Coaching High School Soccer: How To Teach Effectively
You might disagree, but hear me out on this when I say that in Coaching high school soccer, communication is the first step to success. The term coaching signifies the art of communication. It explains what you want of people in such a way that allows them to perform it.
In soccer coaching, I’ve come to notice that generally the former players have assumed the responsibility of being coaches. 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.
I’ll explain them one by one.
In the course of watching the young players on field, coaches often get emotional. The coaches become spectators instead of adopting a critical approach to observing the kids. They tend to overlook some chief points that could help the team improve on certain fronts. As such they lose the focus on directing the team towards a win by way of an effective conversation.
Though the coaches today are complete professionals fully acquainted with the game, they lack communication training. For example; in soccer coaching, many coaches are not aware of the utility of a flip chart or a video. The coach may be technically talented but if he not able to communicate properly, regular practice sessions get really boring for the kids.
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. By keep on changing training format, coaches can avoid the monotony of repeating the same messages again and again.
It may come as a surprise to you that coaches often forget that their training sessions are carried out by people. Only with a view to execute the training program well, coaches tend to ignore every other aspect of it. 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:
• All messages that come from the coach are very important. So make sure that they are interpreted correctly.
• Your language should be positive enough to push the players to try hard to perform well. Allow them to grow and become better players instead of highlighting their flaws.
• Pay equal attention to each player in the team. It has come to light through various studies that coaches spend much more time with their top players (up to seven times more!).
• Don’t wait for the problems to arise to sort them out.
• Accentuate your player’s self worth by balancing praise with criticism. When it comes to coaching high school soccer, tilt the balance slightly more towards 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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
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: soccer coaching
Posted: July 26th, 2010 under Recreation.
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