Let me show you a neat way to remember a few vital soccer coaching factors that are instrumental in ascertaining your team’s philosophy and fulfilling 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.
Consistent Parental Guidance: During soccer training parental influence is very important for the mental and physical progress of your players, mainly on the match day. It’s not enough just to provide the parents with the brochure, “parental responsibilities” at the beginning of the term. Meetings with the parents should be set to discuss the concerns and reminding them the important points.
Upcoming soccer coaches: Your philosophy should emphasize the importance of development of the coaches along with the players. Assess and see if you can turn one of your kid’s parents into a soccer coach? They are the ideal candidates, not necessarily to start immediately, but may be in the future.
Selection: The drop out of players with great soccer skills is mostly because of 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, use a logical selection system which gives all players equal game time.
Time: Observe punctuality and tell the parents to be punctual as well. When the start times and finish times are clearly defined, you can execute the session very well.
Excitement: Is it imperative that every soccer coaching session has to be enjoyable? You must definitely try to make each session a delight for the kids but then, its not possible all the 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. So, the biggest challenge in teaching soccer is to be creative enough and keep introducing new and innovative ideas so that the kid’s remain interested in the game.
In soccer drills, it makes sense to keep escalating the difficulty aspect so that kids get skilled. A method of doing this is to start a game, introduce a problem, and then find a solution of it in a drill.
Success windows: Make an effort to create a success window for the season as an important part of your training. This necessitates for 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 example; time frame of minimum four and maximum eight weeks. This can be done for both team as well as individual team members.
Do good and adopt a soccer coaching philosophy like this become a part of the development phase of your kid’s training once the basics have been covered. To get the most out of your soccer coaching skills, join our youth soccer coaching community where you will find the best resources, tips, and tricks on youth soccer.
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.
