Parents should look out for the following and more importantly coaches must,
1-Encourage players to have strong minded attitudes which involve a “never say die” attitude and the infamous teeth clench.
2-Structure the players training programmes with realistic, achievable and progressive targets.
3-Recognise the player’s progression/ achievements with positive enthusiasm.
4-Advise and guide players on proper diet and training.
5-Convince players that their successes/victories are due to their own efforts, attitudes, persistence and training, not some random act of luck, chance or some magical wand or product.
6-Utilise appropriate, suitable and well balanced training drills.
7-Look the part and be a role model; always and I mean always display high standards of behaviour and appearance.
8-Concentrate on quality rather than quantity. Correct technique is a must at all times, not negotiable.
9-Treat all players equally and avoid favoritism. Do not spend more time on the “gifted” players.
10-Health and Safety of the players is paramount and sits above everything, including development, performance and winning.
11-Give your players the microphone. Encourage your players to ask questions and give feedback.
12-Accept responsibility for their well being and discourage inappropriate behaviour during training and even match days.
13-Concentrate on player’s posture and body language. Their faces usually give a good indication of how they feel.
14-Give all your players your undivided, equal attention.
For every “must” there are a number of “must not’s”.
Parents beware, coaches must not,
15-Criticise the physique of their players.
16-Give up on their players and lose faith.
17-Never tell your players their too slow or lack technical ability.
18-Encourage bad sportsmanship or to violate the rules of the game.
19-Promote or ignore the use of sport enhancing drugs or any banned substance.
20-Let the team or players think/ assume their success or win was due to luck or poor opposition.
Would love to hear your thoughts. Can you think of any other coaching tips to add to this list? Best 3 answers will win prizes, details will be sent via the newsletter so if you haven’t subscribed yet, what are you waiting for?
“May the winds of destiny blow you to the stars.”
Thank you for the info. I will remember this when or if my daughter decides to play soccer.
Great tips! People forget that kids are just kids and soccer is supposed to be FUN!!
I love these tips! I love how this article is so wonderfully organized and the phenomenal information!
Ya indeed, we should not be discouraging young soccers for the good future of football.
I used to play soccer as a kid, in HS, and in my adult years. Now I coach my son’s team for his league. Just wanted to say I appreciate the tips and agree with them all. Thanks!
Very good list, agree with this wholeheartedly
Nice tips, gonna share this with my son’s soccer coach!
Hey, it’s actually very useful. Thank you for your information
One thing my husband encourages religiously is doing warm ups to enhance performance and decrease injury.
cool this can be very helpful, great job
Such great advice, thank you.
I think this could be used for helping with young soccer players as well as with all youth sport players and some tips even good for parenting.
this is a good guide for all people that are involved in shaping growing minds and bodies and can be modified for all sports. As a soccer dad, i hope to apply these principles when my son asks for a critique of his performance. thanks
I love soccer. Call it football, futbol, calcio, voetbol, soccer, balonpie, whatever, I love this game.
Why?
A 90 minute soccer game is as close to truth as one can get on this earth.
All this is very true, i am a coach myself and i found out that this are some of the best steps to help young player become better and have a positive attitude towards playing soccer.
Great tips! Health and safety First! Equal Attention to all players! Good stuff that needs to be implemented to instill confidence in today’s young children. The “do-not’s” will help any coaches keep th eproper persective of what the real foces needs to be!
Keep soccer fun!
3-Recognise the player’s progression/ achievements with positive enthusiasm. <– This is a very good suggestion. This is also a great way to help build confidence in young player.
Remind players that they are working as a team. Enforce team spirit.
This is a really great article. I have been wanting to get into coaching soccer for my sons league so this is really perfect for me! great tips!
my boys are getting into soccer so this is very useful information thank you!
Some fantastic advice there. I particularly like #2! Sometimes we forget to keep things real. Don’t expect more from your players than is reasonable. 🙂
Thanks for the great advice! I’ve been thinking about coaching my daughters soccer team, so this helps a lot!
This is a great way to instill a competitive spirit in children. I like the advise to maintain proper behavior yourself.
Great common sense tips – these are great rules to help keep in mind the things that are important.
Really useful tips. Thanks for sharing
Thank you for putting together the list. My first impression was that it was a little intimidating in that it really described how to be a perfect coach and really that’s impossible.
The only one I disagree with is #17. I think players need to be given an honest assessment of where they are in terms of speed and technical ability. I just coached college soccer for the last 5 years and each player knew exactly where they stood, their strengths and weaknesses, be it pace or technique and we helped them work on those weaknesses and we showed them how to make up for them in other areas.
Thank you for the information
Some great morale-building concepts here. I went to school before soccer became an accepted activity, but I think I would have enjoyed it if your guidelines had been followed.