Coaching Soccer For Dummies

by Greg Bach

  Bringing your balls and cones

  What’s a soccer coach’s worst nightmare? Well, besides dealing with an overinvolved parent (which, by the way, we discuss in Chapter 19), a soccer coach most fears not having enough equipment for practice. In Chapter 4, we discuss the preseason parents meeting, and we note that your best bet is to let parents know right from the start that it would be extremely helpful if their children can bring soccer balls with them to practice. For the most part, children who are involved in a youth soccer program probably have balls to play with at home, so it’s usually a reasonable request.

  To make your practices the most effective, you always want to have at least one soccer ball per child.

  Of course, you can pretty much guarantee that at least one child will forget her soccer ball at just about every practice. Ideally, the league provides you a few balls to work with for the season. If not, check with the league administrator to see whether he can loan you some used balls that may be sitting in storage. You don’t need shiny new soccer balls to instruct kids. If it holds air and is the proper size and weight for the age group you’re coaching, any ball will work just fine.

  In the worst-case scenario, in which only a handful of players have soccer balls, you need to adjust your practice plan. Obviously, planning a bunch of 1-on-1 passing games isn’t going to make the most of your practice time if you don’t have enough balls to go around. You may have to make some minor adjustments, such as going to a 2-on-1 passing drill with a defensive player included. Although this change cuts down on the number of touches of the ball a child gets during the course of the session, the reduction isn’t significant.

  Small plastic cones or pylons are perfect for marking off areas of the field that you want to conduct a drill in. If the league doesn’t provide this equipment, you can purchase a cheap set at your local sporting-goods retailer, or you can get creative. Old towels or t-shirts can work just as well to mark off the playing areas, and so can many other items. As long as whatever items you choose to mark off an area don’t pose any injury risk to the children, using them is okay.

  Packing your first-aid kit

  Lugging a first-aid kit with you to practices and games all season long may seem like more trouble than it’s worth, but the first time you have to deal with an injury, you’ll see its enormous value and importance. Certainly, not opening the kit all season long would be great, but as we point out in Chapter 18, injuries are a part of soccer, and being prepared is better than simply hoping nothing ever happens to your players.

  Inside your first-aid kit, you should tape your list of emergency contacts that the parents filled out and returned to you prior to the season. In Chapter 4, we talk about the importance of distributing these forms to parents at your preseason meeting so you know whom to notify in the event of an emergency.

  Many leagues issue a first-aid kit to each coach. As we mention in Chapter 2, this point is one that you should find out about when you’re learning about your league. If the league doesn’t provide a first-aid kit, mention the importance of having one to the league administrator, who perhaps can correct the oversight. In the meantime, never conduct a practice or go to a game without your kit. You can use a toolbox or any other type of container, as long as it’s waterproof, to protect your supplies.

  The basic essentials that should be in every coach’s first-aid kit include:

  Antiseptic spray or wipes: To clean out cuts and abrasions.

  Assorted-size bandages: To cover cuts or other wounds.

  Bee-sting kit: Pick these up at your local pharmacy to have on hand in case one of your players gets stung.

  CPR mouth barrier: In the event that you or another parent need to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a child.

  Emergency tooth-preserving system: For a tooth that gets knocked out. You can pick these kits up at a local pharmacy or check with your dentist on where to purchase one.

  Freezer-type bags: Great for holding ice packs.

  Insect repellent: For evening practices and games when those pesky mosquitoes make an unwanted appearance.

  Latex gloves: To wear while tending to a bloody cut.

  Nail clippers: Great for repairing torn nails that sometimes result from being hit by the ball.

  Prescriptions: As we address in Chapter 4, being aware of any medical conditions a child may have is extremely important. For example, if a youngster has asthma, keep a spare bronchodilator in your first-aid kit in case the child forgets his or his parents are late arriving to a practice or game and the situation calls for it.

  Scissors: To cut bandages and athletic tape.

  Sterile eyewash and prepackaged sterile eye pads: To use when debris or anything else becomes stuck in a child’s eye.

  Sunscreen: Exposure to the sun is an often-overlooked health risk when it comes to youth soccer. The best defense to protect yourself and your players when outdoors is to use a sunscreen with an SPF of 30.

  Tweezers: To remove any debris that becomes lodged in a child’s skin.

  Here are a few other tips to keep in mind when it comes to your first-aid kit:

  Be realistic: Stock a reasonable amount of supplies in order to treat more than one youngster at a practice or game.

  Keep tally: If you have to use a few bandages during a game to treat some cuts, be sure to restock those supplies right away so that you aren’t caught off guard at your next practice when the situation calls for one.

