This post is for everyone who is considering a coaching role for kids. Being a good youth soccer coach is a whole different task than being a soccer coach for adults. In many instances the best adult soccer coaches are actually quite bad at coaching children. What makes the job as soccer coach for kids so special?
The most important difference is the reasons for playing the game. In every youth team there is some kids who are there just to have fun and some who play to get better. Some of the children are there to have fun, but the parents have ambitions on their behalf. In adult teams the motivation is generally much more aligned.
Some reasons that children decide to participate in sports:
- To develop their skills and get better
- To have fun
- To be with their friends
- Because they love to compete
- To get in better physical shape
- To show others that they are competent
Some reasons that children stop participating in sport:
- No development
- Not having fun
- Their friends are not participating
- Because they feel that they cant compete
- They feel that their physical fitness is not improving
- The balance between competency and challenges is tipped
UNDERSTAND THE TASK
So what would a good youth soccer coach consider to be his most important task?
Is it to make on player in the team as good as Lionel Messi? Or maybe you view it as a failure if your team does not win every game they play? For me, thinking in that way is focusing on the wrong things. The focus should always be on the players and what is best for them.
Simply put, the most important task is making sure that every player gets the input he or she needs to stay motivated. A youth team can have a lot of problems, but the biggest one is without a doubt if players are quitting.
From the the two lists above we can say there are several different reasons for both participating and to stop participating. If we pair these up, we can start to form a overarching strategy to keep players happy and motivated.
BREAKING DOWN THE MOTIVATIONAL PAIRS
Pair 1: To develop their skills and get better/No development
Solution: A good balance between challenge and mastery is what drives development in every field. Therefore we need to make sure that every player gets challenged at his own level where he also can experience competency.
Pair 2: To have fun/Not having fun
Solution: This is probably the easiest to achieve. Making sure our practices is based on activities that players consider fun is most of the time enough. Also, social activities is something that players considers important and fun.
Pair 3: To be with their friends/Their friends are not participating
Solution: Usually every group has subgroups where the players are closer friends. You as a coach should let them be together in training as well. You also have the possibility to create new friendships inside the groups. If you manage to create a group where everyone is friends with everyone, you have a great starting point for a long lasting team.
Pair 4:Because they love to compete/Because they feel that they cant compete
Solution: Once again this refers to the balance between mastery and challenge. If we can differentiate the group so that every player feels that he or she is able to compete and at the same time is challenged, we are doing great! This of course should be done in both matches and training.
Pair 5: To get in better physical shape/They feel that their physical shape is not improving
Solution: We need to make sure that our sessions are physically challenging on the players. Some coaches claim that it is hard to make practices that are both fun and physically challenging. In my opinion this is rubbish. It just requires a bit more planning and creativity.
Pair 6: To show others that they are competent/The balance between competency and challenge is tipped
Solution: This is again something that can be solved by letting players challenge themselves on their own level.
SUMMARIZING THE TASK
- Differentiate so that the players gets challenged on their own level
- Keep sessions fun but physically challenging for the players
- Let friends stay together in training, but also mix them with others to create new friendships
If you can manage these three things, you are already way ahead of the average youth coach!
YOU HAVE TO EARN RESPECT, NOT DEMAND IT
We all know the coach who burst in on his first session with a team and demands that everyone should obey his every word. This is the wrong approach in my opinion.
Being a good youth soccer coach is all about creating relationships to the players. By showing them that you are a person that is there to help them and that you actually care about them, you will create bonds that are much stronger.
Of course, there has to be some rules in the team. These rules is probably something that is best to create in collaboration with the team. This way they also feel that they own these rules.
BE ORGANIZED AND LEAD BY EXAMPLE
You need to lead by example. A lot of coaches seem to think that the old saying “Do as I say, not as I do” is a good way to lead a group. Dont be this coach!
If you want the players to be present 10 minutes before the practice starts, you should be there at least 15 min before yourself.
If you want the players to give their best in training, you need to show them that you also do your best by being well prepared.
Lead by example!
MAKE PLANS
Making plans might sound daunting to many. They imagine that they have to make detailed plans that include everything that is going to happen the next year. Let me tell you that it does not have to be this complicated. It is always better to have some plan than no plan!
