Youth Soccer Coaching

Let’s face it that like confidence, self-control in coaching high school soccer is an option that players can choose. Self-control strategies in soccer coaching depend upon the relationship between emotions and thoughts. We are all aware that our feelings influence our emotions and this consequently boosts our performance.

With a view to help the players in learning the skill and discipline of self-control, there is a 12 step strategy which I shall discuss with you. Still, it is better that players take up these steps only when they feel that it is going to be of value to them.

Besides this, they must also assume total responsibility for their actions. The strategy has been given below in 12 steps for your reference.

1. Awareness: When coaching youth soccer, help players identify their weak points. Let them examine when, where, and why loss of control has occurred previously on field.

2. Understanding: Help the players acknowledge the feeling that changed their thinking and caused them to lose their emotional steadiness.

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: Make an attempt to identify the exact problem in coaching high school soccer. For example: The player may be feeling guilty that he let the entire team down due to his actions.

5. Belief: Help the players raise their own expectations including self-control as one of the character. Encourage them to change.

6. Reinforcement: Reinforcement encourages a change in behavior. Therefore, you must not forget your duty as a coach to recognize and honor the improvements of players so that they stick to these.

7. Goals: Set a series of small goals for players that will lead them along the road to change. Help the players understand the connection between thoughts, feelings, and actions.

8. Techniques: Set up multiple performance based methods to boost the confidence level. For example: Course of action must be clear in the minds of players when a certain situation arises.

9. Plan: In football coaching, train the players to systematically and considerably follow their goals.

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. So, the best way is learn from them and become even stronger.

12. Remembrance: Last but not the least, help the players understand that there is a reason behind their attempts to change. They should always be clear about what are they doing and why. How important the change is for their future?

We all agree that a perfect performance state for a soccer player is that of a relaxed promptness. This simply means use of full energy without stress.

You must not make any mistake about it. 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.

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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.

I don’t know a thing about you, but I’ll bet that the attitude and behavior of the coach in coaching high school soccer strongly influences the performance of the players. In order to have a team that is mentally strong, the coaches should plan a course that strengthens a positive winning mind-set.

In a player’s career, the coach is an important and a prominent authority figure. The coach’s body language, mind-set, and expressions can shape, strengthen, or harm the player’s confidence.

When coaching youth soccer, mental strength is required to meet the challenges through a positive willpower. Thus, in both practice and competition, the coach should be the starting point.

In order to make sure that the coach does not get either too high or too low, he or she should pursue a disciplined post match routine. A successful coach will use ideas, stories, and metaphors, videos, and so on to shape the collective mindset of the team and prepare them to be mentally tough in performance.

Coaching Youth Soccer

In football coaching, the coach who wants a mentally tough team must demonstrate a controlled way to deal with emotional setbacks despite personal feelings.

Only when the coach shows a firm belief in the team’s capability to accomplish in spite of the problems, the team will have an outline for developing the same mind-set and feel motivated.

In coaching high school soccer, handling mistakes and failure is another important area of responsibility for the coach. One of the keys to a player’s motivation and the wish to work towards correcting mistakes is the coach’s response to failure. A coach has got only two choices.

To give a response to the players in order to improve them, their failures can be used as an opportunity to correct them. The players should be persuaded to recommit themselves to the challenge with improved inspiration.

Second, use failure as evidence of the player’s inadequacy and proof that they cannot meet expectations. Such a heartbreaking overreaction might de-motivate the players.

Players can be made psychologically strong by accommodating the accountability for their judgment, stances, and actions and rejecting all probable excuses. During the course of soccer coaching, coaches can help by questioning and listening rather than always tell the players what they did wrong. They should be encouraged to talk about what they could have done better.

Such an exercise is called self-reference. The coach can encourage the players by encouraging the players to self reference. The coach can discuss the situation by asking the players their reaction rather than giving them a definition of the situation. In order to explain, we can take the instance “How do you feel you played?” or “Why do you feel you behaved that way?”

This way the players must think through and account for his or her reactions which are a vital part of the learning process.

