Coaching Youth Soccer

Okay, so you either you volunteered to coach your child's soccer team or you are facing another season as an experienced volunteer coach. Are you ready? Have you thought about how will you teach the fundamental skills, run effective practices, and keep your youngsters attention? As participation in youth soccer continues to grow, so does the need for youth soccer coaches and new ways to teach the fundamentals of the game. Whether you're a parent new to coaching or an experienced youth soccer coach, the task can be both exciting and frightening.

One of the things that helped me was boning up on the current terminology and coaching techniques. Without question, everything I've read-and it's been a lot-strongly suggests you must keep the kids moving and constantly touching the ball! A particular book, Coaching Youth Soccer, has become my handbook for planning practices and workouts. I found the book easy to follow. The book was written by American Sports Education Program and Sam Snow-director of coaching for US Youth Soccer.

Coaching Youth Soccer was perfect for me because it focuses on the needs of volunteer and novice coaches. More specifically, it targets the needs for instructing young soccer players ages 8 to 14. In the book, I found helpful tips on how to run my team, communicate with players, provide basic first aid, plan and conduct practices, and keep it all fun. I incorporated the gamelike activities outlined in the book to teach my players offensive and defensive skills. Hopefully, you'll find this book or others like it, helpful in preparing for your little monsters-I mean tikes!!!

Prior to the beginning of every soccer season, every coach begins to think about what they need to do to field a better-skilled soccer team for the coming season. Rest assured, your opposing coaches are pondering the same issue. Coaches also know they need fresh ideas to make practices interesting and fun for the kids. We all know keeping their attention is half of the battle!

Sure, I knew we'd have to focus on passing, dribbling, shooting, etc.-you know the fundamentals we all think about. However, I was looking for some news to instruct and teach these skills. My saving grace and source of new ideas for this past Fall season was a gift given to me on my birthday. The gift was a book titled Soccer Drills & Skills by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

I found Soccer Skills & Drills to be a comprehensive guide for both coaches and players. There were over 80 games and drills designed to practice those skills every soccer coach is trying to develop. The book included dozens of photographs and diagrams that illustrated technical instruction, while the application of each skill is described from both a tactical and positional perspective. Our coaches used the insightful teaching points and effective practice activities to develop our girls' techniques and tactics.

The end result-we won the county championship!!! In 10 games we scored 33 goals and gave up
only 4.

Check out [http://www.eSoccerGear.com] for more soccer coaching resources and soccer equipment for recreational soccer programs.

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Winning Youth Soccer Styles of Play

As you begin to assess your youth soccer team's abilities, you should start to get a better feel for what style of play they are best suited to play. One of the more effective soccer tactics is to be able to adjust to your opponent, and to use different styles of play to keep them off balance.

As a youth soccer coach you need to be able to decide which style of play will work best for your team. There are different factors that will affect that decision. Everything from the abilities of your players, to the weather, to the condition of the soccer field will play into your decision.

Styles of play refers to the way your youth soccer team plays together during the game. It is your job as the youth soccer coach to determine which style to use.

Attacking Styles of Play

Direct Attack

Soccer teams will use a direct attack to try to beat the defense by playing long passes. This is not a dump-and-run offense. These are long, accurate passes to players making runs toward the goal, that penetrate the defense.

The objective is to push the ball forward with few passes, and only a few players touching the ball. By quickly passing the ball through the defense you can attack the goal before the defense has an opportunity to drop back to assist the goalkeeper.

Your job as the youth soccer coach is to include drills in your practices that teach your players to shield the ball, to make penetrating and overlapping runs, and most important, to make long, accurate passes.

Indirect Attack

The indirect style of play requires a lot of patience. It also requires a lot more technical ability than the direct style of attack. It is a style that emphasizes ball control. The objective of this style is to maintain possession of the ball through each third of the soccer field.

The key to success is patience. You need to make sure your players understand that it could take 10 to 15 passes to work the ball up the field. You should use a formation that allow you to play a wide offense that spreads the defense. You players should provide support from behind the ball, offering the ball handler multiple options for making short, controlled passes.

You will need to include drills in your practice that emphasize possession and movement that will create width and depth in your attacking formation.

Combined Attack

To be successful as a youth soccer coach you need to be able to mix your attacks. If your opponent is pushing their defense up, you can use a direct attack to break through the defense and get one-on-one opportunities against the keeper.

If the defense is playing back, you can use an indirect attack to work the ball forward. You need to be able to adjust your style of play according to what the defense is giving you.

Defending Styles of Play

Low Pressure Defending

A low pressure defense focuses on slowing the attack to allow your players to get into their defensive positions. By forcing the attackers to slow down it allows your team to get more players between the ball and the goal.

Teach your youth soccer players to play a zone defense rather than defending individual players.

It is important that your team falls back on defense as a unit. They should practice maintaining a compact shape as they fall back. This will prevent the attacking team to find gaps in the defense that they can pass through. The closer to the goal the attackers move, the more compact the defense becomes. As passing lanes close down your team will find opportunities to force the attacker to make a mistake and turn the ball over.

You need to emphasize the importance of patience. Delaying the attack is more important than winning the ball quickly. As more of your defender get into place the opportunities to win the ball will come.

High Pressure Defending

High pressure defense is designed to apply immediate and intense pressure on the ball handler. As soon as the opposing team wins possession of the ball they are immediately challenged. The defenders job is to win back possession of the ball as quickly as possible.

By applying high pressure, and marking the attacking team player to player you will make the ball handlers play the ball faster then their abilities allow. This will force mistakes in dribbling, or in making bad passes that can be intercepted by your players.

The more you can take what you learn as a youth soccer coach and apply bit to game situations, the quicker your youth soccer team will learn the skills they need to be successful.

Jim Smoot writes the "Learn Youth Soccer" website at [http://learnyouthsoccer.com]. He is a licensed soccer coach and referee, and has been involved in the game for 15 years. Sign up for his free 7-day mini-course that teaches you the basics of how to coach soccer.

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