The easy way to create a yearly plan for a soccer team:
- Make a list of what the players in your team is competent at
- Make a list of what skills they should have at the end of the year
- Compare these two lists and make new list that will now include the topics that you should practice in the coming year
- Spread these topics out on the practices that you have in the coming year
This is the simplest way to create a yearly plan, and it should not take more than one hour to make. Remember that you should focus on development. If the team has good development, the results will come.
BASIC SETUP FOR PRACTICES
Practices is the bread and butter of both coaches and players. A good youth soccer coach knows how to setup good practices. The secret simple. Really, just keep it simple.
STANDARD SETUP
How can we have a standard setup of practices when there is so many things we want to practice? Well, this is a standard setup that you can use for training any soccer skill. Actually, you can use it at any level as well. Whether you are playing 5 a-side soccer, 7 a-side soccer, 9 a-side soccer or 11 a-side soccer, this will be a good basic setup.
So, before you start planning the session in detail you need to know the topic for the session. It might be passing, dribbling, receiving, shooting or whatever. The point is that in every activity on one single session, the topic should be in focus.
I like to divide my sessions in three parts. The first part is 1/6 of the total training time. Part two is 1/3 and the last part is 1/2 of the total training time.
Part 1: This is a warmup drill that gets the players ready to perform. If our topic is dribbling, we can setup a square where all players must dribble one ball each inside and avoid collisions. You can add different skills to the dribbling to make it a bit harder.
Part 2: Some kind of playing activity with few players on each team. Might also be a playing activity where one team has more players than the other team. If you have passing as a topic, you can make a square where one team has three players and the other team has one player. The team with three players should try to get as many passes as they can within the team in a given time frame.
Part 3: Normal playing activity with goals. It is important that you use small sided teams as often as possible. 3v3, 4v4 or 5v5 are all good options. If your topic for the day is shooting, you can make the pitch shorter so that the players gets to shoot more often.
BASIC SKILLS EVERY SOCCER PLAYER MUST KNOW
There are a lot of opinions on what the most important skills for a soccer player is. I have written a post about the 3 basic soccer skills. In this post I will include a few more:
- Passing
- Receiving
- Dribbling
- Shooting
- Defending 1v1
If I had to choose one skill to practice for the first year of soccer, it has to be dribbling/ball control.
Remember that these skills is the basics, the foundation that you use to progress into more advanced skills. Later down the line, you can use the same setup to train different moments in the soccer game.
HOW TO COACH IN GAMES
Games are what we practice to be better at. It should be the a great experience for everyone involved. You as a coach has a lot of responsibility to make it a great experience for everyone.
If you follow these simple rules, you should be well prepared:
- Talk to the opponents coach before the game and make sure that the teams match each other well. It is not fun for any team to lose 20-0. Winning 20-0 does not do much for development either.
- When playing games, let all players play approximately the same amount of minutes
- Keep the feedback simple and understandable
- Keep the feedback positive. If the players do something positive, let them know it! If they do something that is a mistake, you should sometimes just let it pass
- Make sure that you as a coach act as an adult. Shouting, yelling and complaining at the referee is not good. If the players see their coach behave that way, they might do it themselves
DONT UNDERESTIMATE SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
When setting up your plan, you should make room for social activities. These are very important for team bonding. Maybe one of the players is not very good at shooting but really good at bowling. Then going bowling might give him more respect in the group.
Besides that it is good for the group to meet in other settings than at a soccer field. Remember that being a good youth soccer coach is more than being good at running practice drills. It is just as important to make a group of kids learn how to be good people.
CONCLUSION: HOW DID IT GO?
When a year of soccer activity is over, how do you evaluate how it went? Should you see how many games you won? Should you check how many goals the team scored?
In my opinion neither of these things is most important.
If you still have all the players and all of them seem very happy with the activity the last year, you can consider your year a huge success! Once again, remember that you are coaching kids, and there are many different reasons for them to be in a team. Taking care of every single one of them is what being a good youth soccer coach is all about!
Also, as a last side note: be careful of making the job as a coach larger than it have to be. I personally know a lot of coaches who took on way too much, which resulted in them being burned out after a few years. Your goal is to keep the kids in a good social environment for many years. If you as a coach quits, it is impossible to achieve that goal.
