Stepping up

Stepping Up to the Plate
Once you’ve made up your mind to volunteer to coach your son’s/daughter’s soccer team, you’ll need to get yourself a plan. Nothing calms the jitters of uncertainty better than a good, solid, doable plan. Here is what your plan should include:

*Learn About the Game of Soccer
*Learn How to Coach Soccer
*Organize Your Season
*Learn About the Game of Soccer

To learn as much as you can about the game, you should buy yourself a great ebook on the basics of soccer. The ultimate guide to soccer positions! is a great start for any coach and it comes with some valuable free bonuses too! There are a lot of good books out there and many of them have been written at your level. Find one that speaks to you when you open it, and doesn’t make your palms sweat when you start to read it. For relatively young, beginning players, the game you will be teaching them is pretty simple. As your little athletes get older and more skillful, their game will become more complex. As your task becomes more complex, you will also grow as a coach. However, you will be creating unnecessary stress for yourself if you try to understand professional level soccer when you will be coaching 5-year-olds.

Learn How to Coach Soccer
Again, the key at this stage is to understand your coaching target. If you will be coaching 5-year-olds, don’t look at coaching instruction that tells you how to teach your team to hold its defensive shape when going from defense to offense. At age 5, players tend to want to follow the ball around the field in a giant wad, like a rugby scrum. Obviously, your issues, as the coach of a team of 5-year-olds, will be very different and far less intense than the issues of the coach who has a team of 19-year-olds.

The best thing you can teach your little athletes as they start out on their soccer careers is the very basic elements of the sport. Don’t even try to teach them anything fancy at this stage. Their bodies will eventually grow into the skills as they develop the size and coordination to accomplish them more easily. What you want to focus on with the beginning player is the following:

Simple touches on the ball. Warm them up each practice by having them move the ball around with both feet, developing a feel for how the ball moves when they touch it with the insides of their feet, the outsides of their feet, their laces, etc.
Simple passing, both short and long, adding movement as they progress.
Dribbling through cones. Start with the cones spaced widely apart and move them closer as they progress. Add relays for fun and an additional challenge.
Trapping. Kids love to trap the ball. Pair them up and have them serve the ball to each other for foot traps, thigh traps, and chest traps. You can introduce softly served headers too. After they’ve gotten pretty good at static traps, have them move across a space while serving and trapping the ball.
You will also want to teach them the rules of the game, and basic positional soccer. At the younger, beginning stage, you should encourage your players to try out many different positions on the field. The earlier they get a feel for the different needs and pressures of these various positions the better. You will be rounding them out as players.

Teach Them about SPACE
Your biggest challenge as the coach of younger, beginning players is to teach them to move away from the ball and into space, because they will be drawn to that ball like goats to a rodeo. It is never too early to teach the concept of space, but the way you teach it can be too complex. I once watched a well-meaning coach try to teach a group of adorable 7-year-old girls how to move to space by outlining a drill that they would have struggled with if they had graduated Summa Cum Laude from MIS. This very bright guy knew what he wanted to teach them, but he wasn’t quite able to bring the information down to their level and feed it to them in digestible chunks. It was really pretty entertaining to watch the results! Don't make this mistake.





Organize Your Season
Before we talk about how you will get organized for your season as a coach, let me first say this: GET A TEAM MANAGER! I’m sorry to yell at you that way, but I really mean it. It is certainly possible for you to coach and do the administrative things that will need to get done during the season, but why would you want to? You can usually strong-arm some poor, unsuspecting parent into becoming the team manager, and it will make your life much simpler.

Basically this is what you'll want to do as soon as you know who your team will be:

Set up some kind of communication plan for the team. I always create a database with names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, parents names, etc. This comes in really handy when we have to send out information or make phone calls to announce practice cancellations.
Make copies of the schedule for the season, tournament information, maps to games, and anything else your little munchkins will need for the season, and send these documents out with an introductory letter (described below).
Send out an introductory letter with information about yourself and your first practice. In this letter you should also set up a time to meet with players and their parents to give them your coaching philosophy and your expectations of the team for the season.
Create your practice plan, including a wide variety of games and drills that will teach them the basics without boring the snot out of them.
Now put a smile on your face and get out there and make yourself proud. It’s a GREAT day for soccer!

