Horror stories of youth soccer coaches
Most youth soccer organizations are started and operated by volunteers. There are many like the Utah Ute football conference in Salt Lake City, where the League and Clubs are very well run, very well organized, and where they place a high value on coaching education. On the other hand, there are other organizations where leadership is self-centered, with many clubs having priorities that make little sense.
An obvious example comes to mind. I got a desperate call last week from a trainer in Florida. His club had four teams. Two of the organization’s teams didn’t score a single touchdown last season. The other team had very poor results. On the other hand, our hero’s team ended up going to the playoffs, narrowly losing only 3 games all season. His team had only 14 very average players and he had to compete against much better teams that had 25-28 players. The team that our friend took over had very similar results to the other 3 teams in the club the year before he took over this team. . His parents loved him, 8 different kids scored touchdowns, all 14 kids carried the ball at least once, everyone who played for him last year signed up to play again this year. You’d think the managers would give this trainer a medal and a parade down Main Street, right? If not, at least find out what he was doing differently than the other 3 teams and try to replicate his success, right?
What are those people thinking?
The head of this organization felt that the reason the organization’s teams had done so poorly was because “they weren’t tough enough.” This people requirement for the upcoming season is a universal practice plan for all 4 teams that places great importance on “toughening up” the players. Now according to our friend, the 3 teams from this club that did so poorly last season, all they did was ‘toughen the kids up’ during practice. While our friend was working on form and freezing football plays, power hour and birdog drills, the other teams were running their kids until they were throwing up or playing most of practice.
Keep in mind that the only team in the organization that had any success was a team that used my practice system and methodology, which places great importance on progression and teaching perfect fundamentals. As many of you who are using my system know, we do a significant amount of shaping, tuning, and freezing work during our practices. We firmly believe that children will only play aggressively if first they know exactly what their responsibility is for each play in each circumstance, and second, if they feel 100% sure of the technique they are supposed to execute at that moment. Put them in a scheme like mine where even average skill players can add value on every play and even excel and you have a winner. Confidence in role, responsibility, and technique puts children in a position to be potentially aggressive. Add a method where you make it easy for the kids to get in touch so they gain confidence in their techniques and their ability to play physical soccer and you have a team that plays “tough” and aggressive. Obviously, we cover exactly how to do it step by step in the book.
The study
In my two-year study of the best and worst youth soccer teams in the area and the country, I consistently found that underperforming teams almost always spent about half of their practice time scrambling at full speed. In much of the rest of their practices, they often did a lot of full-speed, full-contact “drills” or “hardening” or conditioning type drills. On the other hand, successful teams almost universally did few full-speed fights, instead working hard to hone fundamentals and responsibilities.
what really worked
My personal teams over the last 8 seasons have gone 78-5 and we do very little full-speed, full-contact scrimmage drills after “bleeding” kids’ noses to get the feeling of contact in the first few weeks. We use our valuable practice time to perfect technique and responsibilities, without slamming kids to the ground “toughening them up.” In those 83 games we were only beaten once. We were never outhit in any game outside of the league or outside of the state tournament. Our children love contact and crave contact because they have great technique, we limit it and only give it as a “reward” and because children can “play fast” because they know their work in our scheme forward, backward and forward. to the sides. Children accelerate into and through contact because they know that with proper technique they will not get hurt and will be successful. You don’t get that by rushing kids into contact before you perfect the basic form. Once you’ve perfected the base form, you move on to adding speed, angles, and changes of direction, but you do so in a progression with adjustments. Everything is explained in the book and the DVDs.
Great example of what NOT to do
Here is an example of what some youth coaches are doing, this person I am sure is a very nice and well meaning person BUT not a very good football coach. Can you tell me what’s wrong with this image? The Bad Training Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB0X-G4A-Ic
What’s wrong with that image?
The coach obviously hasn’t taught the kids how to execute a proper tackle, they have their heads on the wrong side 70% of the time, they have their heads down 60% of the time, they don’t have their knees bent 75% of the time . time, they don’t finish 80% of the time, they don’t have a consistent point of contact 100% of the time. They throw the ball backwards instead of running it backwards with only one ball in the drill and they run through the drill instead of around it, using up to 30% of the drills time. They get a repeat every 45-50 seconds. This drill should be done with one rep every 10-12 seconds with multiple balls or no balls, to the point where the kids and you, the coach, are breathing a little heavy. The kids are bored and the drill takes up a lot of practice time, but it could easily be corrected. Obviously, these kids have never been through a tackling exercise in the form of angle setting and freezing.
the greatest sin
The worst thing in my mind is that coaches praise children who are obviously doing the exercise incorrectly and in many cases unsafely. I’m all for praising kids for every little thing, right down to tying their shoelaces correctly, BUT it’s dangerous and counterproductive to praise them for tackling the wrong thing. This is a great example of how not to do a drill and a great example of wasting practice time with little to no tangible results. At least those reading this post can benefit from how NOT to do a tackle drill.
I realize these kids are very young, but I’m not sure what they learned during this “soccer practice.” These kids can’t tackle well or do anything soccer-related well.