Coaching Soccer For Dummies Read online

  Conventions Used in This Book

  To help you navigate this book, we use the following conventions:

  Italic text is used for emphasis and to highlight new words and terms that we define in the text.

  Boldfaced text is used to indicate keywords in bulleted lists or the action parts of numbered steps.

  Monofont is used for Web addresses. If you find that a specific address in this book has been changed, try scaling it back by going to the main site — the part of the address that ends in .com, .org, or .edu.

  Sidebars are shaded gray boxes that contain text that’s interesting to know but not necessarily critical to your understanding of the chapter or topic.

  We’ve also packed this book full of diagrams of practice drills and plays that you can work on with your team. The following chart is the key to understanding all the squiggles and lines:

  What You’re Not to Read

  Personally, we would read every word of this book if we were you. That’s how good we think it is. But we may be biased, and you may be short on time. So, for your convenience, we’re telling you that you don’t have to read everything. In fact, when you see text marked with the TechnicalStuff icon, feel free to skip it. It isn’t integral to your understanding of coaching or soccer. We also include gray-shaded boxes called sidebars that we fill with interesting (but totally skippable) information. Read at your own pace, and if you have time, let us know what you think of the book.

  Foolish Assumptions

  Here are some things that we assume about you:

  You know that soccer is played primarily with the feet and involves lots of running.

  You have a son or daughter who’s interested in playing soccer this year, but you’re unsure how to go about teaching him or her the game.

  You’re a novice youth soccer coach, and you need to get your coaching skills up to speed.

  You don’t have any aspirations of climbing the coaching ladder and overseeing a high school or college soccer team in the near future.

  You want the basics on things like what to do during the first practice of the season, how to determine who plays where, and whether teaching youngsters how to head a ball is safe.

  If any of these descriptions hits the mark, you’ve come to the right place.

  How This Book Is Organized

  This book is divided into parts, each one pertaining to a specific aspect of coaching a youth soccer team. Here’s a quick rundown.

  Part I: Getting Started Coaching Soccer

  Coaching youth soccer can be a real challenge, but what you do before you and your team ever step on the field can make the difference between a smooth-running season and one that dissolves into total chaos and confusion. In this part, you get the scoop on how to develop a coaching philosophy that you’re comfortable with and one that your players and their parents will embrace rather than reject. You also discover what all those markings are on the field and get an overview of the rules of the game.

  Part II: Building Your Coaching Skills

  Fresh air. Green grass. Colorful uniforms. This is where the real fun — and actual coaching — begins. Before you step on the field, though, this part provides valuable information on how to conduct a preseason parents meeting, an often-overlooked aspect of coaching youth sports that’s crucial for opening the communication lines, reducing the chances of misunderstandings and hurt feelings, and keeping your sanity. It also answers questions such as:

  How do I create practice plans that aren’t the same boring thing week after week?

  How do I work with the uncoordinated kids or the shy youngsters who won’t stop staring at the ground?

  What about the kid who doesn’t even want to be here?

  Plus, we show you the game-day ropes — from pre-game routines to your post-game speech — and help you assess your team and your performance at midseason.

  Part III: Beginning and Intermediate Soccer

  Teaching kids the basics of the game — from passing and defending to dribbling and shooting — is crucial for their long-term enjoyment of the sport. This part shares how you can go about teaching by providing a variety of fun-filled drills that are highly effective in teaching skills. Also, when your team has a pretty good handle on some of the basics, check out the chapter devoted to kicking those skills up a notch.

  Part IV: Advanced Soccer Strategies

  When your players have a pretty good grasp of the basics of the game, they’re eager to learn more advanced skills and continue their development. Part IV serves you well in this aspect. You discover more in-depth offensive and defensive techniques — such as outlet passes and counterattacking — while being presented with an assortment of drills that you can use to help your players maximize their development. From indirect free kicks to defending a 2-on-1, this part examines it all.

  Part V: The Extra Points

  Part V is a smorgasbord of information on several topics that we hope you won’t be dealing with much this season, such as recognizing injuries, confronting problem parents, and dealing with discipline problems on your team. You also find valuable information on pre- and post-game nutrition that you can share with your team to help maximize performance. And for those coaches looking to coach a travel team, you find all the information you need to help make your transition to a more competitive level of soccer a smooth one.

  Part VI: The Part of Tens

  It just wouldn’t be a For Dummies book without the Part of Tens. Here, you find all sorts of precious information that you can put to use to boost the fun and enjoyment your team has playing for you this season. We include information on ways to make the season memorable and fun ways to end on a high note and keep ’em coming back next year.

