Soccer Coaching

In coaching high school soccer, it’s a fact that similar to confidence; self-control too is a choice players need to make. In soccer coaching, the connection between emotions and thoughts establishes the self-control strategies. All of us know our mental state influences our passions that accordingly enhance our performance.

I’ll share with you a 12 step strategy to help players learn the ability and discipline of self-control. However, players should adopt this strategy only when they are certain of its utility for them.

Besides this, they must also assume total responsibility for their actions. The strategy has been given below in 12 steps for your reference.

1. Awareness: In coaching youth soccer, lend a helping hand to players in identifying their weak points. Let them examine when, where, and why loss of control has occurred previously on field.

2. Understanding: Help the players acknowledge the feeling that changed their thinking and caused them to lose their emotional steadiness.

Coaching Youth Soccer

3. Differences: Allow them to go back in time and recall situations where they did not lose control and where they did. And then they should determine the difference in their emotions, attitudes, and behavior.

4. Problem: When it comes to coaching high school soccer, try to point out the real problem. For example: The player may be feeling guilty that he let the entire team down due to his actions.

5. Belief: Teach the players to raise their expectations for their own selves with self-control as one of the qualities. Give confidence to players to change themselves.

6. Reinforcement: A change in behavior is promoted by reinforcement. So, as a coach, you must reward improved behavior of players on their way to permanent change.

7. Goals: To guide the players through skill upgradation process, set a series of small goals for them. Help the players understand the connection between thoughts, feelings, and actions.

8. Techniques: Build a series of behavioral techniques for maintaining confidence. For example: Players must know which path to follow in a certain situation.

9. Plan: In football coaching, teach a planned and systematic way of chasing the goals to players.

10. Progress: Help them being patient. Help the players realize the value of ups and downs in the path to improvement.

11. Setbacks: Teach the players on how to live with the setbacks that are unavoidable. Thus, utilize these to learn new things for improvement.

12. Remembrance: Last but by no means the least, make the players understand that they are trying to change for a reason. They should always bear in mind why they’re doing this. What will their future be like, if they don’t change.

We all now that a soccer player who can act speedily with comfort is in a perfect performance state. It signifies the ability to use energy without any fear.

Make no mistake about it. You must include relaxation techniques in coaching high school soccer and train the players on how to control the thought process so that they can keep themselves stress-free.

There is lots of good information available in the form of articles, newsletters, and videos on youth soccer coaching community to help you learn new coaching techniques; hurry subscriptions are open.

Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn  how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Soccer Practice Drills.

I don’t know if you know this but communication is the most important element to succeed in coaching high school soccer. The art of communicating to the team is what coaching truly is. This has the effect of expressing yourself to people with a view to perform them things in precisely the same manner.

When it comes to soccer coaching, I’ve observed that most of the coaches often are the ex-players. Yet, there are a number of issues that they are forced to handle. The reason why many of these issues show up is the coach’s inability to communicate. You must recognize that there are certain issues related to communication that need special attention if your job is to be made easier.

These are described for you one at a time.

Coaches generally allow their emotions to become involved while watching their kids play. Instead of acting as analytical observers, they become more of spectators. They tend to overlook some chief points that could help the team improve on certain fronts. Here, they miss out on the important part of having a professional conversation aimed at getting a win.

Though the coaches today are complete professionals fully acquainted with the game, they lack communication training. For example; use of flip charts and videos in soccer coaching is not applied by many coaches as they aren’t aware of them. The coach may be technically talented but if he not able to communicate properly, regular practice sessions get really boring for the kids.

Coaching Youth Soccer

In coaching high school soccer, communication becomes all the more important because the kids start to understand the game quite well. They have been executing soccer drills for a long time at different levels. And one of the ways to avoid the boredom of repeating important messages is to keep varying the format.

It’s a fact that sometimes the coaches completely forget that it is people who perform in the practice sessions. They tend to get carried away in the process of coaching and training. An example of ineffective communication by a coach is when he fails to use a player’s name while giving instructions which produces uncertainty.

There are certain guiding principles in football coaching which are as follows:

• All messages that come from the coach are very important. They should therefore be taken and read correctly.

• Your messages should have a positive impact on the players to put their best foot forward. Allow them to grow and become better players instead of highlighting their flaws.

• All players should get an equal opportunity to sit with you and learn. Research indicates that coaches spend a lot more time (up to seven times more!) with star players.

• Be proactive in communicating the problem the moment you see it coming.

• Reinforce the player’s self esteem by balancing praise with criticism. In coaching high school soccer, the balance should be a bit more towards the praise.

Believe my words. Your training programs will be immensely benefitted as a result of adopting these simple exercises.

If you found it informative enough, then there’s lot more in store for you. You just have to subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community to get all the latest and relevant information pertaining to the game.

Andre Botelho is a recognized expert in youth soccer coaching. He influences well over 35,000 youth coaches each year with his unique coaching philosophy, and makes it really easy to explode your players’ skills and make training more fun in record time. To download your free youth soccer coaching guide visit: Coaching high school soccer.