In coaching high school soccer, you may wish to disagree but it’s true that communication is the most important aspect to get success. The term coaching signifies the art of communication. It enables you to let people understand exactly what you wish them to do and in what sense.
Majority of coaches in soccer coaching are the players who used to play the game in their younger days. Still, there are several problems that they have to find solutions to. Majority of these issues come up due to communication lags. You must recognize that there are certain issues related to communication that need special attention if your job is to be made easier.
I’ll explain them one by one.
In the course of watching the young players on field, coaches often get emotional. The coaches become spectators instead of adopting a critical approach to observing the kids. They fail to notice the important points that could better their team’s performance. The coaches fail to have an effective conversation that could help the players get to the winning post.
Though the coaches today are complete professionals fully acquainted with the game, they lack communication training. For example; in soccer coaching, use of a video or a flip chart is not very common since most coaches don’t know about them. The daily practice gets monotonous when there are communication gaps even though the coach may be technically very sound.
This is especially important in coaching high school soccer since the players have been into the sport for quite some time. They have been working on these drills for some time but the standards are different. And one of the ways to avoid the boredom of repeating important messages is to keep varying the format.
You’ll be amazed to know that coaches tend to forget sometimes that it is people who carry out the trainings. They get so absorbed in the training and coaching as a process that they lose their ground. When a coach tries to instruct something to the play but does not use that player’s name, it creates confusion and is an apt example of bad communication.
There are certain guiding principles in football coaching which are as follows:
• Every message from the coach is equally important. So ensure that they are understood completely and correctly.
• Your language should be positive enough to push the players to try hard to perform well. Help them to improve rather than reprimanding them for not playing well.
• All players should get an equal opportunity to sit with you and learn. Research in this filed shows that coaches tend to spend comparatively more time with the best players (up to seven times more!).
• Adopt a proactive approach to identify the impending problems and solve them.
• Add force to the player’s confidence by harmonizing criticism with praise. Tilt the balance a little more towards praise with respect to coaching high school soccer.
Accept as true. Application of these simple strategies to your training programs will have far reaching results for your team.
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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: Coaching high school soccer.
Tags: Coaching high school soccer, coaching youth soccer, football coaching, soccer coaching