  Icons Used in This Book

  This icon signals valuable tips that can really enhance your coaching skills. If you’re scanning a chapter, take a moment to read these tips when you come across them and then put them to work.

  When you’re coaching youth soccer, you have a lot to comprehend. This icon alerts you to key information that’s worth revisiting.

  Watch out! This icon alerts you to situations that can be dangerous or derail your instruction.

  Soccer can be a pretty complex game, particularly at the more competitive levels, so at times throughout this book, we present some rather technical information. You may want to skip some of this information if your young squad isn’t ready to get too in-depth in the game.

  Where to Go from Here

  If this season is your first on the sidelines as a volunteer youth soccer coach, you may be most comfortable digging in with Chapter 1 and moving forward from there. Please note, though, that the book is structured so that you can easily move around from chapter to chapter at your convenience. So if you need answers to some of your most pressing early-season questions, you can scan the table of contents or index for those topics and jump right to those chapters.

  Part I

  Getting Started Coaching Soccer

  In this part …

  B efore you take the field with your young troops for the first time, do yourself, and your team, a big favor by diving into some behind-the-scenes homework that will lay the foundation for a smooth-running season. The homework includes outlining your coaching philosophy, understanding how your league operates, and learning the basic rules of the sport. You find all the information to get your season headed in the right direction in this part.

  Chapter 1

  Teaching Soccer to Children

  In This Chapter

  Preparing to coach

  Planning for your practices and games

  Coaching your own child

  Congratulations on your decision to coach a youth soccer team this season. You’re embarking on a wonderful journey that will be filled with many special moments that both you and your players — regardless of their age or skill level — will remember for the rest of your lives.

  Before you step on the field, you need to be aware that
you’re taking on a very important role. How you manage the youngsters on your team, and the way you interact with them during practices and games, affects how they feel about the sport and even themselves for years to come. How you handle the lengthy list of responsibilities that comes with the job either helps them develop an unquenchable passion for the game or drains their interest in ever participating again.

  All you need — besides a whistle and clipboard — is some good information to guide you through the season. In this chapter, you find useful, straightforward insight and tips to help you and your team have a safe, fun, and rewarding season.

  Doing Your Homework

  Whether you volunteered to coach youth soccer this season because you want to spend more time with your child or because the league has a shortage of coaches and you’re willing to step forward, you’re accepting a responsibility that you can’t take lightly. Before you roll out the soccer balls at your first practice, you have plenty of work to do behind the scenes to ensure that the season gets off to a smooth start.

  Working with — and not against — parents

  The overwhelming majority of parents with children involved in organized youth soccer programs are a supportive and caring group who want only the best for their children. Of course, parents in the minority can turn out to be a source of season-long aggravation that you may be forced to deal with. You can head off many potential problems by gathering the parents together before you begin the season and laying the ground rules on what you expect in terms of behavior during games, as well as their roles and responsibilities.

  Coaches and parents finding ways to work together — the adult form of teamwork — is a formula that produces tremendous benefits for the youngsters. Coaches and parents who clash over everything from playing time to why Junior isn’t getting to play sweeper spoil the experience for that child, and quite possibly others as well, when the negativity seeps into the team’s practice sessions and envelops game day.

  With parents, keep the following in mind:

  Be proactive with them. Outlining your expectations and coaching methods before the season paints a clear picture to parents about how you plan to handle the season. When parents hear firsthand that you’re committed to skill development over winning and that you adhere to the league’s equal-playing-time rule, you leave no room for petty squabbles over how much playing time their children receive. If you don’t clarify these issues for parents well in advance, you’re asking for a heap of trouble — and you’ll get it, too. In Chapter 2, we help you develop your coaching philosophy and become familiar with your league so that you can clearly communicate these points to the parents.

  Involve them. Parents invest a lot of time and money in their child’s soccer experience, and being included (instead of simply watching practice from the car or dropping their youngster off and then running errands) makes it far more worthwhile to them and their child. Parents can do more than bring treats after the game, too. Find ways to involve them at your practices, and recruit the right ones to assist you on game day; doing so helps you turn the season into a rewarding one for everyone involved. Throughout the book, you can find tips on boosting parental involvement, from practice drills that have team parents sticking around (see Chapter 6) to working with parents when you take a step up the coaching ladder and graduate to travel teams (see Chapter 20).

  Communicate with them. Besides a preseason parents meeting (which you can read all about in Chapter 4), keep the communication lines open all season long. Talk to the parents about the kids’ progress; share your thoughts on where they really make improvements; offer suggestions for things they can do to help their youngsters develop in other areas; and check in from time to time to find out whether their children are having fun playing for you. Including parents in all facets of the season is the right thing to do and the smart thing to ensure that their children have positive experiences. In fact, we suggest that you meet 1-on-1 with each parent as part of your midseason progress review (see Chapter 8).

