Coaching Youth Soccer Drills: 8 Aspects Coaches Miss

Coaching youth soccer drills can be exciting and fun but there are important aspects every coach needs to take into consideration. You may say that some of these are just simple common sense, but they are not for sure common practice:

1. Don’t make speeches. If you’re a youth soccer coach and your teaching young kids, it’s especially important that you don’t bore them with long speeches and lectures. Whatever you have to say to your player during a training sessions on game, just make sure you keep it simple and short.

2. Don’t complicate things. If you’re demonstrating an exercise, try to break it down to its basics. Complicated things never work and this is not different. You can test this by showing the kids a complicated soccer diagram of a drill with fancy arrows and dozens of instructions, you’ll lose their interest.

3. Don’t be a ball boy- it’s critical that you understand that it’s not your task to run and catch the balls. This can affect your authority and control over the players and severely damage the respect they have for you. They need to go get it.

4. It’s important that you don’t allow the ball-kids to join practice if they are there just to get the balls. This simply signals a laxity in discipline- ball boys are just there to get the ball. If they ask to be part of the practice session, make them know that they can’t do both.

5. Never, ever criticize the player. If one of the kids makes something wrong, don’t blame him. Point out the flaws in their technique or skill and do that calmly. Screaming at a player for being ’stupid’ is a great way to make them want to leave your team.

6. While coaching youth soccer drills, explain it clearly and as briefly as possible. After that it’s time to show the kids how it’s done. They will understand it if you do it properly. Conversely, don’t try and demonstrate something that you can’t do.

7. Health and safety should always be foremost in a coach’s mind. This means making sure that the ground and the equipment are in good shape before your soccer training session starts. Remember that if a kid sprains his ankle because the ground was slippery, then it’s technically your fault.

8. Don’t leave the parents out in the dark. Make sure you hold meetings from time to time with parents and keep them informed about future events and the team’s concerns. Parents are a powerful ally when it comes to keep your coaching activities running smoothly.

When coaching youth soccer drills, these are important aspects that every coach should consider. You can discover how to improve the soccer skills of your players really fast and make training more fun and exciting at SoccerDrillsTips . com.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Soccer Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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