Youth Soccer Drills

In coaching high school soccer, you may wish to disagree but it’s true that communication is the most important aspect to get success. The actual meaning of coaching kids is the art of communicating with them. It explains what you want of people in such a way that allows them to perform it.

In soccer coaching, I’ve come to notice that generally the former players have assumed the responsibility of being coaches. Still, there are several problems that they have to find solutions to. Most of these issues are a result of lack of communication. There are some major communication issues that you must understand as a coach to make your job easy and more effective.

I’ll explain them one by one.

Coaches generally allow their emotions to become involved while watching their kids play. They tend to become spectators rather than analytical observers. They tend to overlook some chief points that could help the team improve on certain fronts. The coaches fail to have an effective conversation that could help the players get to the winning post.

Even though the coaches are well versed with the technicalities of the game, they are not trained specifically on communication. For example; in soccer coaching, many coaches are not aware of the utility of a flip chart or a video. 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

In coaching high school soccer, communication becomes all the more important because the kids start to understand the game quite well. They have been working on these drills for some time but the standards are different. You can do away with the monotony of repetitive messages by frequently changing the layout of training.

You’ll be amazed to know that coaches tend to forget sometimes that it is people who carry out the trainings. They get so absorbed in the training and coaching as a process that they lose their ground. An example of ineffective communication by a coach is when he fails to use a player’s name while giving instructions which produces uncertainty.

There are certain guiding principles in football coaching which are as follows:

• Every message from the coach is equally important. So make sure that they are interpreted correctly.

• Your messages should have a positive impact on the players to put their best foot forward. Allow them to grow and become better players instead of highlighting their flaws.

• Spend equal time with all players. Research in this filed shows that coaches tend to spend comparatively more time with the best players (up to seven times more!).

• Communicate the potential issues that could arise and have a solution ready.

• Reinforce the player’s self esteem by balancing praise with criticism. Tilt the balance a little more towards praise with respect to coaching high school soccer.

Trust me. When you apply these rules to your training sessions, the benefits will be much more that you’ll expect.

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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.

When it comes to coaching high school soccer, the first step towards success is the confidence building amongst players who have the potential to become brilliant players. When you declare that the players are under immense pressure, you as a coach are hinting to the fact that your players lack confidence to face a situation. This is because it is only with confidence that we expect success.

Like many choices we make, confidence as an attribute is also chosen by players. Explain this point in coaching youth soccer by telling them the conduct to two parrots sitting on both shoulders.

One of them is the positive parrot, always urging the player to face up to the challenge saying “You can do it.” The other is the negative parrot, constantly warning the player “You can’t do this.” That’s why it the player who has to make a choice between which parrot to follow.

Once the choice has been made, teach them to take responsibility for their actions. And this may be an everyday decision. Build confidence in the players by emphasizing their involvement in past successes and ready successful players to make a strong team.

Coaching Youth Soccer

In soccer coaching, players should be made to know that blaming someone or something is a signal of insecurity. Rather teach players to take the setbacks as an integral part of the learning curve and not something to deter their confidence levels.

Similarly in coaching high school soccer, the most important self-conversation for any player missing an opportunity to score is the phrase “I’ll get the next one.”
Thus, confidence for the next strike is remains unaffected because of the distress of the miss.

In a team, caliber, mental strength and judgments regarding a player’s ability to survive the demands of competition, hold the key for its success. In football coaching, there is always a close call between judging physical and mental readiness, but in the end, physical readiness wins the battle.

To make such judgments easy, there is a need of searching clear messages. The spoken and unspoken messages of the player should be taken into account to ensure his or her ability to succeed in the game.

Confidence is the fruit of 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. The common stimulus used for motivating the players is “If you are not preparing to win, you are preparing to fail.”

Experience is a building block of confidence. Players must be conditioned to take in their stride all fears, mistakes, defeats, and criticism to build the foundation of experience they need. The feeling of he or she having the knowledge, a little more know – how due to experience and thus, the thought process of planning the next step, prevails.

