Coaching Education - Recreational

Jamie will be sending out Coaching Education emails as one of his roles as our club Director of Coaching. The goal is to help improve and update our trainers and coaches with the most modern ways of coaching and player development so our players benefit from new studies, fresh training ideas and philosophies.

Jamie Wood
Director of Coaching & Player Development
doc@fisherssc.org

Sepetmber 18, 2010

This is the first 'Coaching Education' email of the fall season in our efforts to give the coaches some good, useful tools to learn new activities and exercises which will benefit our players in the Recreational Program.

To start with, here are 5 questions to ask yourself as a coach after each practice session:

Did the players have fun for the most part?
Did I talk to every player on the team during the course of the practice?
Were the players 'active' for most of the session or was there too much standing around?
Did the players get any ownership in the practice session or was it all coach driven?
Did the players get to answer questions about what they were doing or did they just get to listen to coach for the whole practice?

If you can answer 'yes' to all 5 questions, you are on the right track!

Members of the FSC Training Staff have observed various Recreational practices for the past 4 weeks and below are some tips and advice based on what has been seen out at the practice fields:

Let them play the game at the beginning and end of every practice. This is a great way to ensure parents get their kids to training on time and it gets out a lot of the nervous energy after school.
If you really want to work on set pieces (IE throw-ins, goal kicks, or corners) incorporate it into the scrimmage at the end as opposed to wasting large chunks of training. Players could be getting 100+ touches on the ball in the same time that has been focused on these set pieces.
Try to avoid the 3 L's- Lines, Laps, Lectures as much as possible. Nothing will make your job more difficult than to try and gain attention of youth players than having them stand in lines, run laps or to listen to coach talk for minutes on end.

Remember that our job as youth coaches is to facilitate a positive soccer experience by challenging the kids that want an extra challenge so they don't get too bored and encouraging those that are struggling and help them to find success and not feel overly challenged; a tough task. One issue that has come up in discussion with Rec coaches recently is how to keep it fun and beneficial when the score gets a little out of hand in favor of a team. The reality is that no one wins when the game is out of balance as the team leading is not challenged to improve and the team being scored upon is no longer interested in trying to compete. Here are couple of suggestions for both sides of the coin:

For the coach of a team leading by 3 or more goals:

Rotate players to different positions to see the field from a different perspective and learn a new position
Pass the ball a certain number of times (3 or 4 ) prior to shot on goal
Have players perform a skill or move before scoring
Score with weak foot only

For the coach of a team losing by 5 or more goals:

Focus on number of moves or passes completed in amount of time
Push more players forward and encourage them to take chances
Give players specific tasks to complete (e.g. every player on team does a pull back move) and ignore the score (i.e. win the game within the game)
Be there for your players! Don't stop encouraging the kids and helping them out

Remember, all of the players involved in the recreational program are playing because they enjoy the game; they want to learn and they want to have fun. It's not about the final score as long as the kids can leave the field with a smile on their face.

Here are a few resources that are useful for youth lesson plans:

http://www.soccerindiana.org/education/lessonplans.aspx

http://www.utahyouthsoccer.net/resources/technicaltuesday.aspx

http://www.michiganyouthsoccer.org/coaching/coachingtips/Age-specific.htm

Be sure to always have a plan of attack when you start training- this can always change, but if you have 5-6 activities/games planned you'll always be able to move on to the next one if the kids aren't becoming engaged.

Please feel free to contact one of us if you have any questions or need help with your team.

Thanks,

Jamie Wood
Director of Coaching & Player Development
Fishers Soccer Club
317-213-6747 (m)
doc@fisherssc.org

Bryan R. Michel
Youth Technical Director
Fishers Soccer Club
317-366-8894 (m)
techdoc@fisherssc.org

May 5, 2010

Below are some training ideas, tips and interesting information for your practices and games:

Young players (6-12 yrs old) love to try new skills and make great strides in their soccer development when the training environment encourages the use of skills to beat a player in a 1v1 situation. This focus gradually builds the confidence of a player to use skills on a regular basis, making them a much more skilled and confident player.

