Coaching Soccer For Dummies Page 4

  Children’s short attention spans can make coaching difficult at times, but they can also work to your advantage. Many youngsters just beginning in the sport usually forget the score of the last game pretty quickly and direct their attention to something else. So, even if you happen to lose 9-0, praise the kids for their effort, and congratulate them on how well they passed the ball, which gives them a boost of confidence and a sense of accomplishment that they’re making strides in their play.

  Never let scoreboards or opposing teams define how much fun you have on the soccer field or impede your team’s progress in learning the game. The skill-development process is ongoing and occurs throughout the season. Use every practice and game as a building block to learning, and never forget to have fun along the way. With the right approach, your team will surely enjoy this journey with you every kick of the way.

  Emphasizing teamwork and building bonds

  Although soccer is a sport that allows individuals plenty of opportunities to create and maneuver on their own, you and your team are much better off if you can get everyone to work together as a cohesive unit on the field. Of course, this is easier said than done.

  Imagine having ten kids in front of you, and you have one really cool toy that they’re all eyeing. You give the toy to one child and ask her to share it with everyone. Tough to pull off, eh? The same goes for soccer. You have one soccer ball that the children all have to share in order for the team to be successful. So how do you get the team to that point?

  Finding a surefire route to teaching the essence of teamwork among your players is difficult. Try to get your players to see the enormous benefits that accompany working as a team (rather than as a bunch of individuals) with the following pointers:

  Praise team efforts. During practices, recognize the efforts of the team whenever possible. For example, if you’re conducting a 3-on-1 drill, and the offensive players score a goal, there’s a natural tendency to applaud the end result and acknowledge the youngster who delivered the kick at the expense of the others involved in the drill. But be sure to recognize the perfectly executed pass that began the play or the pass that found the open player who scored the goal. If you spread your admiration among all the players who played a role in the goal, players begin to understand that assists are just as important as goals in the team framework.

  Get the kids to praise one another. Encourage the kids who score goals to acknowledge the passes from their teammates. If you get kids in the habit of giving one another high-fives or telling one another “great pass,” you forge bonds for the benefit of the team.

  Promote sideline support. Encourage players who aren’t in the game to stay involved by cheering and supporting their teammates. This role keeps them involved in the action so they aren’t glancing over to see what their parents are doing or what kind of food their friends are buying at the concession stand.

  Allow individual freedom — at times. Although you should allow players individual freedom to create plays on their own, it must be done within the confines of the team setting. At some point during the game, a player’s 1-on-1 moves to work the ball down the field may be called for, and that’s part of the game. But when that player ignores teammates and isn’t willing to give up the ball, the team chemistry is threatened. Remind that player that he has teammates for a reason and to look out for them. (We cover dealing with a player who isn’t willing to give up the ball in Chapter 19.)

  Avoid the captain syndrome. Continually relying on two or three players to serve as team captains throughout the season puts them on a platform above the rest of the squad. Giving every player the opportunity to lead warm-ups in practice or head a drill infuses the team with the sense that everyone is equal. In most youth soccer programs, “official” team captains aren’t required until around the age of 14 or until kids join travel teams (discussed in Chapter 20), when the competition becomes more intense and the players become more passionate about the game. At the younger levels, captains aren’t necessary, but they are another tool that you can use to build self-esteem and team bonds.

  Creating a team environment in which children are comfortable and genuinely feel that they’re valued and contributing members is imperative for any learning and skill development to take place during the season. Building team bonds also ensures that the kids give you their best effort all season long — and have fun doing so.

  Here are a few ways you can help emphasize team spirit:

  Listen to the young voices. Let the kids regularly make some choices. Letting them select a favorite drill to run during practice and choose the team snack at the next game are great ways to involve everyone and make them a part of what’s going on this season. If the league allows it, you can even let the players choose the team name and the color of the uniforms. Or, to help promote team unity, you can let players pick what color t-shirt everyone wears to the next practice.

  Play the name game. Let players choose nicknames for themselves. If you feel daring, you can even let the team come up with a nickname for you.

  Come up with a team cheer. Work with everyone to come up with a clever team cheer that can be used before games to help remind players that they’re taking the field as a team and working together as one.

  Hold an early-season pizza party. You can’t go wrong with pizza, and there’s no rule that says you have to wait until the season is over to gather the team for a pizza party. Having a team party or other type of group activity early in the season helps build camaraderie among the players and forges friendships. The benefits will spill over to the field as the players work more closely together.

