Soccer Fitness

You’ve probably heard it a hundred times that soccer coaching requires many different traits in a coach. You need patience, determination, humility, and desire to learn more, the ability to lead your team etc in order to successfully coach soccer. You also need to find out different ways to move your players from one training stage to another.

A soccer coach is equivalent to a leader. I would like to let you know of some important points in soccer training. Good coaching does not mean training young players like the professionals. It means training them according to their age. It then results in long term success both on and off the field and doing it correctly.

This article is all about tips on helping to train your kids in the best and the most competent manner. What follows is a list of criteria that acts as a key to coaching soccer.

It does not mean that a better knowledge of soccer automatically translates into a better coach. He will at the most be a good soccer academician. Simultaneously, it is vital that you have much knowledge to be a great soccer coach. If you have no clue about the game of soccer, there is no way on earth that you can impart the necessary soccer skills to your kids.

Soccer Coaching

One vital characteristic of the coach is the skill to teach. If you have the knowledge but cannot transform that knowledge into action for your players, it’s of no use.

Just because one team wins all the time does not reflect that the person in charge is a brilliant soccer coach. It may be that the team has certain exceptional players that are the reason for its continuous winning rather than coaching.

The sense to infuse your players with great inspiration time and again is a necessary trait to be a successful coach. To talk of soccer coaching, you are supposed to have great soccer abilities, sound physical shape, and mental alertness.

At times, you feel helpless in not being able to win games. For instance, there are no skilled players in your team. But it’s not always your fault. By way of patience, your knowledge of the game, and your ability to teach by way of essential soccer drills, the soccer team that you inherited is bound to get better.

Remember soccer is a game and we all like to win. But it is patience that will allow your team to grow and players to get better.

If any of this is missing, your team will weaken in its ability to win games. At times, your team may not have the mental readiness to do well. 

Some food for thought; good soccer coaching means more than just winning. A coach is best described as the person who is in charge of a team. You can become a member of our youth coaching community and enhance your knowledge on the game through lots of relevant videos, periodic newsletters, and articles available there, so subscribe today.

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: Soccer coaching.

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. Using this philosophy for your youth team can be very practical; and simpler than you may think.

The 6 essential factors which are required for an effective youth coaching philosophy are; parents, coaches, excitement, selection, time, and success windows.

Communicating with Parents regularly: Parental influence is the key factor for soccer training which is essential in the mental and physical growth of your players, particularly on the day of the match. It’s not enough just to provide the parents with the brochure, “parental responsibilities” at the beginning of the term. Arrange for regular meetings with them so that the key points can be repeated and concerns shared.

Future soccer coaches: A vital part of your philosophy should not just focus on developing the players, but also the coaches. The kid’s parents can also be considered for soccer coaching. They would be the best candidates, not required in the beginning, but might be an option for the future.

Soccer Coaching

Selection: Players with great soccer skills drop out mainly due to 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. Therefore, with the help of a rational selection system all the player could be given equal game time.

Time: Observe punctuality and tell the parents to be punctual as well. When you define the start times and finish times clearly, it helps you deliver the session effectively.

Excitement: Is it absolutely necessary that all the soccer coaching sessions are entertaining? 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. As such, the biggest hurdle that the coaches face is with regard to the creativity aspect of coming up with fun drills every now and then.

In soccer drills, it makes sense to keep escalating the difficulty aspect so that kids get skilled. 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 an effort to create a success window for the season as an important part of your training. 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 done for both team as well as individual team members.

Do yourself a favor 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. If you would like more such knowledge and resources, subscribe to 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.

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 a good thing but nothing works more than the 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: A coach must have the willingness to learn new strategies for the growth of the kids. Understanding of the game’s rules, strategies, and tactics is a basic prerequisite for gaining player’s respect.

Enthusiasm and Interest: During a soccer training program, take the role of 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.

Soccer Coaching

Persistence and Patience: it is suicidal to overlook 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. Setting unrealistic objectives leads to frustration in players. Therefore, be patient and persevere as players try to motivate themselves in moving from one session to another.

Ability to manage priorities: Work out a step-by-step technique of learning that caters to the requirements of all  the players in the team. During soccer coaching, players must get sufficient time and opportunities to practice the lessons learnt during training. Only after each player has understood and mastered a skill, a new one should be introduced.

Single-mindedness: A coach must be specifically interested in the skills and social and moral behaviour of each player. If you remain sensitive to their needs and aspirations, you will surely win them over. To develop into a great player, strength of character in victory as well as in defeat lays foundation for a player’s success.

Understand the learning process: A better understanding of the learning process will help in effective player and team development. Give confidence to the players to be enthusiastic in exercises that help them change 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: Create situations that challenge the player’s imaginations, bring them pleasure in performing tasks, and serve important game drills. Inspire the players to make their sessions enjoyable and interesting.

Please yourself and take these soccer coaching attributes and there will be no reason why you won’t be rated as a superior coach. 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.