Coaching High School Soccer: 5 Things You Must Know
I don’t know if you know this but communication is the most important element to succeed in coaching high school soccer. The actual meaning of coaching kids is the art of communicating with them. It explains what you want of people in such a way that allows them to perform it.
When it comes to soccer coaching, I’ve observed that most of the coaches often are the ex-players. Then also they have to face a number of issues while coaching young players. These issues come up due to the inability to communicate properly. As a coach, you need to work upon certain communication related problems for effective execution of your responsibilities.
These are described for you one at a time.
Coaches generally allow their emotions to become involved while watching their kids play. The coaches become spectators instead of adopting a critical approach to observing the kids. They ignore the important facets of the game that could improve the team’s performance significantly. Here, they miss out on the important part of having a professional conversation aimed at getting a win.
Although coaches have a complete knowledge of the game, but they have a little training in communication. For example; in soccer coaching, use of a video or a flip chart is not very common since most coaches 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.
In coaching high school soccer, communication becomes all the more important because the kids start to understand the game quite well. They have been working on these drills for some time but the standards are different. And one of the ways to avoid the boredom of repeating important messages is to keep varying the format.
The coaches have a tendency to just forget that training sessions are being executed by human beings and not machines. They tend to get carried away in the process of coaching and training. For example; Sending out instructions without taking the player’s name leads to uncertainty and confusion.
Some guidelines meant for coaches in football coaching include the following:
• Every message coming from the coach carries equal importance. They should therefore be taken and read correctly.
• Your language should be positive enough to push the players to try hard to perform well. Help them to improve rather than reprimanding them for not playing well.
• Make sure you spend quality time with all your players. Research in this filed shows that coaches tend to spend comparatively more time with the best players (up to seven times more!).
• Be proactive in communicating the problem the moment you see it coming.
• Strengthen the player’s self respect by matching criticism with praise. Tilt the balance a little more towards praise with respect to coaching high school soccer.
Trust me. When you apply these rules to your training sessions, the benefits will be much more that you’ll expect.
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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.
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