Become a kids soccer coach

The wheels are already in motion, right now, soccer organizations across the country are happily organizing a record number of youth soccer teams. With this record growth comes the need for more and more coaches to take teams of younger, less experienced players and train them to succeed in the sport while creating a positive sports experience for them. It would be really nice if each of these teams of aspiring athletes had a paid, professional coach to guide them along the path to success. However, with cost and availability constraints this is just not possible. What this means is that soccer clubs are relying more and more on parent coaches to prepare tomorrow’s soccer stars to meet their destinies. This is a hefty challenge for many of us who didn’t even get to play the sport in high school, but it is one we can, and should, take on.

You CAN do it Better

How many times have you listened to other parents complain that their kids’ coach didn’t have a clue, or that he/she didn’t know how to motivate the kids, or was downright abusive to the little darlings? How many times have you felt that way yourself? While we have all had experiences with less-than-perfect coaching, as parents who weren’t stepping up to the coaching plate, we really didn’t have the right to complain. To be fair, most bad coaches really mean well, they just don’t have the knowledge they need to perform good skills transfer and motivate their teams to succeed. But knowledge can be gained, and motivation can be attained if you apply a simple, basic coaching philosophy that accomplishes the following:

* Enforces personal responsibility and commitment
* Teaches a team perspective rather than a me perspective
* Allows athletes to be active participants in their season
* Uses positive reinforcement along with constructive criticism to change any unwanted behaviour

Sound like a familiar strategy? It should, it’s called good parenting. Good coaching and good parenting are really based on the same things. It’s when we think they’re different that we get into trouble as coaches.
My next post will outline some tips on how to get started, once you've made the decision to coach a kids team. Stay tuned!

Soccer Homework

The Coaches Role

As a group coaches are often criticized for their overemphasis on winning and their overly serious attitude toward the league experience. Most studies, however, point out that in general Little League coaches get involved for the love of the game and for the love of their participating child. Coaches that angrily shout criticism from the sidelines are not appreciated or liked as are relaxed, supportive, and knowledgeable coaches who emphasize the improvement and learning of new skills. Coaches that develop close and personal relationships with the child and her/his parents are the most likely to contribute to a positive learning experience.

Coaches are first and foremost role models and teachers. Good coaching is not about producing winning teams; it's about asking every day before practice or a game: "Is what we're planning to do today in the best interest of the kids?"

The best lesson a coach can teach is that playing fairly makes everyone a winner, and that:

"...To be an athlete, you first must learn--
that it's ‘self-respect' you'll have to earn
You must conquer you, or you'll surely get beat,
‘cause you are the one, against whom you compete¹
¹ Robert L. Kleine

"If there were no sports, life would be easier because you wouldn't have to go play games
every other day. . ."
Fifth grade student, Colorado Springs

"I stopped going to gynmastics and soccer because after a while it became like work, no fun...
I used to like it..."
Eleven year-old, San Fernando Valley, CA

Why Coach?

"They ask me why I coach... And I reply... Where could I find more splendid company?" Glennice L. Harmon

"To love what you do and feel that it matters -- how could anything be more fun?" Katherine Graham


Principles of Proper Instruction


Boys and girls ages 5-7 can play together equally. Younger children may participate with older ones. The dividing factor should be devised by a combination of skill level, size, and fitness, and not chronological age and/or gender.
If children are not learning and improving their skills, it can't be fun. If it isn't fun, children won't want to come back to play soccer. So be prepared, know the game and the proper skill progressions, and provide the child with numerous opportunities to explore and discover through active participation.
What ever we decide to do during the 10 short weeks of Soccer League, we should never forget that it is the "needs of the kids that we are here to serve and not our own." So let's adopt a "child centered approach to coaching and competition."

Athletics does not develop character. Athletics reveals character. James Michener

Below is an example I would strongly recommend not to follow!

