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Tuesday, November 3, 2009


Soccer Coaching Tips: How To Make The Right Moves



Let's face it, without expert soccer coaching tips; it is difficult for your players to master the soccer skills. If the team gets to the field without knowing even the basic moves, they are very likely to have a tough time dominating the other side. Here are 3 fundamental yet powerful maneuvers that will keep your team in total control of the game.

Dribbling: In a soccer practice drill, it is the first and foremost move a coach must teach his players. The trick of moving the ball all over the field to keep it away from the other side is called dribbling. Players must try to keep the ball with them for a maximum time to take be in charge of the game. It is important to learn critical tricks like thrusting the ball and use of the sole of the foot in driving the team towards victory. Educate the team members of the consequences of dribbling a lot when any colleague is in close proximity to them. It is a good idea to practice with a ball that is small in size to enhance ones ability to find out an advantageous position in the game. Use soccer coaching tips and add to your chances of developing experts in dribbling.

Push passing: It is referred as the natural ability of the players in addition to long pass. Whereas in dribbling, the player keeps the ball to himself, passing helps the players attack the opponent team through passing of the ball from one player to another towards the goal post. The method of transiting the ball is called push passing and it is the most admired talent. This is why almost every player uses it. Tell your kids to maneuver the ball in such a way that they can strike it in the middle using the inside of their feet. Also, passing the ball to your nearest teammate is always appropriate. It should be a coherent feature of the football coaching drills.

Long Passing: There are situations when the players may be scattered all over the field. In such a case, the player with the ball will need to execute a long pass to pass the ball to his teammate. To achieve this, make the players keep the ball at a certain angle and position their feet behind the ball in a fashion so that they can kick the ball while keeping it low and with full force. You must ensure that when the ball is passed, the foot follows in the same direction in which the ball is intended to be passed. Kids soccer practice sessions should majorly concentrate on this and push passing.

This is it! These soccer coaching tips are basic and yet pillars of an effective game plan on the field. It is impossible to display a match-winning performance without perfecting these skills. For more on such moves and strategies as well as sharpening your coaching skills, join our youth soccer coaching community where we provide several articles, tips, and techniques.

Andre Botelho is known online as "The Expert Youth Soccer Coach" and his free soccer coaching tips ebooks and reports have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Learn how to skyrocket your players' skills and make training fun in record time. Download your free soccer coaching ebook at: http://www.soccerdrillstips.com - Youth Soccer Training Drills.

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Saturday, October 31, 2009


Soccer Coaching Tips For Power-Packed Performances

A youth soccer coach can always benefit from soccer coaching tips. The reason is that learning never stops and there is always room for improvement as far as making the drills interesting for kids goes. Understand that you can make the soccer training drills motivating in several forms.

• Make a list of weekly drills: Planning is the key to fruitful training sessions. It is important to figure out the drills that the kids shall be carrying out through the week. Share this with the players so that they know what to expect and are prepared mentally as well as physically. Allocate time between different drills so that you are able to identify whether the activities are bringing desired results. It is essential that you know where your kids stand in terms of their physical and mental attributes and when you know it, how to go about improving their weak areas.

• Warming up is essential: It is now well known among the sporting fraternity that warm-up session before soccer fitness training is a must. Without these, the players are at a higher risk of injuries and cramps, which in some cases can be extremely serious. These sessions need not be extensive or carefully planned. Even as little as a light jog or playing with the ball will warm up their bodies and also make their soccer skills sharper.

• Introduce variety in your drills: One of the surest ways to make players disengaged from practice sessions is repeating the same drills over and over again. One of the best soccer coaching tips is to keep the kids focused and help them enjoy each session. It is important that you keep the drills as diverse as possible. You can make them do different activities such as jogging sessions, biking, or weight/fitness training in addition to their regular drills. You do not need to practice this for every single player. It is a great idea to make groups and encourage the kids to outdo each other in performances.

• Keep the groups small: As a youth soccer coach, when you are training a lot of players at the same time, it is important to divide them into small groups. This has immense benefits. It becomes way easier for you to monitor the kids, give them individual attention and also helps them share things with each other. It is important to ensure that every group remains focused on their drills and therefore, you should give each group their own exercises. It will keep the kids happy and also benefit from the drills.

• Make your kids stretch after workouts: Stretching is usually missing from the training schedules but it must be understood that it is the most important. Coaches must convince the players to stretch because it will help them. Stretching opens up your body, makes it more supple and the heart gets back to normal.

As a coach, it must be your goal to turn soccer fitness training an enjoyable experience for your kids. These soccer coaching tips will help your kids make great use of their skills and also enjoy the drills. If you would like to know more about soccer training, join our youth soccer coaching community. By using these resources, you will ensure a rising career for yourself as well as make soccer training a unique experience for your team.

