A question like how to coach soccer needs an answer as simple as the questions itself but we must make efforts to find a precise one. In any case, youth soccer coaching is not an easy job and it takes a lot of effort to keep the players motivated under all types of situations.
Let me tell you 5 simple tips that’ll help you improve your team’s performance significantly, when followed religiously.
1. Your plans should be comprehensive: Make complete and methodical plans if you wish to get the desired results in coaching. Have a heart to heart discussion with the players when you sit down to discuss and decide the team’s objectives and the timelines to reach them. Results not achieved within the decided timelines can disrupt your progress.
Once decided, stick to the plan but leave some flexibility for minor changes as needed. Even the best plans need modifications due to unanticipated situations.
2. Practice sessions should be thrilling and fun-filled: When designing a practice schedule for kids, give due importance to the fact that variety in drills and exercises does the trick. This can be done a lot of ways. For example, after the practice session is over, divide them into small groups and introduce fun games that not only relax their mind but also promote team spirit among them.
3.Discipline and freedom go hand-in-hand: As a coach, maintaining discipline should be your top priority. Nonetheless, the fact that it is freedom form unnecessary control that motivates the kids to religiously follow the rules. In teaching soccer, freedom and relaxation are extremely valuable.
Give the players sufficient time between the drills so that they can do their own stuff, interact with each other and simply relax. Talking about how to coach soccer, it is also a good idea to take them out for camping or a pleasure trip for a day.
4. Maintain tolerance and support: Motivate your team to do new things and when these new things do not work out as expected, be cool about it. Keep their activities under check. If a situation is serious enough to require your action, jump in and correct it but without punishing the kids.
Bear in mind that when you retort, the kids feel intimidated and when you show compassion and encouragement, they feel motivated to do even better.
5. Balance things: It is in training sessions that kids get to know about their soccer skills and inherent talent. It is expected that in a team, there are some great players, some regular, while others are poor in performance. As a coach, it is your duty to use your best players to inspire and motivate the others.
Make the best and bad players pals so that they share tips and techniques while in a session and also after it. It is essential that the players do not feel being compared with each other.
Your goal; to start utilizing the tips that you’ve just learnt in providing answers to the thought of how to coach soccer.
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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: Youth Soccer Training.