Coaching High School Soccer: Winning Tactics

Coaching High School Soccer: Winning Tactics

by

Andre Botelho

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 lets you speak to mind in the simplest way and allow the other to do the activity in exactly the same way.

In soccer coaching, I’ve come to notice that generally the former players have assumed the responsibility of being coaches. Even then they have to deal with many issues in coaching young players. The reason why many of these issues show up is the coach’s inability to communicate. Your role as a coach would become far easier if you just pay attention to some most important communication issues. Let me explain them to 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 fail to notice the important points that could better their team’s performance. The coaches fail to have an effective conversation that could help the players get to the winning post. The coaches are generally not trained to communicate effectively although they have all the knowledge of the game. 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. It’s important for the coach to know the game well but if he is unable to communicate his thoughts, the training gets repetitive. In coaching high school soccer, communication becomes all the more important because the kids start to understand the game quite well. They have been doing these soccer drills for some time but at different levels. 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. An example of ineffective communication by a coach is when he fails to use a player’s name while giving instructions which produces uncertainty. Some guiding principles for coaches in football coaching are given below: Every message coming from the coach carries equal importance. So ensure that they are understood completely and correctly. Your language should be positive enough to push the players to try hard to perform well. Let them become better players with every passing day rather than pointing out their weaknesses. 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. 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. There’s lot more to know and understand about this aspect of soccer only if you wish to. You just have to subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community to get all the latest and relevant information pertaining to the game.

Andre Botelho is an expert in Coaching high school soccer. He influences over 35,000 youth coaches each year with his coaching philosophy, and makes it easy to explode your players’ skills and make training fun in record time. Download your free Coaching Youth Soccer guide at: Soccer Coaching.

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