  Keep supplies readily available: Make sure your supplies are clearly marked and in some sensible order. If a situation arises where you’re dealing with an injury, and you ask a parent to retrieve a supply from your kit, you don’t want to waste any unnecessary time because the parent is unable to tell what’s what. Freezer-type bags work great for keeping supplies in order.

  Some youngsters on your team may be allergic to certain things — bee stings, for example. How quickly you respond with treatment can help minimize the severity of the reaction. You should know which kids have allergies from the information you gather on each player during your preseason parents meeting, which we discuss in Chapter 4. If you have a child on your team who’s allergic to bee stings, make sure you have your bee-sting kit easily accessible. You don’t want to waste valuable seconds digging for it when a child is in need.

  Putting Smiles on Their Faces: Selecting Winning Drills

  The quickest route to putting smiles on the children’s faces and a spring in their steps is getting them involved in fun-filled drills that lead to not only learning, but also laughter. During your initial contact with the team, keep the drills simple, straightforward, and, of course, fun. The last thing you want to do is throw out complex drills that confuse and overwhelm the team and have the players questioning whether they want to come back for the next practice.

  Use your imagination. Be resourceful. Don’t limit your creativity to simply having players dribble a soccer ball through cones that you arranged in a straight line — boring! Children look forward to a drill like that about as much as they do a trip to the dentist. You’re certainly capable of doing much better than that for your team.

  In the sections that follow, we provide a primer for selecting fun and interesting practice drills that help build skills and keep the kids coming back for more. In Chapters 10, 14, and 17, we provide you a whole host of drills you can use for varying skill levels.

  Evaluate your practice in the evening, while the day’s events are still fresh in your mind, to determine which skills you should teach in a different manner, which drills the kids like, and which ones you should discard. You can even keep a practice notebook — sort of your own personal diary of the season — in order to best monitor progress and keep track of all sorts of important factors. Note what practice objectives you achieved and which ones you want to follow up on at the next practice. Did the kids have fun during the drills? If you noticed a drill for passing that the team really seemed to enjoy, highlight it in your notebook and use it again at so
me point during the season. Conversely, if a drill just didn’t create a whole lot of enthusiasm among your troops or didn’t produce the results you were looking for, you probably don’t want to run that one again.

  Rule #1: Idle time is boring

  We’re sure you cringe when you’re stuck in a lengthy grocery-store checkout line when all you want to purchase is a simple loaf of bread and some milk. One of the last things you want to do is put your young players through that on the soccer field. To maximize your practice time with the team, your top priority should be to minimize standing-around time. Standing in line is acceptable at amusement parks and movie theaters — not on the soccer field.

  Long lines drain the fun out of practice and are a real deterrent to learning and skill development, which are the basis of a productive practice. Also, lulls between your drills can bring the momentum of the activity to a screeching halt. You want the energy and enthusiasm of one drill to carry over into the next. This habit maximizes every second of your practice, and it doesn’t allow the kids to become so bored that their attention drifts to what’s happening on the field across from them.

  When players and soccer balls are on the move, learning is taking place. When players look like statues, learning stops. Avoid long lines, mind-numbing laps, and long-winded lectures. You can decide whether children arrive at your practices with a bounce in their step or with their shoulders slumping.

  Here are a few ways to ensure that every child gets lots of touches of the ball at practice:

  Break drills down into the smallest number of players possible. Utilize your assistant coaches, recruit parents … do whatever it takes to make sure that children never have to wait in line to participate in a drill.

  Reduce the number of elimination-type drills that you use. These drills tend to knock out the less-skilled players who actually benefit the most from additional repetitions. If you do conduct an elimination drill, set up a drill for players to participate in as soon as they’re knocked out. You don’t want youngsters to be eliminated from the drill and then stand around watching the team’s most talented players participate.

  Scale down your scrimmages. Having a couple of smaller games going is always better than having one big game where children don’t see the ball quite as often. Take a look at the “When are we going to scrimmage?” section, later in the chapter, for more suggestions on improving your scrimmages.

  Don’t waste a lot of practice time setting up cones for each drill. You can also cut down on the time you spend moving cones by using different drills that can be done in the same area you have marked off.

  Reexamine your drills. Keep a close eye on not only the kids, but also your drills. See whether the kids are getting a lot of time with the ball. If not, you probably want to revise the drill or eliminate it from your future practice sessions.

  Keep your explanations short. If you can’t explain the drill in 15 seconds or less, it’s probably far too complicated for kids ages 8 and under. Give short demonstrations while introducing a new skill or going over a drill. The longer you spend talking, the less time the kids have to play. Variations on games like Monkey in the Middle, which we mention later in this chapter, don’t require much explanation on your part because the majority of kids have all played these games and know what they’re all about.