Andre Botelho is a recognized expert in soccer coaching tips. He's the creator of the "Ultimate Soccer Drills System" and influences well over 35,000 youth coaches each year with his unique coaching style. To download your free soccer coaching guide visit: http://www.soccerdrillstips.com - Youth Soccer Coaching Drills.

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Wednesday, September 24, 2008


Coach Youth Soccer: Stick To The Fundamentals

You want to coach youth soccer with the sole objective to build a winning soccer team, but that is possible, only if you work on a proper strategy and keep in mind certain factors associated with the same.

• The secret to coaching youth soccer drills is nothing, but just to stick with the basics. If you are following the fundamentals, while teaching soccer to your players, you are simply making your task much easier.

• While you are training your soccer players, your basic approach must be to keep the lectures short and let the players do more. This acts as a very strong motivation and helps you keep the interest alive in your players.

• Feedback is important, but make sure that you are not giving lengthy and boring feedback. Keep it short and to the point. Do not try to criticise much on your players’ mistakes, as it may work against your efforts and may demodulate the players.

• Whatever you do, it is very important for you to understand that you have to communicate, keeping in mind the specific age group of the players.

• What is more, since you have to coach youth soccer, you also need to communicate effectively, with the parents of your players.

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Thursday, January 24, 2008


Soccer Coaching Tips: Teaching The Defensive Strategy Is As Important As Teaching The Attacking Strategy

If you are looking out for various soccer coaching tips that could help you build a better strategy, in order to improve the overall soccer skills of your players, the first thing that you have to keep in mind in this regard is that soccer is a game, where using the defensive soccer techniques is as important as is using the attacking techniques.

Some coaches only believe in aggression and they focus their youth soccer coaching sessions, only to teach the players about the attacking strategy, which is not the right approach. Your purpose is to build a winning team and this is possible only when your players are aware of both the defensive and the attacking strategies.

The ability of your players to convert opportunities on the soccer field into scoring a goal is great, but if they are not good at defending an attack, the opponent team will not take longer to settle the account with you.

Therefore, while you are using the various soccer coaching tips, you should focus on learning, how to achieve formation of a team in a compact way. The compact formation of team in the field is undoubtedly the best defensive strategy that will keep the opponent team away from your goalpost.

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008


Soccer Coaching Techniques: Things That You Should Not Do

While you are running the soccer practice session, in order to teach your players about the various soccer coaching techniques, you must keep in mind the following don’ts:

  • Some coaches are very aggressive in their nature and they just cannot tolerate a bad performance from their players. They get irritated very quickly. Make sure that you are not one of them. A soccer coach desirous to build a winning team out of the players they are coaching, must learn to have patience. When teaching youth soccer coaching drills, you must criticize the bad performance of a player, but in a creative and impressive way, so that the player must not feel discouraged.
  • Shouting at the young players and humiliating them in various ways are also very common to see among soccer coaches. Well, it is very important for you to store in mind that these are some of the things that you should never do in your entire soccer coaching career.
  • Sometimes, the players approach the coach regarding soccer coaching techniques or any other query or problem, but the coach does not pay heed to their problems. This is also not something a good soccer coach should do.
  • Appreciate or criticize the performance of a player, make sure that you are genuine in what you say.

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Tuesday, January 8, 2008


Soccer Coaching Drills: Effective Tackling Of The Ball

If you are planning to develop specific soccer coaching drills, in order to help your players learn how to tackle the ball effectively in specific situation, the following points will prove very helpful for you:

  • The techniques and tricks to tackle the ball effectively, is not something that you should teach your players as a separate subject. Always remember that tackling soccer techniques are just an important part of the various defensive techniques that the players are supposed to use on the field. But, at the same time, you should also note that tackling technique is very important and it can make the winning difference for your team.

  • When coaching youth soccer training drills, you should design the tackling soccer coaching drills in a way, to encourage players, to make sure that they have a back up from a teammate, while they attempt for tackling. This is important to make sure that your team does not lose the opportunity to get and keep the possession of the ball.
  • Here, you should also note that you have to have your players train in a way that their focus must be on tackling the ball and not tackling the player. You should discourage any such attempt from your players, because this may result in some foul play.

These are a few tips you can follow when teaching soccer.

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Wednesday, January 2, 2008


Coaching Soccer Drills: Let Your Players Observe And Imitate

While you are designing and developing the various coaching soccer drills to improve the soccer skills of your players, you must keep in mind the ways, young players use to learn the secrets of the game:

  • The young players are fascinated towards the soccer game, the way professional and elite players play. They love to watch them and try to imitate them. Therefore, it is always a great idea to have your players watch the various soccer videos of big matches.

