Coaching Soccer For Dummies Page 10

  Your success in this endeavor is also determined by your ability to relate to the kids — all your kids. You’re going to have youngsters on your team with enormously different ability levels, diverse characteristics, and wide-ranging wants and needs. In this chapter, we take a look at how you can relate to them, evaluate them, and get them to work together as a team.

  The Art of Evaluation

  In order to maximize your effectiveness as a youth soccer coach and propel your players to reach their maximum potential, being proficient in the art of evaluating their skills is imperative. Initially, you may have no clue how talented your team is. Most leagues give you a group of kids, and you have no idea what their strengths or weaknesses are. This lack of information poses its own set of unique challenges and requires real focus from you during the first few practices of the season. Be prepared to begin evaluating and understanding your players the first time you get together with them. If you’re in a league that allows you to draft players, you head into the season with at least some understanding of the talent level of your squad, and you can arrive at your first practice with a plan that meets the appropriate skill and experience level. Being able to accurately analyze what areas of the team’s game need some bolstering, or even just a little fine tuning, is vital for long-term success and helping your players fully enjoy the sport.

  Evaluating your players’ skills

  Evaluating young soccer players can be challenging. After all, soccer is a complex sport that requires a wide range of individual skills and the ability to utilize them in a manner that benefits the team. Being able to properly assess a player’s strengths and weaknesses is essential for determining which areas of her game need additional work and instruction and what steps you can take to help remedy any areas she’s having difficulty in. Although evaluating players and making adjustments in your coaching approach to fit their progress is critical all season long, it takes on added importance during those first few practices of the season. You risk having kids quit out of frustration if you evaluate them improperly and force them into drills that are too difficult for their skill levels. Take the time to evaluate all players, and then help them strengthen the areas of their game that are lacking.

  A practice drill offers a glimpse of a player’s ability in a specific area of the game, but the drill provides a rather limited view of the player’s overall skills and abilities. When evaluating the skills of younger players, small-sided games of 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 are ideal. These types of scrimmages are great for gauging all aspects of their game and determining their strengths and weaknesses. Players get to touch the ball a lot, are forced to handle the ball in a variety of situations, and have to continually jump back and forth between an offensive and defensive mode. In the following sections, we cover a few tips to keep in mind when putting together evaluations of your players. (For information on evaluating players during competitive travel-team tryouts, flip on over to Chapter 20.)

  Don’t fall into the trap of being absolutely enamored with goal scorers. If a child is your team’s leading goal scorer and regularly notches goals, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s a well-developed, all-around player. His goal-scoring prowess may be attributed to several underlying factors: His teammates are great passers who always feed him the ball when he’s open, or perhaps he has a more powerful leg than the other kids and his kicks are too difficult to stop. Remember that even if his offensive skills are well honed, he may have severe deficiencies in the defensive aspects of his play.

  On the move

  Soccer is a game of continuous movement and reaction. Players who are flat-footed or prone to standing still for any amount of time are less likely to take advantage of opportunities to attack when their team regains possession of the ball. Or they may be defensive liabilities when the team turns the ball over and they suddenly have to assume a defensive position. When evaluating a player’s movement, take several factors into account to get a true sense of her ability. Is she involved in all facets of the game? After she delivers a shot on goal, does she stand there and admire her shot, or does she aggressively move forward in case the ball rebounds or the goalie misplays the ball? When she distributes a pass to a teammate, does she immediately become a statue afterward, watching to see whether the ball is on target, or does she move downfield with the action and look to get open to receive a pass in return?

  Comfort zone

  How players respond to defensive pressure is a key factor to consider. Is the player able to maintain control of the ball when an opposing player charges toward him? Can he maneuver the ball in traffic? When he receives a pass, does he look to gather the ball under control and move with it downfield, or does he immediately look to give it back to a teammate because he isn’t comfortable dribbling it?

  Capitalizing on opportunities

  In the more advanced levels of youth soccer, the number of chances a team has to score a goal during the course of a game dwindles, because many of the players are more developed and highly skilled. With fewer opportunities to score goals, the ability to beat a player 1-on-1 is critical for your team’s success. Do your players have the skills to negotiate their way past a defender and get a quality shot on goal? Can they work the ball with both feet, or do they rely too often on their dominant feet? (Relying on your dominant foot makes you easier to defend.) When they take shots on goal, are they getting full force behind their shots, or are the shots dribbling toward the net? Are the shots getting too much air under them and sailing way over the net? Does the ball go where the players are aiming, or, in the excitement of being able to get a shot on net, do the players neglect some of the basic techniques of shooting?

