Soccer Coaching: A Guide To Better Coaching
07.28.10
Can you imagine how difficult can it make things for a coach if there is lack of soccer coaching and playing experience? Allow me to present different angles of a coach’s persona that can aptly be called the traits of a soccer coach.
Personality: Experience is valuable but personality is more powerful. A coach’s overall personality determines his or her coaching success, whether the end-result is a fun game without any physical and mental pressures or the creation of a consistently strong team.
Knowledge of the game: It’s important for the coach to learn new tips and techniques in soccer. Making yourself familiar with the game’s rules, strategies, and tactics is essential to winning the respect.
Enthusiasm and interest: In the middle of soccer training program, be a salesperson. Once interest in the session is developed, motivating players becomes fairly easy. It’s also important to be open to a player’s needs with respect to team objectives, irrespective of their age. If you encourage questions, they are certain to enjoy the game.
Persistence and Patience: it is suicidal to overlook the inability of the player to perform soccer drills. A player does not want to learn anything new when he or she does not perform well. Setting unrealistic goals can frustrate young players. Therefore, be patient and persevere as players try to motivate themselves in moving from one session to another.
Ability to manage priorities: Develop a step-by-step technique of learning using which the players can learn and move forward. While soccer coaching, the players should get ample opportunities to put into practice things they have learnt. Only when each player has become an expert in a certain skill, teach the new one.
Single-mindedness: A coach must be specifically interested in the skills and social and moral behaviour of each player. Being sensitive to their individual needs and being honest with them goes a long way. To become a great player, strength of character in victory as well as in defeat lays foundation for a player’s success.
Understand the learning process: A better understanding of the learning process will help in effective player and team development. Inspire the players to go all out in doing exercises that make a difference to their thinking and acting.
Stimulate the players to learn soccer skills through participation, demonstration, and guidance. The learning process concludes only when the kids execute what they have been taught. Learning requires active experience and not just plain teaching.
Imagination: Create situations that challenge the player’s imaginations, bring them pleasure in performing tasks, and serve important game drills. Motivate and stimulate players to make their practice sessions enjoyable and rewarding.
Do yourself a favor and adopt these soccer coaching attributes and there’s no reason why you should not emerge as an exceptionally successful coach. You can lay your hands on loads of relevant information pertaining to coaching young players in form of newsletters, articles, and videos by subscribing to our youth soccer coaching community.
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: Youth Soccer Practice.