If you are like me, you will probably have no difficulty in understanding the significance of soccer practice games as compared to drills. Firstly, it’s imperative that kids are more focused on acquiring the skills and working upon them to better their movement with the ball. But there are certain points that you must check when they advance in their soccer training.
What works best is that kids are randomly grouped so that they get to develop their individual styles along with having fun just like we talked about before. First and foremost, the kids must get the freedom to decide on various issues concerning them and this is possible only when the size of the group is small.
This way your kids find a lot of open space to move in the field, get to touch the ball many more times, and feel responsible for their decisions as the number of players in quite less in the group.
However, as players get accustomed to smaller groups and their skills improve, it is time to make some variations. In soccer practice games, it’s the time to initiate progressions. It requires you to make more strict rules for playing the game that too in relatively larger fields with few more players added into the group. Now you must initiate comprehensive strategies that serve the dual purpose of honing individual skills of players along with team’s objectives.
Here, I’d like to mention something that needs particular attention. Almost all coaches take the wrong path of teaching everything in a very short time span in the hope of having trained players ahead of time. Please remember that shortcuts don’t work here. You just cannot mechanize the process like in soccer drills. It has to be a natural progression that takes time.
The plans suffer and results decline when coaches lay a lot of emphasis on competition, introduce players to soccer terminologies early, or make a lot of rules and regulations. This leads to a block in their ability to learn.
As the players make a move from small batches to large ones, they should understand the purpose behind devising the games. It is an important transition from concentrating on your own skills to thinking about how your skills will help the team win.
In this period, along with games, you must also encourage free dialog with your team. Remember that the players now understand soccer and various techniques and positions. Hence, it is an error of judgment to doubt their abilities in soccer exercises.
Involving them in decision making and encouraging them to come out with their thoughts will go a long way in inculcating a sense of responsibility in them.
The games should now concentrate on making the kids think proactively about winning matches. When the players think themselves as a team and not as individual players, you have succeeded in your job as a coach.
Now you must use this knowledge in your plan. Soccer practice games are essential for making the kids learn naturally and so you must be very creative in selecting them. sSubscribe to our youth soccer coaching community that has tremendous resources on youth soccer.
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Tags: soccer drills, soccer exercises, Soccer practice games, soccer training