    For example, you are coaching youth soccer drills to improve the kicking skills of your players; you can have them watch those video clips, from big matches that include some good kicking skills of the elite players. This will leave a very good impression on the players and they will try to do the same, while they are playing.

  • Young players tend to imitate the actions. Therefore, you have to be very careful while showing them the soccer training video clips. You will have to make sure that they do not attempt for something that may cause injury to them.

    Always remember that the coaching soccer drills must be developed, keeping in view the specific age group of your team.

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Wednesday, November 21, 2007


Soccer Coaching Video - Practice Games & Drills

A soccer coaching video would be a great investment to make youth soccer drills more interesting for your players. You can make the learning session fun, while teaching them to play as a team, supporting each other.

More Soccer Drills & Practice Games

The drills in the video are also interspersed with various games for practice, conditioning exercises and fitness trainning to build stamina. It is also important to train the team as a whole so that they coordinate well to move the ball with speed. They not only need to practice speed in ball movement, but also in making a quick assessment of the position of other players on the field.

It is vital that they recognize space, and improve their dribbling and passing skills so that they can excel at ball possession and passing it to the right player on the team.

Ball control and possession skills effectively help keeping the opposite team from scoring a goal. Your players will know, from the soccer training video, that speed and alertness are a part of everything that is done on the soccer field.

Videos also give you many ideas for fun soccer conditioning and soccer fitness that help them build endurance, which is a very important part of the game. The soccer coaching videos build in a lot of soccer drills that also contribute to the goalkeepers’ skill development, with plenty of variations to each exercise, making for a lot of creative soccer training sessions.

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Sunday, September 30, 2007


Soccer Trick Tips - Shooting

Ball control is a soccer skill that you must teach your offensive players using the following soccer trick tips.

  • The Goal Area

Train your the offensive players of your team to use the sides of the field to go forward down the field because the position of the defensive players is usually the middle of the field.

When the attacking players come into the area of goal from the sides, it forces the defensive players to come outside and thus leaving a clear space in front of the goal.

This is the time for offensive players to pass the ball into the center of the penalty area. Here, things move very fast and they have to take instant decision regarding their next step.

When the attacking players are passing the ball, they must make sure that their timing is perfect and their fellow player gets the ball in the right instant.

  • Shooting At Goal

If your players keep on shooting at goal, they will maximize their chances of scoring and winning the match.

When your attackers are near the goal, their soccer strategy must be to pass the ball among each other quite often because this way, you will be able to disperse the defensive players. This will ultimately result in clear space in the center of the field and this is your opportunity to shoot and score a goal for your team.

In youth soccer training, the above soccer trick tips are certainly going to improve the offensive performances of your team.

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Monday, September 10, 2007


Soccer Coaching Tips - Planning Is The Key

The secret to make your training session more impressive and result-oriented is to focus on making the practice fun and interesting – not only for the players but also for you. You can do this by following some of these soccer coaching tips.

Plan Carefully

Careful planning is the first and most important thing that you need to focus on while you are constructing a training session for your players. You should have in mind that to know beforehand what are your objectives and what exactly you want to achieve from the specific training session.

You have to make your planning keeping in mind several things, such as the age and the capabilities of the young players. But, still there is a basic pattern that every coach should follow irrespective of the age and the capabilities of the team players.

Warming Up

Before you implement any drills for soccer and start the training "itself" a good warm-up is essential. It will help raise the heart rate of the young players. Their muscles will get stretched and they will be able enough to focus on the actual training session.

Fun Games

Regardless of the soccer coaching tips you follow, the best way to teach your players is through various fun games. This way you'll avoid your players in getting bored and you'll keep them interested and motivated. One of the good strategies is to use small groups in these fun soccer conditioning games. Divide the team into smaller groups of three or four rather than going for the seven or eight in a group.

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Sunday, September 9, 2007


Soccer Coaching - Offensive Positioning System

In teaching youth soccer, there are important aspects to consider regarding soccer coaching. One is to teach about the offensive strategies.

Offensive Positioning System

One of the best and most effective positioning systems is the four-four-two system. As a soccer coach, you should keep in your mind the following when forming your team.

  • Defense: use largest players.
  • Midfield: use those players who have impressive crossing ability.
  • Upfront: use the fastest players of your team.

When it comes to soccer coaching drills, note that this is no hard and fast rule, but such formations usually work and eventually increase the chances of winning a match. If such a formation of your team is not working, you may go ahead and utilize the following formation, based on the size of the players.

