You might disagree, but hear me out on this when I say that in Coaching high school soccer, communication is the first step to success. The term coaching signifies the art of communication. 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. Still, there are several problems that they have to find solutions to. Most of these issues are a result of lack of communication. Your role as a coach would become far easier if you just pay attention to some most important communication issues.
These are described for you one at a time.
Emotions of the coaches take over their minds while they are watching their kids play on field. Instead of acting as analytical observers, they become more of spectators. They tend to overlook some chief points that could help the team improve on certain fronts. As such they lose the focus on directing the team towards a win by way of an effective conversation.
Even though the coaches are well versed with the technicalities of the game, they are not trained specifically on communication. For example; in soccer coaching, many coaches are not aware of the utility of a flip chart or a video. The daily practice gets monotonous when there are communication gaps even though the coach may be technically very sound.
It is even more important in case of coaching high school soccer because the players are not new to the game. They have been executing soccer drills for a long time at different levels. One effective method is to continuously vary the format of training in order to avoid the repetition of boring messages.
The coaches have a tendency to just forget that training sessions are being executed by human beings and not machines. Only with a view to execute the training program well, coaches tend to ignore every other aspect of it. For instance; the communication is incomplete when an instruction is given to a player but without his/ her name thus making it difficult for any of them to apply it.
Some guiding principles for coaches in football coaching are given below:
• All messages from the coach are important for players. So it’s necessary that they are deduced 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.
• Make sure you spend quality time with all your players. Research in this filed shows that coaches tend to spend comparatively more time with the best players (up to seven times more!).
• Communicate the potential issues that could arise and have a solution ready.
• Strengthen the player’s self respect by matching criticism with praise. When it comes to coaching high school soccer, tilt the balance slightly more towards praise.
Trust me. When you apply these rules to your training sessions, the benefits will be much more that you’ll expect.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andre Botelho is a recognized expert in youth soccer coaching. He influences well over 35,000 youth coaches each year with his unique coaching philosophy, and makes it really easy to explode your players’ skills and make training more fun in record time. To download your free youth soccer coaching guide, visit: Youth Soccer Coaching