"Sometimes the preparation is so hard, so intense. . . The crying, the screaming. . . We are not in the gym to be having fun. The fun comes at the end, with the winning and the medals."
Bela Karoli, Gymnastics Coach (1992)

Note that:

"Sports are most rewarding when the judge of skill and the definer of challenge is the individual athlete. That is when the athlete receives two rewards: the joy of participating and the satisfaction of learning to know oneself." Ewing & Seefeldt (1990, p. 6)

Developing a Coaching Philosophy

Introduction

A casual observer of any little league game site will notice the excessive seriousness and tension exhibited by coaches on the sidelines. Coaches and spectating parents get very involved with their children's game. Some fail to realize the deleterious effects of their vocal protests regarding game referee decisions or their disapproval of their child's performance. Several soccer leagues that I am familiar with have on record a very appropriate league philosophy statement. These statements emphasize learning, fair play, fun, equal opportunity, etc...over winning. Ironically, the same leagues use "trained" referees and linesmen, for example, to officiate a game between two teams comprised of nine-year-old players. Players are often assigned to positions in which they are most productive or least destructive. And, coaches, parents and players exhibit excessive celebration when a goal is scored (even when the goal resulted from a clumzy goalie error) and when a game is won. Overly formal game control, early specialization, and excessive celebrations seem incompatible with a child-centered league philosophy.

Should the league experience serve best only the most talented and promising individuals at the expense of the less skilled? A typical league reality of "winning first, child second," seems to prevail over the same league's beautifully crafted philosophy statement.

The stress associated with coaching a losing team stems from the distorted view that winning equals good coaching and losing equals poor coaching. The child that is allowed to play a variety of positions will learn and progress irrespectively of her or his team's winning or loosing record. In the soccer league that I joined as assistant coach during the Fall of 1999, the head coach knew which were the two best teams on the league several weeks before kickoff. Who gets the credit for coaching these kids? Four of the kids on our nine-year-old boys' team never played the game. How are they going to learn and improve if we are not going to allow them to make mistakes? Sticking to a child-centered game plan can get very tricky and involve tough decisions.

A Coaching Philosophy

Some coaches get turned off by the word "philosophy." They cannot see how any one "philosophy" can have an impact on their daily problems and work. One's teaching or coaching philosophy, however, is actually a very practical matter. An analogy to one's philosophy may be equated to a pair of glasses that filter reality through one's personal experiences, opinions, values and beliefs. It has, therefore, a direct influence on how we see and understand the world around us, what actions we take, and why we choose to behave in the ways we do.

In fact, every coach, whether aware of it or not, is following certain principles or his philosophy while coaching. It may seem reasonable to assume that the philosophy that directs the coach's everyday life thinking and actions would be also applied by her/him to coaching. Yet, this often seems not to be the case. For example, most coaches would agree that a less skilled child with little or no self-confidence needs special attention and time investment. Yet, who are the kids that usually get the most attention, the most playing time, the most praise?

Still, let's assume, for example, that a businessman discovered that the firm he is negotiating with was dishonest. He decides to do his business with another group despite the fact that he may end up paying more for essentially the same product. This may not sound like good business, yet many a businessman I talked to expressed willingness to stick to their principles even if it meant higher expenses. How many coaches do you know that would stick to principles of sportsmanship or fair play rather than win a game?

Obviously, we can readily see a gap between what a coach may think is the right thing to do in every day life situations, and the actions he/she ends up taking on the playing field.

Developing an Alternative Coaching Philosophy
Dr. Rainer Martens, a world renown sport psychologist and publisher, explains that the development of a functional coaching philosophy involves two major tasks:

become a student of your own feelings and who you are, and
prioritize and delineate your coaching objectives
Developing Self-Awareness

Children are great imitators. Therefore, you are more likely to shape them into your own image than into what you would actually like them to become. The coach is a very powerful role model. This is why it is important that the coach be honest as he/she evaluates her/himself and get in touch with here/his own feelings. The coach needs to discover whether he really likes who he/she is. A quick subjective self-awareness test would be to ask oneself "When I was a child, would I have liked to have my current self as a parent? As a coach? If the answer is "yes," explain to yourself why do you think the way you do. What is it that makes you a good parent, teacher, coach?

If you realize that you do not like everything about yourself, don't panic, nobody's perfect. The key factor is not for every coach to be a perfect individual. It is crucial, however, that the coach be honest with her/himself, and willing to take the appropriate steps to change for the better. Dr. Martens suggests that one such first step would be to form an open door policy and solicit feed back from the kids, assistant coaches and the parents. This, according to Dr. Martens means that the coach needs to learn to listen--to be attentive to both overt and covert communication patterns. Good listening skills ensure two way communications and thus decrease the "filtering effect" that often distorts the true message delivered by the other party.