  Despite your best efforts, problems may arise with parents. Our advice is to remain calm and in control of your emotions, and never allow situations to escalate. Check out Chapter 19, where we help you troubleshoot this issue and other problems coaches are most likely to face throughout the season.

  Deciphering rules and mastering terminology

  You’ve taken the job of teaching kids the world’s most popular sport, and if you’re like many volunteer coaches today, chances are pretty good that you never played soccer growing up. Therefore, to fulfill your responsibilities, you have to get a good handle on the basics of the game and be able to explain rules, introduce terminology, and teach strategies to your young players. Sound complicated? It isn’t; it just takes a little time and effort on your part to learn some of the quirky rules (like offside) and some of the terms (like corner kicks and indirect free kicks) that are at the heart of this great game. We open up the rulebook in Chapter 3 and cover all the terms that you need to know. And we concentrate on the skills, techniques, and strategies that you need to pass along to your kids throughout Parts II and III of this book. Whether you need to brush up on fundamental skills for a beginning team or work out a defensive formation when you play against that high-octane older squad, we have you covered.

  One of the most important steps you can take is find out what special rules your league operates under. Quite often, the rules that leagues utilize vary depending on the age and experience level of the players. Everything from the size of the field to which rules are enforced changes from community to community. Knowing these rules — and sharing them with your players — makes a tremendous difference in your players’ enjoyment of the sport.

  Taking the Field

  Coaching youth soccer is all about the kids, their smiles, and their eagerness to get started learning from you and developing skills under you. What you say and do from day one through the course of the season has a major impact on whether these kids take a great interest in the sport and continue playing it for years to come or choose to turn their backs on it.

  Practice planning

  The drills you choose to teach kids skills and the manner in which you go about designing your practices influence your team’s enjoyment and progress during the season. Practices that kids look forward to with the same enthusiasm as the first day of summer vacation promote learning and skill development. On the other hand, practices that you put together in your car in the parking lot five minutes before the players begin arriving stifle learning and put a roadblock on fun. While working with your team, keep the following thoughts in mind to help squeeze the most out of your sessions:

  Be more than a coach. Although you’re teaching your players the basics of the game, you also have the opportunity to impact their lives in other areas. While they warm up, talk to them about the importance of doing well in school, and ask them what their favorite subjects are. Take the time to speak to them about how important it is to listen to what their parents and teachers say and what it means to be a good kid. Your practices can be great times to teach more than how to kick a soccer ball, and the words you deliver may stick with the children for the rest of their lives.

  Create a positive atmosphere. Turn your practices into sessions in which youngsters can make mistakes without the fear of being yelled at in front of their teammates. Letting the kids know from the first practice of the season that making mistakes is part of the learning process allows them to relax and, in the process, helps them learn skills quicker and perform better.

  Choose drills that keep kids moving at all times and are challenging enough to hold their interest. Drills that force kids to stand in line awaiting turns are not only boring, but also dramatically cut down on the number of touches of the ball each child receives, which minimizes learning. Check out Chapters 10, 14, and 17, where we provide all sorts of drills and ideas for beginning, intermediate, and advanced players.

  Game day

  Coaching is abou
t constantly adapting to ever-changing conditions, and that’s most evident on game day, when you’re challenged to make all sorts of decisions in a short period of time. With younger kids just starting out in the sport, you want to make sure you rotate them around to all the different positions so they can experience the sport from a variety of perspectives. With the older kids, you may find yourself making halftime adjustments and determining whether a more aggressive approach serves the team best in the second half or whether a more defense-oriented style of play is warranted. But don’t worry; we help you handle it all in Chapter 7.

  Game day provides many great teachable moments for the kids. It gives you a chance to reinforce some of the points you talk about all week during practice, such as the importance of working as a team, displaying good sportsmanship toward the opposing team and the officials, abiding by the rules, doing your best at all times, and having fun regardless of what the scoreboard reads.

  Balancing Parenting and Coaching

  We certainly don’t have to tell you that being a parent is a difficult job, but here’s what we can share with you: Coaching your son or daughter’s soccer team is equally tricky. After you step inside the white lines, and your child straps on the shin guards, you’re likely to encounter an assortment of issues. We hope most of them are minor, but some may be problems that you never even dreamed of dealing with before. Don’t panic! Although coaching your child can be complex and confusing, it can also be, if handled properly, an extremely rewarding experience for both of you. Sure, you’ll probably experience occasional bumps along the way, but if the two of you work together, you’ll enjoy some very special memories to savor for a lifetime.