The following guidelines apply to players of all ages and ability levels and are provided here to help coaches plan their practice sessions. Keep in mind that these are suggestions only and should be adapted to accommodate the needs of your individual players.
Create a positive training atmosphere. Whether you're working with elementary-school kids or seasoned professionals, a boring practice is a poor learning environment. For the most part, training should be fun. Through careful planning and creative thinking, coaches at all levels can provide stimulating, highly motivated training sessions to achieve their specific learning objectives.
Consider the players under your charge. Plan a realistic practice one that challenges players but is also within their physical and mental capabilities. Consider your players ages, abilities, and developmental levels. Beginning players may have difficulty executing even the most fundamental skills, so it's important that you don't place them in situations where they have little or no chance of achieving success.
Develop a theme. It's a mistake, particularly with younger players, to try to cover many topics in a single practice session. Center each practice on an underlying theme. For example, the primary objective of a training session might be improved passing and receiving skills or to create goal-scoring opportunities through creative dribbling. Organize your practice around a variety of exercises and games related to this central theme.
Keep your players moving. The more times a player can pass, receive, shoot, head, or dribble the ball, the more likely he or she will enjoy the practice and improve skills. Make sure that a large supply of balls, ideally one for each player, is available. An ample supply of balls provides many more options regarding choice of drills and practice games and makes training more enjoyable since players are constantly moving and touching the ball. The easiest way to guarantee a sufficient number of balls is to require each player to bring a ball to practice. Just as baseball players bring their glove to the field, soccer players should bring a ball.
Simplicity is bliss. Much of soccer's inherent beauty rests in the fact that it's a very simple game. Keep it that way! Complicated drills or highly intricate training exercises only confuse and frustrate your players. When planning practices, always take into consideration the "KISS" principle of coaching—Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Build a foundation. Each drill or exercise should lay the groundwork for those that follow. Begin the session with basic activities, and progress to more match-like situations. For example, you might begin practice with simple passing drills involving minimal player movement and gradually progress to exercises where your players must pass and receive the ball while moving at game speed under the pressure of challenging opponents. Where to start in the progression depends on the ability and experience of your players. Higher-level players will naturally begin with more demanding exercises than novice players. In both cases, however, organize your drills so that each serves as a natural lead-in for the next.
Don't overcoach. Practice sessions as well as the games themselves should center on the players, not the coaches. Use brief demonstrations and simple explanations, and then get your players actively involved. Avoid long lines, long stops in play, and long speeches. Stop the action to provide specific and appropriate feedback but only at opportune times.
Ensure a safe training environment. Soccer is a contact sport and involves some physical risk. Accidental collisions, bumps, and bruises sometimes occur. To minimize injuries, make every effort to give your players a safe practice environment. This includes adequate supervision and planning, matching players with others of similar size and ability, and establishing guidelines for appropriate behavior.
It's imperative that players wear appropriate equipment during practice and games. To prevent lower leg injuries, both field players and goalkeepers should wear shin guards. Most guards are made of light, flexible plastic and are inexpensive. Goalkeepers should wear position-specific equipment as well. Padded shorts or full-length pants are recommended, particularly when training and playing on hard natural surfaces or artificial turf. Both shorts and pants should have padding over the hip area.
Use common sense when selecting soccer goals. Despite their heavy weight, portable full-size goals (8 feet high by 24 feet wide) can topple over if not properly anchored, particularly if youngsters hang on the crossbar. Solid, professionally-made goals firmly secured to the ground are recommended, but they are also expensive. If cost is an issue, and for most of us it is, use cones, flags, or other kinds of markers to represent goals.
Practice economical training methods. To make the most effective use of vour limited practice time, incorporate elements of fitness, skill, or tactics into each exercise. Toward that aim, include a ball in every drill or exercise, even those designed primarily to improve fitness. However long the practice make sure that it's time well spent. Quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to duration of a training session.
End with a game. When all's said and done, the game itself is still the best teacher. End each practice with a match or a simulated match situation. The match need not be full-sided (11 v 11). Small-sided games (3 v 3 up to 6 v 6) are more beneficial in some ways. Playing with fewer numbers per team allows players more opportunities to touch the ball. They are required to make more decisions, which aids their tactical development. The emphasis on positional play is greatly reduced because each player must defend as well as attack, which promotes total player development. Last but not least, the number of scoring chances is greatly increased in small-sided games, which makes them more fun for everyone involved.
Thanks for attention, hope this article can apply in your training.
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