Coaching Soccer For Dummies Page 11
Quickness, the ability to read developing plays, and reacting to the opposition at the spur of the moment are benchmarks of good defenders. Good heading skills are helpful in defending corner kicks, and a strong leg is an asset to clear the ball out of the team’s zone when under attack.
Defenders, made up of fullbacks and sweepers, also must be unafraid of contact, willing to aggressively go after attackers, and able to utilize tackles such as the hook tackle and sliding tackle (see Chapter 12) to extricate the ball from opposing players and regain possession for the team. Players who handle these positions must be true team players, because they don’t experience the excitement of scoring goals. Instead, they derive their enjoyment from stopping other players from putting the ball in the net, which usually doesn’t generate as much attention and applause from spectators.
Kids who are aggressive and possess a lot of determination are usually good fits for the fullback positions. You can count on these kids to chase down a loose ball in the penalty area with as much enthusiasm as they’d show hunting a $20 bill blowing down the sidewalk. Sweepers must be good listeners and able to quickly react to the goalie’s instructions. Because the goalie has a better perspective on the developing play, she can communicate with the sweeper on where she needs him positioned, and the sweeper must be able to quickly adapt to the opposing team’s attack and provide defensive support for the goalie any way he can.
Halfbacks
Because halfbacks, or midfielders, typically touch the ball a lot during the game, they need to be skilled in dribbling, passing, and receiving to take advantage of those touches and deliver the ball to their teammates.
On many soccer teams, the center halfback is the team’s most talented player. Because he patrols the middle of the field, he gets a lot of touches of the ball. He should also be vocal, because he’s basically the quarterback of the offense and can direct players and communicate as different plays unfold during the course of a game.
He also needs a good grasp of the basics and the ability to understand and anticipate when to join an attack and when to hang back and take a more defensive role. Because the center halfback is also in a position to receive a variety of passes from the fullbacks on the back row and intercept passes from the opposing team, he must be adept at receiving passes with his left and right foot, receiving balls with his chest and thigh, and using headers to advance the ball or clear it out of danger. When on the attack, this player often joins the action as a second striker, so having a strong leg to deliver shots on goal from long range is important, too.
Forwards
The forward positions, made up of strikers and wingers, require a steady amount of running, so players must have the stamina — and speed — to handle their responsibilities. Forwards must possess good footwork and be accurate with their kicks to take advantage of scoring opportunities.
Regardless of how many soccer teams you guide during your volunteer coaching career, you’ll probably always have a youngster on each team who seems to have a knack for getting the ball in prime scoring position and putting it in the net with a high rate of success. Of course, all kids love to score goals, because that’s the most attractive element of the game for them, especially when they’re just starting out in the sport. But some kids desperately want to score a goal every single time they get the ball on their feet. These kids make a great center forward (striker) on your team.
Left and right wingers must be excellent sprinters who can outrun defenders to the corners, so conditioning plays an important role in how successful they are in this position. They must also possess quality passing skills.
Forwards are more effective in their roles when they develop other skills, particularly feinting, which is the ability to fake out an opponent in order to get by her with the ball. (If you want to find out more about this important skill, jump to Chapter 15 to see how it’s done.) Players in these positions should also be proficient in receiving throw-ins, as well as in heading the ball on crosses from corner kicks.
Dealing with disappointment
Regardless of how carefully you choose positions for your players and the great effort and lengths you go to in order to ensure that each youngster is assigned a position that she enjoys playing, you’re going to have kids who aren’t content with their positions. With only one goalie on the field, you’re sure to have a handful of kids who also want to play in the net. And out of all the kids for whom you’ve designated defensive roles, one or two are likely to have their hearts set on playing up front where they have a chance to score more goals. So what do you do?
With younger kids, you can simply remind them that everyone will have an opportunity to play each position at some point in the season. Use this situation as a learning opportunity to begin teaching them the essence of teamwork. Point out that in order for the team to work together as a cohesive unit and enjoy success, sacrifices have to be made, and that means not everyone can be a midfielder or a forward and score goals. Some players have to fulfill defensive positions that are extremely important.
One approach you can take to help older kids get over the disappointment of not being able to play positions they had hoped to man this season is to take a field trip to a professional, college, or high school soccer game. These games can be outstanding learning experiences for the entire team. While there, instruct your players to closely monitor the players who play their same positions. Having the youngsters on your team watch how players at the more elite levels of competition play the positions gives them a better sense of how important they are to the overall structure of the team. They may even pick up a few pointers along the way to enhance how they play the positions.
Every game and practice provides you an opportunity to share your feelings and sense of pride with your team. One of your primary responsibilities is to recognize and value every child’s contribution to the team, no matter how big or small the impact on wins and losses. Every child provides something to the chemistry of the team, even if he doesn’t score any goals or make any outstanding defensive plays. Measure each child’s value to the team with more than statistics; make sure that no child’s effort goes unrecognized or unappreciated. Check out Chapter 2 for more information on establishing a coaching philosophy that makes every kid count.