Hence, apply these methods in coaching high school soccer.

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Andre Botelho is the author of “The Expert Youth Soccer Coaching Guide” and he’s a recognized expert in the subject of youth soccer coaching. Learn  how to explode your players’ skills and make coaching sessions fun in less than 29 days! Download your free pdf guide at: Kids Soccer Drills.

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 enables you to let people understand exactly what you wish them to do and in what sense.

In soccer coaching, I’ve come to notice that generally the former players have assumed the responsibility of being coaches. Still, there are several problems that they have to find solutions to. The reason why many of these issues show up is the coach’s inability to communicate. You must recognize that there are certain issues related to communication that need special attention if your job is to be made easier.

These have been described one by one.

Coaches generally allow their emotions to become involved while watching their kids play. Instead of acting as analytical observers, they become more of spectators. 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.

Even though the coaches are well versed with the technicalities of the game, they are not trained specifically on communication. For example; use of flip charts and videos in soccer coaching is not applied by many coaches as they aren’t aware of 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

It is even more important in case of coaching high school soccer because the players are not new to the game. They have been working on these drills for some time but the standards are different. You can do away with the monotony of repetitive messages by frequently changing the layout of training.

It may come as a surprise to you that coaches often forget that their training sessions are carried out by people. They tend to get carried away in the process of coaching and training. When a coach tries to instruct something to the play but does not use that player’s name, it creates confusion and is an apt example of bad communication.

Some guiding principles for coaches in football coaching are given below:

• Every message from the coach is equally important. 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.

• Spend equal time with all players. Studies indicate that coaches spend relatively more time with star players in team (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. Tip the balance more towards praise with players in 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.

If you are like me, you probably know that in coaching high school soccer, the journey to becoming a complete player begins by building confidence. Often when you say that the players have to play under pressure in a game, it indicates your player’s lack of confidence to handle any situation. The reason being that confidence alone can ensure success.

Like many choices we make, confidence as an attribute is also chosen by players. Explain this point in coaching youth soccer by telling them the conduct to two parrots sitting on both shoulders.

One is a positive parrot that pushes the player to accept and conquer every challenge coming his way by repeating “You can do it.” Then there is the other parrot who is full of negativity and keeps telling the player “You can’t do this.” And clearly they have to choose which parrot to listen to.

Once the choice has been made, teach them to take responsibility for their actions. This choice may have to made every single day. Develop successful players in your team by helping them build strong inner confidence by focusing on their contribution to success or failure.

Coaching Youth Soccer

Train the players of the fact that in soccer coaching that putting the blame on something or someone else is a mark of insecurity. Rather teach players to take the setbacks as an integral part of the learning curve and not something to deter their confidence levels.

Likewise in coaching high school soccer, it’s imperative to teach the players to repeat the phrase “I’ll get the next one” whenever they miss out on any opportunity.
Thus, confidence for the next strike is remains unaffected because of the distress of the miss.

One of the keys to managing a successful team is your ability to make quick judgments regarding a player’s ability to survive the demands of competition. In football coaching, there is always a close call between judging physical and mental readiness, but in the end, physical readiness wins the battle.

To make such judgments easy, there is a need of searching clear messages. Look for both verbal and non verbal messages that the player is sure of his or her ability to succeed in the game.

Confidence comes from success. Success in Soccer comes with the belief in yourself that you are well equipped and ready for every situation that may build pressure. In order to make the players emotionally power-packed, a phrase “If you are not preparing to win, you are preparing to fail”, is frequently used.

Experience is a building block of confidence. The reservations, mistakes, losses and denunciation should be taken up calmly by the players so that their underpinning of experience can be built. It is the feeling that he or she has the knowledge, has been there before, and knows what to look forward to.

Never doubt it. Building of confidence in coaching high school soccer is an everyday task, so players should reflect on certain key steps to discover what works for them.

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Andre Botelho is known online as “The Expert Youth Soccer Coach” and his free ebooks and reports have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Learn how to skyrocket your players’ skills and make practice sessions fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Soccer Coaching.