  Defensive tenacity

  The true mark of a well-rounded player is her ability to excel both offensively and defensively. A one-dimensional player who’s good only when the ball is on her foot and she’s attacking will have her defensive deficiencies exposed at some point, especially if she continues in future levels of competition. Be on the lookout to see if your player attempts to make steals to regain possession of the ball for her team when she’s forced to play defense, or if she tends to pull back and rely on her teammates to take a more aggressive defensive approach. Continually reinforce to your players that whenever they lose possession of the ball, their top priority must be to regain control.

  Between the ears

  How much impact a player has on the game is influenced, to a great extent, by his mindset. Does he give you his best effort at all times? Or does he droop his head, sag his shoulders, and move slower when things aren’t going his way or when the team is losing? Does he handle constructive criticism well and embrace your instruction and suggestions to improve his play, or does he withdraw and take your comments negatively?

  Influence on the team

  What type of teammate a child is speaks volumes about what type of player she is. Is she a positive influence on the squad? Does she pump her teammates up when things aren’t going well? Are her comments positive and supportive? Does she boost confidence levels, or does she drain the team’s enthusiasm? When she isn’t in the game, is she a vocal cheerleader who supports her teammates, offering encouragement and providing useful guidance? Or does she tend to sulk when she isn’t in the game or simply refuse to pay attention to what her teammates are doing on the field?

  Situational strengths and weaknesses

  A youngster may be a great practice player, but if he can’t transfer those abilities to the field during games, he isn’t going to derive as much enjoyment from the sport. For example, you may have a truly gifted player who happens to be an incredible ball handler. He’s one of those players who can work the soccer ball with both feet equally well, and he impresses teammates during practice with his dribbling skills. But when game day arrives, he turns into a different player. The impressive practice skills he demonstrates are long gone. Now what? By evaluating the player and watching him carefully, you may discover that problems arise for him as soon as a
defender puts any type of pressure on him. If you work with this player on some 1-on-1 exercises and get him accustomed to dribbling with a defender in front of him all the time, his ball-handling skills will come to the forefront, and he’ll become a better player because of your evaluation.

  Identifying your team’s strengths and weaknesses

  During the course of the season, your team is going to be learning and developing skills, as well as making great progress in how effectively they work together on the field. But regardless of how talented your players are or how experienced they may be, all teams struggle with their play at some point along the way. Perhaps you’ll go through a scoring drought, encounter problems working as a cohesive unit on defense, or lose confidence in the team’s abilities after suffering a couple of close setbacks in a row.

  Being able to identify your team’s strengths and weaknesses helps you mold your players and get the most out of them. For example, if your team is struggling to score goals, you may decide that you need to spend more time during practice working on shooting exercises, when in reality that isn’t the best solution. Perhaps the underlying problem is that your team has difficulty passing the ball out of your end of the field, which translates into more time spent on defense and, consequently, fewer scoring opportunities. One way to remedy the situation may be to shift your focus in practice to some passing exercises that involve your defensive players. This subtle change may be all you need to erase some of your scoring woes.

  In order to get a better perspective on your team and where its strengths and weaknesses lie, consider these helpful hints:

  Videotape: Consider having an assistant coach or parent videotape one of your games from one end of the field or up high in the bleachers. Because you have so many responsibilities going on during the course of a game, being able to see everything that takes place on the field is virtually impossible. Plus, at the more advanced levels of youth soccer, when the playing area is quite large, your view from the sidelines may be obstructed by the maze of players that you’re forced to look through. If the game is videotaped from the end line or from up above, you have an entirely different vantage point than you’re normally accustomed to, which gives you a fresh perspective on the team’s play.

  If you tape a game, use it for your own private viewing. Don’t adopt a professional coaching mentality and use it to make your players watch footage of their games. Children involved in organized soccer need to be on the field working on skills, not in front of a screen watching video.

  Solicit outside advice: If you have a friend or acquaintance who happens to have more experience coaching soccer than you do or who coaches in a league where the players are more experienced, ask him to watch one of your practices. Another set of eyes is always helpful, and he can probably provide some valuable feedback on areas of the game he believes you need to spend additional time on with your team. Assistant coaches are a big help in this regard as well.

  Setting early-season goals

  One of the best ways to ensure that your players enjoy playing for you is to set goals at the start of the season for each of them — and then begin working to help them reach those goals. Setting and reaching goals helps build confidence; promotes self-esteem; and, over the course of the season, enhances performance.

