“In general, young soccer players require a cetain amount of uninterrupted play.
This allows them to experience soccer first hand. They should be allowed the
opportunity to experiment, and with that, succeed and fail.
Best Practices for Coaching Soccer in the United States – U. S. Soccer
The following comes directly from U. S. Soccer.
The coach’s long-term goal is to prepare the player to successfully recognize and solve the challenges (editor: problems) of the game on his or her own. It is vital that the coach approaches soccer with this in mind.
Basic Ideas To Consider When Coaching Youth Soccer
The most fundamental soccer skill is individual mastery of the ball and the creativity that comes with it. This should be a priority in training and games, especially in the early years. As this skill is mastered, the rest of the game becomes easy – both to teach and to learn. Practices should be built around facilitating the development of the skills necessary to move and control the ball well. As these individual skills and the creativity to make them come alive in the game are developed to a level of competence, the finer points, first of passing skill and later of team organization can be taught.
The town and club coaches who work with our youth and junior players daily play a fundamental role in the development of soccer players in this country. Towns and clubs should strive to place experienced coaches who have a clear understanding of the value of teaching technique at the youth and early junior levels. Equally important is the coach’s personality and character. Working with 6- to 14-year-old children requires patience, kindness and respect.
Coaching soccer can be confusing at times because the game changes dramatically as the players improve in both skill and physical ability. When coaching young, developing players, as well as adolescent players, U.S. Soccer feels it is helpful to keep the following ideas at the forefront of your mind:
- 1) Set up situations where the players can learn by playing the game. The game is the best teacher for young players.
- 2) Coaches can often be more helpful to a young player’s development by organizing less, saying less, and allowing the players to do more. Set up a game and let the kids play. Keep most of your comments for before and after practice and during water breaks. Comments should be kept short and simple. Be comfortable organizing a session that looks like pickup soccer.
- 3) Teaching and learning the game of soccer is a process: make your goals seasonal, as well as daily and weekly. Often, at younger ages, the developmental efforts of one season are not noticeable in children until sometime in the next season.
- 4) Set age-appropriate goals i.e., know what the child can do at that age.
- 5) From a developmental standpoint, the young ages are the best ones for learning skills. Spend the time now encouraging this growth. By the age of 17, the capacity to pick up new motor skills begins to wane, while the ability to conceptualize team organization, tactics, and strategy increases. As a coach, work with these strengths, not against them.
- 6) Do not expect games and practices to look like professional soccer. If you want to use high-level soccer as a teaching tool, focus on the individual skill level of professional players, not their organization. Give your players opportunities to see what older, more skilled players, i.e. a high school, college player or an older brother or sister, can do with the ball. On occasion, invite some of these players to participate in your practice. Use them to model good soccer qualities. Let your players learn by experiencing the game alongside or against these better players. Older players can also be used as “neutral players.” In this case, the neutral player helps whichever team has the ball i.e. he or she never defends. Maybe the neutral player has limited touches and/or can’t score, but he or she gives the team with the ball a better chance of keeping the ball. By helping to maintain possession, the neutral player(s) helps the game maintain some rhythm, and gives the kids a clearer picture of the game’s possibilities.
- 7) Recognize and understand how the skills learned at each age are connected to preparing the player to move into the next phase of his or her development. Know what the next level of play is, and the general tools that your players should carry with them as they move on. Help them to be prepared.
- 8) Allow your players to develop these requisite skills in an environment where the main goal is to have fun with the ball.
- 9) The value of matches is that they provide youngsters with an opportunity to showcase their newly acquired skill and creativity. It is always nice to win, however, that should not be your focus at the younger age groups (through 14 years).
- 10) Have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish at practice. Create exercises/games that replicate and repeat the movements and situations that are found in soccer and that allow the player to grow comfortable and confident with the ball at his or her feet. Encourage players to move with the ball at his or her feet and deal with boundaries, opponents, teammates, and goals. Keep in mind that soccer is a pretty simple game. If you’re involved in soccer long enough, you begin to realize that all the little that work are really just variations on the same basic concepts. As long as the parameters that you have established in your exercises/small-sided games are true to soccer ( goals for scoring and defending), create the problems that you want the kids to solve (protecting the ball while dribbling, etc.), and allow your players to be challenged and find some success, you’re on the right track.
- 11) Don’t be afraid to experiment to find what works best.
- 12) Remember that the game is the best teacher for the players. Coaches and parents should think of themselves more as facilitators, monitors, guides, or even participants, to provide a rich environment for the kids to learn from and enjoy.