Don’t take it for granted. Building of confidence in coaching high school soccer is an everyday task, so players should reflect on certain key steps to discover what works for them.

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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.

Speaking of coaching high school soccer, the outlook and behavior of the coach are the most important influences affecting a player’s performance. A coach should prepare a course that stresses the development of a positive winning attitude with a view to have a mentally tough team.

The coach is an important and an influential authority figure in player’s lives. The coach’s body language, mind-set, and expressions can shape, strengthen, or harm the player’s confidence.

When coaching youth soccer, mental strength is required to meet the challenges through a positive willpower. Therefore, the coach must be the starting point in both practice and competition.

The coach will find that a disciplined post-match routine is helpful in ensuring that he or she does not get either too high or too low. A successful coach will exploit ideas, anecdotes, and images, videos, and all that to shape the collective attitude of the team and train them to be mentally tough in practice.

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.

Dealing with mistakes and failure is another area in coaching high school soccer, for which the coach is solely responsible. How strong the players feels motivated to correct the mistakes made is largely dependent upon the coach’s reaction to failure. A coach has got only two choices.

One is to use failure as an opportunity to give the players feedback on how to improve. The players should be persuaded to recommit themselves to the challenge with improved inspiration.

The player’s dearth and attestation that he cannot meet the expectations can be used as an evidence of failure. Such a heartbreaking overreaction might de-motivate the players.

Players can be made psychologically strong by accommodating the accountability for their judgment, stances, and actions and rejecting all probable excuses. While soccer coaching, the coaches can help the players by questioning and listening them rather than always telling the players of their mistakes. The players should be encouraged to talk about their better performance which they could deliver.

This exercise is known as self-reference. Self reference can be encouraged in the players by the coach to motivate them to perform better. The coach can discuss the situation by asking the players their reaction rather than giving them a definition of the situation. For example; “How do you feel you played?” or “Why do you feel you behaved that way?”

It is important for the players to think deeply and thoroughly and then account for their reactions which are very critical 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.

When it comes to coaching high school soccer, we must accept the fact that self-control is a choice just like confidence that players must make. In soccer coaching, it’s the relation between emotions and thoughts that concludes the self control strategies. We all know that our state of mind influences our emotions, which in turn strengthens our performance.

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. Still, it is better that players take up these steps only when they feel that it is going to be of value to them.

Also, players must be ready to take full accountability for their actions. These are the 12 steps for your information.

1. Awareness: Assist the players in finding out their weaknesses in 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: Allow them to go back in time and recall situations where they did not lose control and where they did. Have them decide the differences in their attitudes, behaviors, and emotions.

4. Problem: Make an attempt to identify the exact problem in coaching high school soccer. For example: Is it the guilt of letting the whole team down because of their performance?

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

6. Reinforcement: Reinforcement encourages a change in behavior. Therefore, you must not forget your duty as a coach to recognize and honor the improvements of players so that they stick to these.

7. Goals: Start with multiple smaller goals, so that you can take your players along the path to changes. Guide the players in understanding the correlation between way of thinking, thought process, and actions.

8. Techniques: Build a series of behavioral techniques for maintaining confidence. For example: Players must know which path to follow in a certain situation.

9. Plan: In football coaching, train the players to systematically and considerably follow their goals.

10. Progress: Tell them to be patient. Help the players realize the value of ups and downs in the path to improvement.

11. Setbacks: Teach the players on how to live with the setbacks that are unavoidable. So, the best way is learn from them and become even stronger.

12. Remembrance: Last but an important point is to let the players identify the good reason behind the change. They should always be clear about what are they doing and why. What will their future be like, if they don’t change.

It is well known that a soccer player must act swiftly and yet comfortably to be perfect performer. This simply means use of full energy without stress.

You must not make any mistake about it. Including relaxation techniques in coaching high school soccer and help players control their thinking so they can generate emotions that remove unnecessary tension and save energy.

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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.