Understanding and Working with All the Kids
One of the truly challenging aspects of coaching youth soccer is that every child who straps on shin guards to play for you is amazingly different than his teammates in so many ways, but you must remember in your interactions with them that they’re children and not miniature adults. The drills you choose for them, and the instructions you provide, must be appropriate for the age level you’re coaching. Whether you’re coaching a beginning team of 6-year-olds or an experienced team of 14-year-olds, you’re embarking on a fascinating journey that challenges your creativity, tests your patience at times, and challenges your ability to interact with all types of personalities.
You’re going to encounter youngsters whose soccer talents, physical development, and emotional characteristics cover an enormously broad spectrum. Some of your players may be charismatic and outgoing, and others may be shy and reclusive. You may have kids who are passionate and live for soccer, and others who would rather be just about anywhere other than on the soccer field with you. You’ll have kids who are particularly talented, already have a special flair for the game, and are already excelling, and you’ll have kids who are clumsy, uncoordinated, and have difficulty running without tripping over their own feet. How you handle all these different types of kids plays a large role in determining just how much fun they have playing for you and whether they want to return next season.
The shy child
Shyness is one of the most common characteristics you come across with youngsters on your team, particularly younger kids — and it can be one of the easiest to handle if you’re extremely patient and gradually work to lure the children out of their protective shells. Shy children often go to extreme le
ngths to blend into the background and dodge attention. During practices, they avoid eye contact; they don’t ask for help when working on skills; and they quietly move throughout the various drills while doing everything in their power not to draw attention to themselves.
During your practice sessions, rotate the kids who lead the calisthenics and stretching at the beginning. Select the shy child along with a couple of other players to lead the team. This selection is a small step toward helping the youngster become comfortable in front of the team. By having other players up there with him, he won’t feel isolated or gripped with fear that all eyes are on him. Also, during team drills, give him a pat on the back after he does something well. The youngster may not enjoy a verbal acknowledgment from you that draws attention from other team members, but small acts that go unnoticed by everyone else can make a big impact on this child and help slowly draw him out.
While helping a child overcome his shyness, proceed slowly and carefully. Pushing too hard and too early in the season may scare him enough that he actually pulls back and further isolates himself from the team. The process is deliberate but truly rewarding when you succeed in coaxing the child out of the shadows he’s suffered in and opening his eyes to all the wonderful opportunities and experiences that he’s been missing out on up until now.
If a child’s shyness isn’t addressed during these critical formative years, it can handcuff his ability to interact in all sorts of social settings. Shyness compromises a child’s abilities, paralyzes his chances of ever excelling in the sport, and drags him down with feelings of despair. Coaches are in a great position to help shy children step out of these protective cocoons, discover an inner courage they never knew they had, and derive enormous pleasure from participating — and interacting — in youth soccer.
The uncoordinated child
You’re going to have kids on your team who aren’t nearly as coordinated or skilled as many of their teammates. The other kids may unkindly refer to these kids as “klutzes.” Uncoordinated kids struggle with the most basic soccer skills. They whiff as often as they make contact when trying to kick a ball; they stumble over their own feet; and they can’t control passes coming at them or get the ball to an open teammate. Basically, not a whole lot goes smoothly for them, no matter how hard they try.
Some children just aren’t athletically inclined, and it interferes with their self-esteem and how others perceive them. Regardless of these shortcomings, though, most of them are trying their very best. But some become enormously frustrated, and feelings of inadequacy settle in and further compromise their ability to perform basic soccer skills.
Helping a child improve her coordination takes practice. But you can pull her through this difficult time in her young life, and years from now, she may very well surprise you in how she blossoms into a solid, coordinated player who has a good handle on all the basics of the game. Here are a few tips:
Never allow frustration to show. Even after repeated demonstrations of how to perform a skill, these kids often aren’t going to pick up on it as quickly as you want them to. Be careful which words you choose, and never allow a frustrated tone to come over your voice or emerge in your body language. Never give them any reason to think that you’re disappointed in their inabilities.
Encourage the kids to continue being active. Although most children embrace the physical activity that accompanies a sport like soccer, kids who are wrestling with coordination problems cringe at the thought of playing in a game in which they’re likely to struggle, fail, and ultimately disappoint their teammates, coaches, and parents. Children who see their friends performing at a level they believe they can never reach are likely to become disenchanted with the sport and adopt a more sedentary lifestyle that revolves around televisions and computer screens.