  Rule #2: No one likes dribbling around cones

  Instead of conducting that boring dribble-around-the-cones drill, consider this approach. Take a look at your surroundings. Do you see trees and bushes near the field? A light pole? You’ll get a more enthusiastic response from the kids when you point out that they have to dribble the ball around that big tree over there and then negotiate that mound of dandelions to the right of the tree, and so on, than you will if you line them up and have them go through cones that took you 30 seconds to set up. If you don’t see any trees or anything else near the field that you can use, recruit parents and scatter them at different spots around the field so that the youngsters have to weave around all the adults with their soccer balls.

  You can even use this drill with the older and more experienced kids by turning it into a fun little competition. Create a random obstacle course involving trees and anything else in the area and see which kids can maneuver through your course the fastest.

  Another twist is to go through the course first while the team times you and see how many players can outperform you. Issue a challenge to the team that if half the players can beat your time, you will — as punishment for losing — have to do something of their choosing … within reason, of course. This punishment can be anything from having to wear your clothes inside out at the next practice to singing a song of the kids’ choice. Conversely, you get to decide what the team has to do if they fail to come out on top. Although it may be easy to opt for having the kids run a lap around the field, it’s best to stay away from that. (Find alternatives for the traditional running laps that have been used through the years. Having players run laps as punishment sends the message that conditioning drills are thought of as a negative, when on the contrary, they’re extremely important.) This drill also serves as a great bonding exercise for the entire team, because the players will be encouraging and supporting one another and cheering one another on as they go around the course.

  Looking at proven winners

  You can take plenty of innovative approaches to turn your practices into lively and energetic sessions that promote learning and skill development. Visit the Internet or your local library to read up on the different types of drills that are out there. The key is to not restrict your thinking to what you read, though. Take any drill that you come across and look for ways that it can be tweaked for more learning and fun to take place. To get you started, we’ve found a few tried-and-true approaches that kids love.

  Inserting parents into the mix

  What better way to inject your practices with a whole new level of excitement than by getting mom and dad involved? Often, parents drop their child off at practice and then run a few errands, or they grab a seat on the sidelines and balance their checkbook, catch up on their reading, or strike up conversations with other parents. Why? Because no one asks them to get involved. You can liven up your practices, and boost the enthusiasm of the kids, by getting the parents out on the field with the team. It’s fun and easy, and everyone benefits. Soccer just happens to be one of those truly special sports in which parent–child bonds can be forged by participating together. You can orchestrate the proceedings to make it happen.

  Here are a few approaches you can incorporate into your practices to promote fun and build skills while helping parents and their youngsters connect on a whole new level:

  Kids and Parents Scrimmage: This scrimmage gives the youngsters on your team the chance to put what they’ve learned in practice to use in a game-like setting, and they’ll enjoy doing it against their mom or dad or their friend’s parent. This scrimmage works great for kids of all ages and abilities. It definitely gets the competitive juices flowing in the older kids as well. They embrace the chance to showcase a dribbling move to maneuver past their dad or to deliver a pass to a teammate that leaves a mom flatfooted and impressed by the accuracy of her child’s kick.

  Let parents know about your plans ahead of time so that they show up in the proper attire and shoes. Otherwise, you’re going to have a pretty tough time convincing a mom in her business suit and heels to join the action on the field. You can build the excitement level and get your team members eagerly looking forward to the next practice by letting them know during your post-practice chat that they’ll be taking on the parents at the next practice. Don’t be surprised when you see a lot of early arrivals at your next practice, because it figures to generate plenty of excitement.

  Parent in the Nets: Nothing livens up an ordinary shooting drill more than having the kids try to score on a parent who’s manning the nets. You can turn it into a fun contest by having each child take five shots on the parent and see who ends u
p with the most goals. You can even switch the drill by reversing positions and seeing how the parents fare trying to score on their youngsters.

  Kids and Parents 1-on-1: Doing 1-on-1 drills between kids and their parents is a great way to boost the energy level during a practice that may be lacking intensity or enthusiasm. If you’re doing a passing drill, have the child work with her parent and see how many successful passes each pair can make. If you’re doing a drill working on offensive skills, have the child work on maneuvering the ball past her parent while maintaining control of it.

  Taking an old-school approach

  Are you looking for some other fun ways to entertain your young squad? Think back to your own childhood and the games you enjoyed playing at school or with neighborhood friends during the summer. Take those games and devise ways to work a soccer skill into them. It’s not as difficult as you may think. To help you get those creative juices flowing, here are a few variations on some classic kids’ games:

  Monkey in the Middle: Break the team into small groups of three. Each trio gets a ball, and the object is for the two designated passers to keep the ball away from the defender in the middle. This drill has it all. Players get practice on their passing, receiving, and ball handling, and the child in the middle gets to work on his defensive skills. Whenever the player in the middle is able to swipe possession of the ball, he becomes one of the passers, and the player he stole the ball from moves into the middle.