Where do I start?
As a starting soccer coach on the Central Coast of NSW there are many lessons to learn. Central Coast Football runs a number of Community Coaching programs and one that is highly recommended is Youth Licence I and II courses.
One of the flaws in the Youth Licence course once completed is that it did not do much to teach technique and skills and was more focused on running lots of small sided games. If you do not have a background in playing football this may be quite a challenge for the new coach.
Some Common Mistakes of the First Time Soccer Coach
Mistake 1
Resist the temptation to let the your players just play "normal" soccer. For the younger player this can become a disaster as they can tend to bicker, fight and generally just want to win without any attempt to learn the game! A rule that might work well is play lots of games, just resist games which involve to much competition and focus more on fun.
Mistake 2
Set the Ground rules in regards to behaviour. From the outset with your new team let them know what you expect in regards to behaviour. For example let them know that when you are talking that they need to stop talking. It can be helpful with this to get them to take a knee or move their body so that it makes them think. Do not allow any violence or anti-competitive behaviour. This should not be tolerated at all and if a child does the wrong thing they need to be sat out or talk with their parents on how best to deal with this behaviour. t
Mistake 3
Don't worry about winning. This will touched on later, however, particularly in youth coaching it is recommended to ignore the score board and also ignore any parents that would make you think this is the primary goal for youth soccer. If a player or a parent has this as their motivation it is recommended to work with them to try and shift their mindset.
So what's changed?
There are numerous resources available for sale and also some for Free on the internet. One that is highly recommended is a series called Soccer U. Here are some strategies from this series that works well.
1. Touches on the ball at every session. One of the key points of Soccer U in regards to training sessions is to ensure that you maximise the amount of time the children have the ball at their feet. All children need their own ball as much as possible. If you want them to warm up and would normally run laps, get a ball at their feet when they do this and get them to practice dribbling at the same time!
2. Ball Mastery (technique) is fundamental. It all starts here. On Soccer U they take you through a series of what they call Touch Stations and then Move Stations. I have since purchased a few hundred cones, labelled a number of them and the beginning of each session is the same for the first 20 minutes or so. Benefits are that the boys know what we are going to do at the start of every session and they just get into this. They are also perfecting their footwork which is really showing at game time.
3. Passing and how to kick are the next areas to focus on. Soccer U spends a lot of time teaching you how to correctly kick a ball. I have found this very hard to do in real life and am still trying to work out a method to teach this. Passing is a different story and there are hundreds of drills that can be run to cement this skill.
4. Find out about Coerver Coaching. They have DVD's as well as a resource manual which is worth its weight in gold. Coerver drills keeps the children engaged, develops great skills and first and foremost is fun.
5. Focus on developing the player and don't worry about the results. A primary focus is that the soccer player is playing good football. Have the players show creativity during game time. Play in the formation you want them to. Keep their head up with the receive the ball. Apply skills learnt in training at game time! If we do all these things then the results tend to look after themselves.
It is surprising how quickly young players will adapt and adopt new skills.
In future articles articles looking at formations, substitutions and impressions on how to take soccer/football forward in Australia.
As a starting soccer coach on the Central Coast of NSW there are many lessons to learn. Central Coast Football runs a number of Community Coaching programs and one that is highly recommended is Youth Licence I and II courses.
One of the flaws in the Youth Licence course once completed is that it did not do much to teach technique and skills and was more focused on running lots of small sided games. If you do not have a background in playing football this may be quite a challenge for the new coach.
Some Common Mistakes of the First Time Soccer Coach
Mistake 1
Resist the temptation to let the your players just play "normal" soccer. For the younger player this can become a disaster as they can tend to bicker, fight and generally just want to win without any attempt to learn the game! A rule that might work well is play lots of games, just resist games which involve to much competition and focus more on fun.
Mistake 2
Set the Ground rules in regards to behaviour. From the outset with your new team let them know what you expect in regards to behaviour. For example let them know that when you are talking that they need to stop talking. It can be helpful with this to get them to take a knee or move their body so that it makes them think. Do not allow any violence or anti-competitive behaviour. This should not be tolerated at all and if a child does the wrong thing they need to be sat out or talk with their parents on how best to deal with this behaviour. t
Mistake 3
Don't worry about winning. This will touched on later, however, particularly in youth coaching it is recommended to ignore the score board and also ignore any parents that would make you think this is the primary goal for youth soccer. If a player or a parent has this as their motivation it is recommended to work with them to try and shift their mindset.
So what's changed?
There are numerous resources available for sale and also some for Free on the internet. One that is highly recommended is a series called Soccer U. Here are some strategies from this series that works well.
1. Touches on the ball at every session. One of the key points of Soccer U in regards to training sessions is to ensure that you maximise the amount of time the children have the ball at their feet. All children need their own ball as much as possible. If you want them to warm up and would normally run laps, get a ball at their feet when they do this and get them to practice dribbling at the same time!
2. Ball Mastery (technique) is fundamental. It all starts here. On Soccer U they take you through a series of what they call Touch Stations and then Move Stations. I have since purchased a few hundred cones, labelled a number of them and the beginning of each session is the same for the first 20 minutes or so. Benefits are that the boys know what we are going to do at the start of every session and they just get into this. They are also perfecting their footwork which is really showing at game time.
3. Passing and how to kick are the next areas to focus on. Soccer U spends a lot of time teaching you how to correctly kick a ball. I have found this very hard to do in real life and am still trying to work out a method to teach this. Passing is a different story and there are hundreds of drills that can be run to cement this skill.
4. Find out about Coerver Coaching. They have DVD's as well as a resource manual which is worth its weight in gold. Coerver drills keeps the children engaged, develops great skills and first and foremost is fun.
5. Focus on developing the player and don't worry about the results. A primary focus is that the soccer player is playing good football. Have the players show creativity during game time. Play in the formation you want them to. Keep their head up with the receive the ball. Apply skills learnt in training at game time! If we do all these things then the results tend to look after themselves.
It is surprising how quickly young players will adapt and adopt new skills.
In future articles articles looking at formations, substitutions and impressions on how to take soccer/football forward in Australia.
No comments:
Post a Comment