Embarking on a new season, with either the core of youth soccer players from the previous season or with a completely new team, the expectations on a youth soccer coach to provide a successful season to the youth soccer players can sometimes be quite overwhelming.
It may be thought that a successful season is one where a team wins the league championship or ends up with more wins than losses. If this is the case, then in a league with 10 teams, only 1 team is successful and 9 teams are not successful in the first instance or approx. 5 teams are successful and 5 teams are not successful in the second instance.
Since the ideal is to give all youth soccer players in all 10 teams a successful season, it obviously can't be conditional simply on winning and losing. So, how do youth soccer coaches go about planning a season so as to give the best chance of success?
The secret lies in a question that every youth soccer coach of youth athletes in any sport can always ask himself/herself and that is,"What do these athletes/youth soccer players want from playing this sport?"
Surprisingly, the answer is a very simple one. The youth soccer players simply want 'a positive enjoyable experience' from the game. Although the specific nature of each youth soccer player's desire may be different from another's, the root desire behind each youth soccer player's aspiration is simply 'a positive enjoyable experience'.
If the youth soccer coach is able to act as a catalyst in the deliverance of this to the youth soccer players on his/her soccer team, then he/she can quite justifiably state that the season has been a successful one for the team. The question then is what constitutes a positive enjoyable experience?
The following is a list (by no means complete) that can help in arriving at a successful season.
(1) First and foremost, the youth soccer players want to have a fun and interesting time.
No one plays any game with the intent of being miserable or sad. For the soccer youth soccer coach, this translates to planning and organizing practices and team social events that contain elements of fun and variety.
Doing the same thing almost every time in practice eventually results in boredom, stagnation and mental atrophy. Also, create a warm and friendly environment by acknowledging each youth soccer player as they arrive at a practice or game and be positive during the practice or game.
(2) The youth soccer players want to play.
youth soccer players are attracted to the game, not because of team talks or soccer skill drills, but because of the nature of the play. They want to be on the field, playing the game of soccer. Therefore it is incumbent on youth soccer coaches to allocate approximately half the practice to allowing the youth soccer players to simply play. However the youth soccer coach can always add a condition or two, from time to time, to the small sided games that emphasize a particular skill or tactic that the team has been working on. One youth soccer coach that I knew used to say that one half of the practice belonged to the youth soccer coach and the other half belonged to the youth soccer players.
(3)The youth soccer players want to learn and be successful.
The simple fact is that when one can do a task better than they were able to do before, then they enjoy performing the task even more. This is just as true of soccer. Although not all youth soccer players can overtly express to their youth soccer coaches that they want to become better soccer youth soccer players, they all do.
Therefore it is important that the youth soccer coach does spend some time in developing both the technical skills and tactical awareness of the youth soccer players. At the lower age groups, that is U14 and below, the emphasis is on the development and refining of technical skills. At the higher age groups, the balance shifts towards a growing tactical awareness of how the team game is played. The learning has to be orientated so that the youth soccer players are challenged but are also able to achieve a reasonable degree of success. If the challenge is too difficult, the youth soccer players, especially of a younger age, will become frustrated and ultimately disappointed in the game of soccer.
(4)The youth soccer players want to be involved in competitive games.
When a game ends in a lopsided score for one team, no team is a winner. The team that wins by large scores eventually ends up with unmotivated youth soccer players, and the team that loses by such margins becomes disappointed, frustrated and alienated towards the game of soccer. Nothing creates more excitement and post-game conversation than a game that is decided by just one or two goals.
Although the organizations do their best to place teams in competitive divisions, the reality is that with sixty plus organizations in CMSA, some teams will end up in the wrong division for their skill level. In this instance, CMSA does have procedures that allow a team to move to another division, and it is worth contacting your organization's coordinator/president to find out these procedures.
If you are the youth soccer coach of a team that wins by large margins, then there are actions that you can take to make the game more competitive. You can place conditions on your team. For example, I will insist that my youth soccer players can only score (with their weak foot) from outside the penalty area and/or that only two youth soccer players (in an indoor game) are allowed to defend against the other team's attack. This provides both a challenge to your team and a competitive game for the opposing team. The youth soccer players on your team get to practice and refine their '2 men plus a keeper' defending as well as their instep shooting from distance.
There are many other ways to mitigate your team's effectiveness. Just be creative and never be afraid to ask other youth soccer coaches how they dilute their team's strength. This is always a very interesting and creative conversation with youth soccer coaches. The important thing is to still be respectful to the opposing team and the game of soccer by playing your best (within the conditions set).
(5) Finally, the youth soccer players want to have opportunities to socialize.
Soccer is a wonderful conduit to generating friendships, some of which last a lifetime. This is true of all age groups. For some children, that are new to the country, there is nothing better than the "Cheers" environment where 'everyone knows your name'.
As a youth soccer coach, the best way to implement this is to organize team social events and participate in tournaments. There are lots of fundraising events that teams can involve themselves in such as car washes, bottle drives and candy selling (my favourite from a buyer's perspective).
My experience has been that the best way to get youth soccer players to interact and bond is to enter tournaments. Local tournaments are wonderful because they are low on costs and can still be geared to an 'out-of-town' experience by having all the youth soccer players housed out of two or three basements for the course of the tournament. Each team should endeavour to attend at least one out-of-town tournament. Details of such tournaments are usually available from either your local association or state association.
Organising fun events such as treasure hunts and paper chases during the tournament adds considerably to the experience. I once had my team driven to a location 12 blocks away from the hotel, split the team into two, gave each team a skeleton of a map, and told them that they had to get back to their hotel within a hour in order to win a prize. You wouldn't believe the amount of interaction that took place among the youth soccer players during the test, and the unending conversation that it generated for the rest of the season. We even had to stage a mock trial for two youth soccer players that went AWOL from the team for a few minutes to buy some candy. To this day, the other members of that team believe that those two minutes proved to be the decisive factor in them just missing the time deadline.
For higher caliber teams, whose sole aim is to be as competitive as possible with a view to winning the tournament, why not add another tournament to the team's itinerary for the season? But this time, make it a fun tournament. The youth soccer players still respect the opposition and the game of soccer by playing as competitively as possible during the games, but everything outside of the games is orientated towards the youth soccer players interacting and doing fun things.
In conclusion, it's easy to lose your way as a youth soccer coach during the course of the season. It's happened to every youth soccer coach at one time or another. When it happens just step back, and re-focus on…
- Are the youth soccer players having fun?
- Am I making practices interesting by introducing the right amount of variety?
- Am I creating a friendly atmosphere in the practice?
- Are the youth soccer players learning as the season progresses?
- Am I pitching the learning so that the youth soccer players are challenged but are still successful?
- Am I doing my best to create competitive games?
- Am I organizing events to allow youth soccer players to interact and bond?
From my experience and listening to many others, I can assure you that if you as a youth soccer coach can answer these questions in the affirmative, then your youth soccer players are almost certainly having 'a positive enjoyable experience'.
Oh, and as for the two youth soccer players that went AWOL, an independent jury of two
Chambermaids found them guilty, and the youth soccer players were sentenced to doing team laundry for one day.