Encourage their parents to work with them at home. Stress the importance of having fun kicking a soccer ball back and forth in the front yard, not on how well they perform the skill itself. Make sure the parents don’t overdo the sessions. Have them keep the sessions short and the praise flowing.
The child with the short attention span
With kids, short attention spans are as common as runny noses. The younger the child, the shorter his attention span is likely to be — and the trickier your job is going to be in the process. When coaching an outdoor sport like soccer, distractions abound. Birds, airplanes, motorcycles, you name it — you have to compete with all sorts of things that are vying for the kids’ attention.
As we discuss in Chapter 6, distractions put a greater responsibility on you to construct practices and devise drills that continually capture the kids’ attention and keep their interest and excitement level high. The quickest route to losing a child’s attention on the soccer field is to spend large amounts of time talking to him rather than keeping him on the move and actively involved in a wide variety of drills. (For information on coaching children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a medical condition that results in extremely short attention spans, see the “Working with kids with ADHD” sidebar in this chapter.)
The athletically gifted child
Every team seems to have one child whose talent and ability level surpasses everyone else’s by a substantial margin. This kid kicks the ball harder, scores more goals, passes more accurately, plays tougher defense, and wins more loose balls than everyone else. The game is remarkably easy for her. Thanks to her size, strength, speed, coordination, or natural talent — or a combination of the above — she gets the label of team star. The athletically gifted player stands out. Her teammates know she’s the best player on the team. The parents of all the other kids recognize that she’s the team’s best player by far. You can certainly see how advanced she is compared with the rest of the team. So how do you handle coaching this child?
One of the greatest challenges that accompanies coaching a youngster who’s far superior in skill development is providing her with drills that allow her to enhance her skills while not compromising the rest of the team in the process. Working on this skill development can be rather tricky, because you don’t want to isolate the player from her teammates when working on drills, but you also don’t want her to be bored and unchallenged performing a drill that she’s already good at (but the rest of the team is just learning). Use your creativity to concoct clever ways to help those kids just learning a skill and the talented child excel at the same time.
If you’re working with the team on delivering a shot on goal with a moving soccer ball, how can a youngster who’s already highly skilled in this area of the game still derive benefits from this drill? For youngsters just learning to get their timing down, you roll the ball slowly and directly to them. You’ll find a number of ways to increase the difficulty of the exercise for the athletically gifted player without drawing extra attention to her. You can roll the ball toward her with extra pace, which forces her to react quicker when delivering the shot. You can roll the ball a few feet wider than normal, which requires the player to move laterally before lining up the shot. Or you can send the ball to the side of her less-dominant foot, which gives her practice in using that foot in taking shots. As you can see, a little ingenuity on your part can go a long way.
It’s easy to fall into the habit of piling the praise on the youngsters who continually put a smile on your face with their ability to pass, shoot, and defend so well. Keep yourself in check, and refrain from going overboard with the praise and adulation. Too many accolades can have adverse effects:
Some kids may begin feeling unnecessary pressure, which can inhibit their performance and derail their enjoyment of soccer. These kids may suddenly feel that with all the attention being thrown in their direction, they have to shoulder more of the responsibility for the team’s success and failure. If they don’t score a certain number of goals, they may feel personally responsible for a loss.
Going overboard with the praise can also alienate other members of the team, who may begin to feel as though the ta
lented player is the coach’s favorite. If you allow this alienation to happen, the team will harbor resentment toward you and the talented player, and that causes problems with the team spirit and chemistry you’re trying to build.
Enjoying the work you do with the highly gifted youngsters on your team certainly isn’t wrong. In fact, if these players possess good attitudes and aren’t critical or condescending to their teammates, they have the potential to emerge as wonderful team leaders and positive role models. Just remember to maintain a proper perspective, and recognize that these talented players are just one piece of the team puzzle. The entire roster full of other kids needs your help, support, and guidance as well.
Working with kids with ADHD
A child whose mind continually strays may have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which usually appears before the age of 7. According to the National Attention Deficit Disorder Association, the most common characteristics of a child with ADHD are distractibility, which consists of poor sustained attention to tasks; impulsivity, which is impaired impulse control; and hyperactivity, which constitutes excessive activity and physical restlessness. Boys are three times more likely to have ADHD than girls.
Youngsters with ADHD certainly don’t want to be inattentive any more than the child with bronchitis wants to struggle with coughing spells or the asthmatic child wants to gasp for breath. Some children may be on medication; others may not be on any type of medication; and others, when you get right down to it, may just be having a bad day. Finding out whether a child is on medication is important; see Chapter 4 for this and other topics you may want to discuss at your initial meeting with team parents. The best remedy for working with a child who has ADHD is to dispense plenty of praise for even the slightest improvement. ADHD youngsters are in constant need of praise and recognition, so when they follow your instructions or perform a skill in the appropriate fashion, pile on the praise and adulation.