  Making every kid count

  All team members should feel prized, respected, and accepted. As the coach, your job is to work with, and play close attention to, all the youngsters on your team, regardless of how fast they run or how hard they kick a ball. Sometimes, this evenhandedness is a lot more difficult than it sounds. After all, becoming enamored with kids who are more athletically gifted than the rest of the team is easy, and you may end up showering them with all the attention, accolades, and praise. Spreading the encouraging words around equally takes real focus and effort. Making sure that each child — no matter how big or small his actual contributions are during games and practices — feels valued and appreciated for his efforts is the cornerstone of good coaching.

  Providing immediate feedback and continually recognizing all players for their various contributions are the most effective ways to boost their self-confidence and fuel their interest in giving their best effort all season long. Consider these points:

  Acknowledge all on-the-field contributions. The kids who score goals during games hear the gratifying applause from the stands, and they should hear praise from you, too, but you should also take the time to acknowledge the efforts that led to the goals. For instance, recognizing the youngster who delivered the pass that began the play, or applauding your defender who swiped the ball to regain possession for your team, goes a long way toward making each child truly feel appreciated and a part of the team. After all, without the effort of all the children, no one scores a goal, and it’s well worth mentioning to the team to reinforce that wins, losses, and goals are never the result of one player but of the total team.

  Seek out less tangible contributions. Applaud good attitudes and strong work ethics as much as you applaud properly executed passes or good defensive plays. Even lesser-skilled youngsters struggling to contribute during games can be recognized in a number of ways that will inflate their self-esteem and maintain their interest in participating. Applaud their hustle chasing after the ball, acknowledge their team spirit and enthusiasm, and point out to the rest of the squad the example of good sportsmanship that they display during games. These attributes are what youngsters carry with them the rest of their lives, long after they have put their shin guards away.

  Cheer when mistakes are made. Yes, you should cheer even when a child makes a mistake or fails to do a skill the way you just de
monstrated it. Making mistakes is a part of playing soccer, and the team needs to be reminded of that. Praising the effort rather than criticizing the result frees the child to keep trying until she gets it. She won’t fear making a mistake, because she knows she won’t receive negative backlash from you. This approach opens the door to all sorts of learning this season.

  Provide awards for all. Many coaches enjoy handing out awards at the end of the season to their players. If you elect to do so, make sure you come up with something for every player on the team instead of taking the old Most Valuable Player route. In Chapter 22, we discuss this idea in detail and provide some fun ideas that you can use to recognize the contributions of each team member.

  Modeling good sportsmanship

  Teaching good sportsmanship to youngsters can be tricky, especially because they’re bombarded with images on television of professional athletes trash-talking, showboating, and disrespecting opponents. Good sportsmanship is one of the healthiest and most important ideals you can instill in your young players. Here are a few ways you can help cultivate good sportsmanship and make your squad one of the most liked and respected teams in the league:

  Continually stress the importance of being a good sport at all times. While your players are going through warm-ups before practice or a game, discuss a game on TV that they saw, and ask them whether they saw a player display good sportsmanship. Subtle reinforcement goes a long way toward instilling good sportsmanship in your players.

  Set the tone before each game by crossing the field to shake the opposing coach’s hand. The players, fans, and opposing coaches will notice your gesture of sportsmanship, and it will make a difference.

  Be a model of good sportsmanship at all times. That means no yelling at officials or questioning calls that you’re sure should have gone your team’s way. If you aren’t a model of good sportsmanship at all times, you can’t expect your players to be. Players are going to take their cue from you, so if you rant and rave about a call to an official, expecting your players to show respect for the officials is hardly fair.

  During your post-game talk, recognize players who displayed good sportsmanship. Perhaps one of your players went out of her way after the game to congratulate an opposing player who scored a goal or made a good play during the course of the game. By recognizing these displays, your players gradually learn that their behavior on the field is important.

  Insist on a post-game handshake. Regardless of the game’s outcome, have your players line up and shake hands with the opposing team and its coaches. If your team won, your players should acknowledge that their opponents played a good game, and if your squad lost, your players should congratulate the opposition. It’s also a classy move for your players to shake the referee’s hand following the contest.

  Deal with problems. During the season, you may encounter a win-at-all-costs coach who prowls the sidelines yelling and berating his team or an out-of-control parent who spends the entire game shouting instructions at his child or argues every call that doesn’t go his way. In Chapter 19, we present tips on how to handle this type of inappropriate behavior, which has no place in youth soccer.

  Motivating players

  Regardless of their ages or experience levels, your players will arrive at the field with vastly different motivations for playing the game. Although some are strongly motivated individuals and real gems to work with, others may benefit from your inspiring words.

  Some players respond positively to challenges you issue, such as seeing whether they can deliver ten accurate passes in a row. With others, that approach may actually detract from their motivation to participate. Each youngster you come in contact with is different, and you have to discover for yourself what motivational tool works for each child.

