Youth Soccer Drills

1. Keep it Simple

The first tip is to follow the old proverbial KISS principle in your coaching style. KEEP - IT - SIMPLE - STUPID! In other words, making the learning process complicated is foolish. Why? Because then mental energy that could be utilized applying the point of the lesson will be used to try to figure out what the point of the lesson is. Ugh! Yeah that's right. An example for you. A person asks directions to the soccer field. Here are two answers. You pick the one most likely to help the person arrive where they want to go.

-You need to exit the south end of the parking lot. Go West till you get to the intersection of 16th Street and Hwy 76. Turn North. When you approach Saddleback Ave. turn east and you will see the soccer field after you pass Johnson Blvd on the right.

-That's easy. Exit the parking lot by the big water fountain. Turn right. Go about 1 mile. You will see a Burger King. Turn right just past it onto Hwy 76. Travel to the big bridge. It's the only one, you can't miss it. Just past the bridge turn right onto Saddleback. Travel to you see St. Mary's Church on the right. The field is right past it on the right.

Now both sets of directions will get the person to the soccer field. But I bet the vast majority of you would prefer the second set. Why? Because it gives you more information that you can easily understand. It is also information that gives you assurance throughout the journey that you are heading in the right direction.

Keep your instructions and methods as simple as possible. This will give your team confidence and some little mile markers along the way to let them know they are heading in the right direction.

If you are using stretching exercises in your warm up drills. Tell the benefit of stretching. Help them see that extra stretch power may just be what enables a shot to be blocked or a ball to be stolen. Keep it simple. The more they understand, the more they will be motivated to learn what you are teaching them.

2. Slow Things Down

Like driving a car. You start out slow and gain speed. The temptation is to run right out of the blocks and run past some really important stuff. Today's young people are very interactive and visual in the learning styles. When they watch a great goal scored on TV they get to see it multiple times and usually in slow motion. It is always the slow motion shots that allow us to see more of what really happened.

Adjust your coaching style so that you are giving the really important stuff is slow motion. This way, they will see more and as a result they will know more which means they will learn more. Just one small adjustment in a kick, can completely alter the accuracy of a the kick. Walk them through things slowly over and over and then slowly speed it up. This is much much more productive that just hauling off and kicking a ball full speed. It may impress them to see your power, but it will not teach them anything.

Beyond the most important aspect of character development, the goal is to score goals and stop the other team from doing so. If they have done it walking then it will be easier to do it running. Slow down so that things can speed up! Increase your team's retention and you will increase their overall speed and accuracy.

3. Be A Learning Teacher

This may seem trite to some. But the successful coach is the coach who continues to learn and grow. If you are not learning, you are not growing. It is what you learn after you know it all that really counts. Position yourself to learn from others. Then you can give to your young people all you know plus what people better than you know. There are a lot of great resources to help you be a better youth soccer coach. There are lots of good free resources on the web and some very good professional quality resources that you and your team can use to improve. For example, check out 250 Award Winning Soccer Drills. This is an easy to use software that has tons of features you and or your team would enjoy. It has also been voted by Forbes as the best soccer site on the web.

Stay on the cutting edge. Your learning attitude will also rub off on your players and you will all be the better for it.