Teaching Soccer

In coaching high school soccer it’s a proven fact that self-control is a choice and players have to choose it just like they do for confidence. Self-control strategies in soccer coaching depend upon the relationship between emotions and thoughts. 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. Still, it is better that players take up these steps only when they feel that it is going to be of value to them.

The players should be ready to accept full responsibility for their acts as well. The strategy has been given below in 12 steps for your reference.

1. Awareness: Help the players figure out their weak points during the course of coaching youth soccer. Allow them to investigate when, where and how loss of control happened on field in their past.

2. Understanding: Make the players realize why their thinking changed and how it caused them to lose their emotional balance.

Coaching Youth Soccer

3. Differences: Give them time to recollect situations when they did lose control and when they did not. Let them judge the distinction between their behavior, attitudes, and emotions then.

4. Problem: In coaching high school soccer, try to find out the exact problem. For instance: It may be the guilty feeling in a player that he let the whole team down due to his acts.

5. Belief: Help the players raise their own expectations including self-control as one of the character. Support them so they can change.

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: Set a series of small goals for players that will lead them along the road to change. Guide the players in understanding the correlation between way of thinking, thought process, and actions.

8. Techniques: Put together different behavioral action items to uphold the confidence level. For example: If a certain situation happens, this is the course that players must follow.

9. Plan: In football coaching, teach the players to pursue their goals in a planned and systematic way.

10. Progress: Teach them how to be patent. Let them know that improvement always comes in a series of ups and downs.

11. Setbacks: Help the players in accepting the setbacks, as these will continue to happen. Therefore, try to learn something new from every setback.

12. Remembrance: Last but an important point is to let the players identify the good reason behind the change. They should always be clear about what are they doing and why. How important the change is for their future?

We all now that a soccer player who can act speedily with comfort is in a perfect performance state. In other words, the stress-free efficient performance.

This is of utmost importance. To teach the players in channelizing their energy in way that they are able to produce emotions to help them get rid of tension, include relaxation techniques in coaching high school soccer.

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.

When it comes to coaching high school soccer, communication is the most vital part to consider on way to achieve success. The term coaching signifies the art of communication. 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. Still, there are several problems that they have to find solutions to. Majority of these issues come up due to communication lags. You must recognize that there are certain issues related to communication that need special attention if your job is to be made easier.

Let me explain them to you one at a time.

In the course of watching the young players on field, coaches often get emotional. They tend to become spectators rather than analytical observers. They fail to notice the important points that could better their team’s performance. As such they lose the focus on directing the team towards a win by way of an effective conversation.

The coaches are generally not trained to communicate effectively although they have all the knowledge of the game. For instance; most coaches don’t use videos or flip charts in soccer coaching because they don’t know about them. When the coach finds it difficult to communicate his messages clearly, it brings monotony to the game even if he has a complete knowledge of the game.

Coaching Youth Soccer

This occupies greater importance in coaching high school soccer as the players are young but also know the various facets of the game. 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 may come as a surprise to you that coaches often forget that their training sessions are carried out by people. They get so absorbed in the training and coaching as a process that they lose their ground. For instance; the communication is incomplete when an instruction is given to a player but without his/ her name thus making it difficult for any of them to apply it.

Some guidelines meant for coaches in football coaching include the following:

• All messages from the coach are important for players. So it’s necessary that they are deduced correctly.

• Use positive language that encourages players to give their best shot. Help them to improve rather than reprimanding them for not playing well.

• Pay equal attention to each player in the team. Research in this filed shows that coaches tend to spend comparatively more time with the best players (up to seven times more!).

• Communicate the potential issues that could arise and have a solution ready.

• Add force to the player’s confidence by harmonizing criticism with praise. In coaching high school soccer, the balance should be a bit more towards the praise.

Accept as true. Application of these simple strategies to your training programs will have far reaching results for your team.

There’s lot more to know and understand about this aspect of soccer only if you wish to. You can subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community which has tons to videos, and articles to improve your team’s overall performance.

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.