Prioritization and Delineation of Coaching Objectives

It is an indisputable fact that children are their parents' and nation's most precious asset. It may seem natural to assume, therefore, that the majority of adults mean well for the kids. Yet, how often do we wish something for our child, and then step back and take the time to find out whether this is what the child really wants? More often than not, adults feel they know better, and thus, exclude children from the decision making process. Youth sport, unfortunately, is a prime example of this phenomenon.

In 1987 the Athletic Footwear Association in America sponsored a study of 10,000 students ages 10-18 regarding their feelings about sport. The students reacted to questions such as why they participate, why they quit, and what changes they would make in order to get involved again in a sport they dropped.

The most important finding of the study was that winning, which is the most publicized and pursued goal of sports, never ranked higher than seventh even among the most competitive athletes. "To have fun" and "to improve my skills" were consistently the first two choices why the students chose to play sports. When asked why they dropped from sports three of the first five reasons were "I was not having fun," "coach was a poor teacher," and "too much pressure." How many coaches you know would have predicted this outcome?

Dr. Martha E. Ewing and Dr. Vern Seefeld of the Youth Sports Institute of Michigan State University who conducted the study, and Dr. Steven J. Danish, chairman of the Department of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University who added psychological and developmental interpretations proposed the following "truths" about children and sport:
Fun is pivotal; if it's not 'fun,' young people won't play a sport.
Skill development is a crucial aspect of fun; it is more important than winning even among the best athletes.
The most rewarding challenges of sports are those that lead to self-knowledge.
Intrinsic rewards (self-knowledge that grows out of self-competition) are more important in creating lifetime athletes than are extrinsic rewards (victory or attention from others).
The American Youth and Sports Participation study authors proposed the following tips for coaches and parents who are willing to develop an alternative coaching philosophy:

For Coaches
Become a communicator (a listener and a giver of feedback).
Recognize the needs of your kids and balance your needs with theirs.
Develop perspective: remember what you were like at their age and what you could do then; don't judge the kids by what you can do now.
Remember the "truths" and plan activities with them in mind.
Seek out workshops and educational programs that teach not only sports-related skills but also communication and interpersonal skills that will help you work with parents and get the most out of your kids.
Try to work with parents and make them part of the team rather than viewing them as critics to be avoided.
For Parents
Remember the "truths" and talk to your children with them in mind. (After a game, ask about "fun," "skill improvement," "learning experiences.")
See yourself as part of the team and supportive of the coach; avoid setting up a conflict in your child's mind between his or her parents and coaches. If you want to affect the coaching, volunteer to help.
Develop perspective: remember what you could do at your children's ages; don't judge them by what you can do now.
Develop an understanding of what your child wants from sports--not all children want the same things. Determine if he or she wants to be involved at all.

Keeping it fun

The first and most important thing to consider before coaching a kids soccer drill is to make sure that your style of coaching is both relaxed and fun.

If you keep this point in mind the positive vibe will be communicated to the children. This will add to the fun of the training session.

1 Session Time

Do not make the kids training drill too long as this will start to bore the children and the excitement and interest will be lost.

2 Objectives

Be careful to specify particular targets when setting training tasks for the kids. It is important that they learn to focus on attaining certain skills.

3 Running With The Ball

If you set up a course for the kids to kick the ball around, it will help with their ball control.

4 Scoring Goals

After all this is the object of the game. Set up a goal and get the kids to dribble the ball around cones before shooting at the net. This helps combine more than one set of skills

5 Competing Against Other Kids

You can get the children to chase in between cones and then score a goal. This can be done as either the first child to complete the course and score or you could split them into teams. This should encourage a healthy sense of competition.

What ever variation of running and scoring you design for your kids soccer training drills it is important to keep the interest, enthusiasm and excitement. If you do that you will get them coming back for more of your soccer training drills.

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Ball Control Drills

There are two key elements of good ball control:

a) The receiver's first touch should protect the ball from challenging players and not give them a chance to regain possession,

b) the receiving player should play the ball into available space to allow for the next touch and to gain or keep momentum.

A poor first-touch will risk taking the momentum out of play and increase the possibility of losing possession. Some players make the mistake of killing the ball dead and not concentrating on getting it out of their feet. The first touch should ensure that a time wasting second touch is not needed to get the ball out ready for the next action.

The general technique for controlling the ball requires several simple skills which can be acquired through correct training practices.