At the back: Largest Players
Midfield: Fastest Players
Upfront: Smallest Players

When it comes to soccer coaching, when you put players with small heights upfront, it can be very helpful when your team is looking for a penalty or a free kick. This is because it has been observed that referees are usually on the side of players with little heights.

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Sunday, August 26, 2007


Coaching Youth Soccer - Dribbling

Sometimes coaching youth soccer is not easy, and in order to train the players efficiently, it's important to train the players using the various dribbling soccer techniques. Remember that if you want your team on the winning side, you must have your players keep their feet moving.

Fast Way To Enhance Dribbling - Barefoot

This is one of the quickest ways to improve the dribbling skills of your players or kids. As per this method, you have to get your players play the usual dribbling around ten cones, but make sure that the players are doing so barefoot – no shoes, no socks. If playing barefoot causes any kind of problem, you can let them try with socks.

Teaching When, Where And How - Calling For The Ball

You should teach your players the right time and the right way to call the ball. When it comes to calling the ball, the right time is just before when the opponent player is about to pass the same and when your player is about to attempt for the ball.

Try to implement some of this soccer coaching tips in training and send me some feedback. Good Luck!

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Saturday, July 28, 2007


Soccer Coaching Tips - Throw Ins

Here are some soccer coaching tips ideas to consider about taking throw-ins and how to throw a soccer ball.

1. Possession Should Not Be Immediately Lost
Teach the players to keep possession of the ball. It is very important to understand that it is simply useless if the players throw the ball down the line if possession will immediately be lost.

2. Choosing The Right Player
What makes the huge difference is whether the right player is being used or not. If the opponents press, they are very much likely to lose the possession. Therefore, the wise player should leave the defenders free to mark and cover space.

3. Using Simple Plays
The first approach is throw the ball back, away from pressure, and switch it to the other side of the soccer field. As per the second approach, the players should make runs to create space and beat marking. What is more, they should throw the ball to an open player. The third approach is to throw the ball to a back-to-goal player who drops the ball for the thrower.

4. Throwing To Feet
Throw the ball to feet with perfection. The players at all levels of ability are capable to do better when they receive a throw-in to feet.

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Sunday, July 22, 2007


Soccer Coaching Tips - How To Teach The Drills Properly

As soon as you're at the soccer field, there are some important soccer coaching tips all soccer coaches should have in mind.

The coach must stand in a position where all the players can hear him. Again, he must be brief in explaining the objective of the drill and key coaching points. For a 15-20 minute drill, the coach must not take more than 3 minutes with explanations and demonstrations. Always remember that it is not the quantity that matters, but the quality.

However, you must make sure that all the players have understood the things he explained. Ask them if everything is clear to them. If not, clarify the same.

Once, you have explained the objective of the drill and key coaching points; you should stand outside of the drill area, not in the middle. Keep a close watch on the activities of the players, observe them and see if they can solve any issues by themselves.

If there is something you need to correct, you should stop the soccer drill and demonstrate the step to correct the mistake. Psychology plays an important role in coaching soccer. Therefore, do not forget to praise players for correcting it. Now, once you find perfection in the players, increase the complexity to keep players challenged.

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Thursday, July 12, 2007


Coaching High School Soccer - An Essential Element

  • Playing With Much Slower Or Weaker Team

It is very important for the coach and players to keep in mind that playing soccer with a much slower and weaker team can slow down the team’s play. A wise soccer coach understands that this is a potential problem when coaching high school soccer.

Actually, when you play against a much weaker or slower team, your team will dribble more or play more slowly. This can work as a disaster because when you get to play a good team, it is obvious that your team will take ten to twenty minutes to adjust back to the faster game speed. This will give enough time to your opponent team to take control of the game.

Regarding coaching high school soccer, always remember that even a single goal deficit against a tough opponent will not be an easy cake to overcome. Therefore, a good approach is to consider playing your substitutes or second team against a weaker or slower team.

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Wednesday, July 11, 2007


Coaching Soccer Drills Effectively

When you're coaching soccer drills, there is variety of fun, yet effective ways to teach the players about the same. These methods will not only improve the soccer practice attendance but your team will also play better and win more games. One of such methods is dribbling across a square.


  • Dribble Across A Square (U-6 and Up)

    This is the best way to teach dribbling and how to use the bottom of the foot, the inside & outside of the foot to stop the ball, and turn. This is something that the U6-coaches must read and learn about. This method will effectively teach the players how to dribble in traffic.

    As per this method, first, make the square 5 or 6 adult steps wide. Now tell the players just to dribble across and stop. Do not let them turn and dribble back. The moment they have all dribbled across, have them all face inward and dribble back across to the opposite side and stop.

Coaching soccer drills can be rewarding if you make it fun and interesting.

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