’t use videos or flip charts in soccer coaching because they don’t know about them. When the coach finds it difficult to communicate his messages clearly, it brings monotony to the game even if he has a complete knowledge of the game.

Coaching Youth Soccer

It is even more important in case of coaching high school soccer because the players are not new to the game. They have been executing soccer drills for a long time at different levels. By keep on changing training format, coaches can avoid the monotony of repeating the same messages again and again.

It may come as a surprise to you that coaches often forget that their training sessions are carried out by people. They tend to get carried away in the process of coaching and training. An example of ineffective communication by a coach is when he fails to use a player’s name while giving instructions which produces uncertainty.

Some guidelines meant for coaches in football coaching include the following:

• All messages from the coach are important for players. So make sure that they are interpreted correctly.

• Use positive language that encourages players to give their best shot. Allow them to grow and become better players instead of highlighting their flaws.

• Make sure you spend quality time with all your players. Studies indicate that coaches spend relatively more time with star players in team (up to seven times more!).

• Adopt a proactive approach to identify the impending problems and solve them.

• Add force to the player’s confidence by harmonizing criticism with praise. Tilt the balance a little more towards praise with respect to coaching high school soccer.

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. You just have to subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community to get all the latest and relevant information pertaining to the game.

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.