1/ The first element of ball control is to place the controlling surface into the ball's line of flight. The body weight should be well distributed so it is possible to move forwards, backwards or sideways. Keep the head steady and watch the ball carefully to judge it's flight and speed. It is difficult to keep one's eyes permanently on the ball and better players are able to take a quick glance to know what is happening around them before contact is made.

2/ The second step is making an early judgement in choosing the right technique and body surface to control. Wedge control involves a more rigid surface where the player attempts to force the ball downwards or into space so he can move onto it. A cushioned control involves taking the sting out of the ball. This involves pulling the surface back just when the ball makes contact (the body becomes elastic) so that it simply drops at the players feet. This particular technique is very useful when closely marked, for example a forward receiving the ball on the chest with his back to goal.

The different body surfaces often used in controlling the ball are: The foot (sole, inside, outside, instep), thigh, chest & stomach and head. Generally, the part of the body used should preferably be large, flat and able to take the weight of the incoming pass.

Control also requires good mental abilities such as confidence and total concentration. A composed player is one who is calm, relaxed and unhurried in his movements. Confidence does play a big part in this as players who know what they can do and are confident in their ability are more likely to show great technique and succeed. Those who do not have confidence, will be indecisive and their technique hurried.

When training, players can exaggerate the movements to get the feel of the right technique. Younger players can learn from the coach who should demonstrate the technique, break it down and practice the individual elements and eventually, practice the whole technique. Only once the basic techniques have been mastered should a coach move onto more advanced situations. These should concentrate on improving control in pressure situations (defenders coming from the side, front, back), control while moving at pace, control which involves an immediate layoff and controlling the ball for a team mate. The ball should be received from all angles, speeds and heights and all surfaces constantly used.

Some common problems when controlling the ball are described below along with a training method than can be used to improve technique:

Problem 1 - Ball path has been misread and the player has missed the pass.
Corrective procedure - Repeated practice using passes from different distances and vary intensity. The coach must encourage player to keep their eyes on the ball at all times and get their body in line.


Problem 2 - Player is indecisive when choosing controlling body surface.
Corrective procedure - Player shouts the type of body surface they will use and the server provides the pass and vice versa until the player gets the right feeling for the choice of technique.

Problem 3 - The player does not get the ball out of their feet and needs a second touch.
Corrective procedure - Encourage the player to relax and exaggerate the movement. Repeated practice using passes from different distances and vary intensity.

Problem 4 - The ball bounces off the player and control is lost.
Corrective procedure - Again, encourage the player to exaggerate the movement, especially the relaxation phase, firstly without the ball and afterwards using gentle service (eventually building up service difficulty). Try using smaller or lighter balls.

Trapping the Ball

One of the earliest things in soccer coaching with young players is to get them to control the ball without their arms. It's frustrating for young players- because they are so small any bounce will take the ball up towards their bodies where they just want to put a hand on top of the ball to keep it down.

Your players should gradually become more at ease with dealing with balls at whatever height they arrive - therefore they must be able to control a ball which is too high for the thighs but too low for the head.

Players should to be coached in moving into the line of the flight of the ball, arching the back making the chest into a platform and removing the pace off the ball by keeping relaxed. This drill is a perfect way for the players to learn to control the ball with their chest.

• First player throws the ball underarm at chest height to second player standing opposite.
• Second player controls the ball with their chest then catches the ball.
• Second player throws the ball at chest height to the first player who chests the ball and catches it.
• Repeat the practice.

Once you feel like your players have learned the basics, you can enhance the session so that rather than catch the ball, the receiving player uses the top of their foot to bring the ball under control with one touch before it bounces. The player then passes the ball back.

The next stage of the drill involves the receiving player chesting the ball to the left or right. To deflect the ball to one side they must turn the upper body on contact.

Before the ball bounces, the receiving player uses the top of their foot (use the right if turning right) to control and guide the ball in their chosen direction, ready to dribble. You need to make sure that players practice turning in both directions.

To put this into a game situation you can try a game with 4 players versus 4 players. A target player throws the ball to one of the attackers who ideally controls the ball on the chest guiding it into space and away from pressure before passing it to a team mate. The ball must be played to a team mate before the attacking team can pass the ball back to any of the target players. You can award points to the team for every successful chest control and pass, and for every time a defender tackles or wins the ball.

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