  Here are a few general tips you can employ to help your players become the best they can be:

  Love what you’re doing. If you have a sincere passion for soccer and for teaching it to children, your excitement and enthusiasm will rub off on the team.

  Set attainable goals for youngsters. Having reasonable expectations for the kids you’re coaching and setting goals that are within their reach encourages them to keep working. If a child senses that your expectations are impossibly far-fetched, he wonders what’s the point of even trying, and his play on the field will suffer tremendously.

  Recognize the good things happening on the field. Stop practice to point out when a player does something really well, not when a player makes a mistake. Being positive is simply one of the best motivational tools around. Think about it. If your boss tells you that you did a great job on a presentation in front of your co-workers, you’re going to give even more effort on your next presentation. The same goes for kids performing skills on a soccer field.

  Don’t motivate through fear or threats. Making a child run a lap for failing to perform at an expected level has no place in youth soccer. This type of approach typically handcuffs a youngster’s ability to perform, because he’s now afraid of making a mistake that’s going to translate into punishment. Children have to feel free to make mistakes in order to improve. Plus, this motivation-through-fear tactic has the strong chance of chasing members of your team away from the sport in the future.

  Getting to Know the League You’re In

  Youth soccer leagues around the country are as different as the millions of kids who strap on shin guards to play in them. You can find outdoor and indoor leagues. Numbers go from 4-on-4 to 11-on-11 leagues. Ages fluctuate from 5-and-under leagues to 17-and-under leagues. You even have the option of same-sex leagues or coed leagues.

  Along with this diversity comes the smorgasbord of rules that are a part of each league. Some adhere strictly to the official rules of the sport and allow no modifications. The majority of programs, however, alter the rules to fit the age and experience level of the kids.

  Brushing up on the rules

  Reading a soccer rulebook isn’t as exciting as reading a Stephen King novel or a John Grisham thriller, but it should be bedside reading for you. To be successful at coaching, you have to know the rules of soccer, as well as the particular rules your league is enforcing this season, and be able to teach them to your players. Even if you have an extensive knowledge of soccer and perhaps even played at the high school or college level, take a look at the league’s rulebook. Consider it a refresher before you take the field. Chances are good that the league is using some rules that were never applied in the same way when you played as a youngster. If you don’t know and understand the rules, you can’t expect your team to, either. And if the youngsters don’t know the rules, playing soccer can be a pretty frustrating experience.

  Don’t plunge in and attempt to memorize all the rules in a single sitting. Review a few pages every night prior to the season’s start until you’re pretty comfortable with them. (For a quick primer on the rules of soccer, check out Chapter 3.)

  Don’t assume that older kids have a firm grasp on all the rules simply because they’ve played the sport for years. If no one took the time to explain certain rules that may be somewhat confusing, the kids may not have ever learned them. And as kids progress from league to league, they encounter new rules that may not have been enforced the previous season. It’s up to you to know which rules are in place and to share that information with the team before the season gets under way.

  Rainy days and make-up games

  Some days Mother Nature just isn’t going to be on your side, and she’s going to wreak havoc on your season. Rainy weather often forces you to reschedule or call off practices. Inclement weather on game days may result in the games moving to days that you normally don’t play on or in total cancellation. Some leagues may even have a week set aside at the end of the season specifically for make-up games. Being aware of the league policy regarding cancellations alleviates a lot of the confusion with parents and team members when bad weather arrives.

  Exercise great caution with approaching storms. Waiting for the first sig
n of lightning before canceling practice or stopping a game is flirting with serious trouble. Get your players off the field before lightning threatens the area. (Check out Chapter 18 for more information on dealing with the weather.)

  Practices, practices, practices

  The age of your team generally dictates how much time you spend conducting practices during the season. With most beginner leagues, you have just one practice a week. Many leagues restrict the number of practices a coach can hold, so be aware of this rule before you put together your practice plans.

  Quite often, leagues set the practice schedule for the entire season based on the number of fields that are available and what other programs they have going on. This helps eliminate a lot of scheduling headaches on your part. So, for example, during the season, your team may practice every Tuesday from 5:30 to 6:30.

  The time you spend with your team during practice sessions is critical for its success. Practice isn’t a social hour when you roll some balls out on the field and have the kids knock them around while you stand on the sidelines watching. You have to carefully plan these sessions and be actively involved in them at all times. Kids may not even recall a game they played in, but they may fondly recall a practice and what you said to them or a drill that was so much fun they couldn’t wait to tell their parents about it. Turn to Chapter 6 to get some in-depth tips on running a great practice.

  Focusing on fun or first place