  When setting goals, find the right balance by creating objectives that are neither too hard to achieve nor so easy that a player reaches them during the first week of the season. Also, don’t limit a child to one goal, because if she fails to reach it and has nothing else to fall back on, she has a real sense of disappointment. Giving kids several goals to strive for opens the door for them to savor the feelings of accomplishment that fuel continued interest in the sport. In Chapter 8, we cover resetting goals at midseason.

  Assigning Team Positions

  Determining what positions your players are best suited for is sort of like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle without a picture to go by. You have all these pieces right in front of you — the kids — and endless combinations to consider. Your challenge is to find a position for each child — a position that the child is capable of playing, that provides the most benefits for the team, and that the child embraces and derives plenty of enjoyment from playing.

  Outlining age-group considerations

  Selecting positions for your players is dictated primarily by their age and, to a lesser extent, their experience level.

  At the beginning levels of soccer, small-sided games like 4-on-4 and 6-on-6 are most common. These games typically take on a kick-and-chase-the-ball mentality. The ball moves, and a pack of kids goes after it. That’s great for introducing the kids to the sport and some of its most basic components. After all, soccer, in its most simplistic terms, is offense against defense. When your team has the ball, it’s on the attack, and when it doesn’t, it resorts to playing defense. During these early stages of development, positioning players takes a backseat to simply getting the kids on the field so they can run, kick, and swarm the ball. Assigning a 5-year-old kid the position of midfielder and trying to teach her all the responsibilities that accompany the position would produce the same bewildered look as attempting to teach your team the inner workings of the combustion engine. It’s just not realistic and will leave them with a bad experience.

  As children get older and progress in the sport, you want to expose them to all the positions on the field. Never confine them to one position for the entire season. In order to fully experience soccer and everything that’s involved in playing it, they need — and deserve — the chance to play everything from goalie to midfielder. Rotating youngsters through all the positions during the course of a season gives them a wonderful sense of what soccer is all about and keeps their interest and enthusiasm high as they’re introduced to new challenges and different aspects of the game. By taking this approach, you create all-around soccer players rather than just defenders or goalies.

  Don’t typecast a player based on his or her physical appearance. Children who are slightly overweight are often delegated to play goalie because goalies aren’t required to run around much; they aren’t even considered for a position like midfielder because they don’t have the “look” of a player who can move with the ball and create scoring opportunities for the team. A child who gets typecast in one position early on may never get the chance to fully enjoy the entire soccer experience. You may have a wonderfully skilled player on your team just waiting to emerge, but if you don’t give her the chance, she’ll never know how successful she can be, and she may miss out on a wonderfully rewarding and truly enriching experience.

  Lining ’em up according to their skills

  As players gain experience and advance to higher and more competitive levels of play, they become involved in regulation 11-on-11 soccer matches, and you become more concerned with finding the right positions to match their talents and figuring out how you can best use their particular skills for the benefit of the team. Should your most talented and experienced players be up front to help generate more goal-scoring opportunities for the team, or should they be in defensive positions to help protect the net and limit the opposing team’s chances to score? You make the call.

  When positioning your players, take into account the positions you need to fill, the skills needed to successfully play those positions, the responsibilities that come with each position, and the types of kids who are best suited for handling these positions. Any child is certainly capable of playing, enjoying, and excelling at any position on the field, but keep some general characteristics in mind when determining who plays where when you start dealing with older, more experienced teams. (Turn to Chapter 3 if you want a brief introduction to each of these positions.)

  When delegating positions, remind each player that you chose her for that position because of the special skills she has and the ability she demonstrates in practice. As the season progresses, you may recognize that a player you have on defense has really shown some quickness to
the ball and may be better suited to play up front as a midfielder. (Making midseason adjustments for the betterment of the team is discussed in Chapter 8.)

  Goalies

  It takes a strong individual to play in front of the net, because a lot of pressure usually accompanies the goalie position. Even though defensive breakdowns and lapses in judgment lead to many goals, unfair blame is directed toward the goalie when he fails to make the stop. Ideally, you want your goalie to be technically sound, confident but not arrogant, and mentally strong so that he can concentrate on the game and bounce back after surrendering a goal. Athletic youngsters are naturals for the goalie position, which requires a lot of skill, including the following:

  A strong leg to boot the ball when executing a goal kick

  Excellent hand–eye coordination

  Great concentration skills

  Quickness

  Sound footwork

  The ability to go into heavy traffic to secure the ball without being afraid of contact

  The ability to sacrifice the body when diving for loose balls

  A goalie must also be a good communicator. Because goalies have the best view of the play and usually the best angle to see what’s unfolding, they can’t be afraid to share what’s going on with their teammates. They must be willing to shout instructions and provide plenty of vocal input to help derail the attack before the other team delivers a shot on goal.

  Defenders