Individual ball skills should be worked on in EVERY practice in these ages. If your players are not using skills in games yet, it is Ok, as it takes time for a player to build the confidence to do these skills under the ‘pressure’ environment of a game.

Here are some skills that you can work on in practice and are explained on these short links:

Coaches of U6-U8 players

These are warm-up games and practice activities from Indiana Youth Soccer:

[ video ] [ pdf ]

Coaches of U9-U12 players:

U9-U12 coaches should read this as it is extremely informative and includes 6 weeks of lesson plans for you as well as training session themes: [ pdf ]

Coaching Tip: Remember to avoid the 3 L’s:

LINES – Players standing in lines waiting for their turn get bored and it is not much fun. Have 2 or 3 lines going at the same time to speed up the activity and make it more fun!
LAPS – Running around a field has NOTHING to do with soccer! Fitness wise, when players play, they are doing short bursts here and there with a little time to rest in-between. Have players do tag games instead to replicate the movements of soccer and let them have more fun! Punishment wise, it is not acceptable to just have players run around the field. If I am running a training session and a player is being disruptive, then after a warning, I make them do ‘burpees’ [ video ] . Believe me, after 8-10 of those, the kid is ready to listen and they get the benefit of the exercise too as jumping is relevant to soccer!
LECTURES – Modern coaching methods ask that a coaching point in practice be completed in 30 seconds or less. This is because the players lose interest quickly after any stoppage in an activity. You should also keep your half time team talk down to 1 single coaching point or focus and the post game chat to no longer than 2 minutes. Anything from the game that needs addressing can be dealt with on the training field and players are not bothered in hearing a full game report after the game are they………they want ice cream right??????

Finally, this article is for parents on "How to spot an out-of-control coach." I am sending this out because after reading this article I believe we have all been guilty of some of these points. This is not to be a slap on the wrist but just trying to be more aware of what we are doing at all times. Please read and identify areas where you can improve to better the players experiences.

[ Out of Control Coaching - pdf ]

Please feel free to contact me with any questions about training sessions or games. I am here to assist and help with coaching matters.

I have had several requests for a trainer to run a team training session and observe games. This is great as it gives the FSC Training Staff a chance to provide feedback and get to know the players and you coaches better.

Good luck for the rest of the season and thank you for your time working with the kids!

September 9, 2009

This is the first of many educational emails you will be receiving this year. I will be sending out Coaching Education emails twice a month from now on, as one of my roles as FSC Director of Coaching is to help improve and update the rec coaches with the most modern ways of coaching and player development so our players benefit from new studies, fresh training ideas and philosophies. Some of the ideas and activities you will like and others you will not. Please be open minded (an essential quality for a good coach) and try them out in your practice sessions.

Those of you who recently took your "E' License will see some familiar information on new, improved methods to teach players.

Attached is a lesson plan designed for U6 players, but is excellent for the novice player of any age. [ U6 Lesson Plan ]

Also attached is an U8 document that has lots of info on coaching 6/7/8/9 year old players. It is a fairly lengthy document but a lot of good info is on there so please be sure to take a look, even if you don't coach those ages.
[ U8 Dribbling ]

The informational attachment is an article about Guided Discovery by Sam Snow, Director of Education for US Youth Soccer. Sam is one of the top educators in the country and I personally learned a great deal from him at the National Youth License several years ago. Guided discovery coaching is a teaching method which gives the players more ownership of their learning and challenges them mentally. [ Guided Discovery ]

Here is a link to a full resource of coaching education and activities for training:

Finally, here are a few tips to coaching young players:

Coaching Tip 1: HAVE FUN! If your players do not have fun, they will not come back next season. Everything during a practice should be enjoyable for the players.

Coaching Tip 2: NO LINES...............NO LAPS......................NO LECTURES!

Coaching Tip 3: LET THE KIDS PLAY! Give players plenty of scrimmage time before and after the skill work in practice. Try not to stop scrimmage time as players just want to play soccer!

Jamie Wood, Director of Coaching & Player Development

Fishers Soccer Club

doc@fisherssc.org