Youth Soccer Drills

You may have heard that in coaching soccer drills, all skills have only 1 goal and that is to take a shot at the goal. It takes both skill and instinct to develop the art of good shooting. But there is one more thing that is equally important towards shooting; an aggressive attitude.

Even though, all players must do this but it is more onto the forward players to shoot the ball. When teaching soccer, give a lot of emphasis on shooting.

So many things may come out of a shoot. Shots can be positioned towards a goal. The goalkeeper might drop the ball exactly at the feet of your forward player. Rowdy shots can turn into accurate passes. Ground shots can get a timely rebound. You may even hit a goal through a straight shot.

During the soccer practice, attacking players are always on a lookout to shoot the ball into the goal at every possible opportunity. They are made to think in a way that they always have goal scoring on their mind. In England, these attacking players are called sniffers. This is because they are always sniffing out scoring chances.

Soccer Coaching

To them, every opportunity is the last one they will get and hence shoot ferociously. You will see that they are always available when the situation is favorable. They have the skills to even convert negative situations into positive ones. So in coaching soccer drills encourage your players to shoot the ball whenever possible.

In most cases, when the ball is knocked with a view to get it through the goalpost, it is termed as a shot. Yet, one technique that is most effective is driving the ball through the middle by use of the laces of the foot. While performing this, head of the player should be over the ball, his upper body be steady, and his toes should be extended.

In the course of coaching drills, teach your players to shoot the ball wide and low to the goalie. In such a scenario, high shots are less preferred that low ground shots. The reason is that low shots are especially difficult for the goalies to stop as they have to move their hands a greater distance than for high shots.

Young players while practicing inside regulation sized goals, tend to score more by kicking the ball over the head of the goalkeeper. This must be discouraged otherwise players form the habit of shooting very high goals. When coaching soccer drills, put a stop to this activity by not permitting kids to play in adult sized goals.

So go ahead and make your players expert in shooting the ball to score goals by confirming the position of the goalkeeper once before shooting.

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Andre Botelho is the author of “The Expert Youth Soccer Coaching Guide” and he’s a recognized expert in the subject of youth soccer coaching. Learn  how to explode your players’ skills and make coaching sessions fun in less than 29 days! Download your free pdf guide at: Youth Soccer Drills.

How would you react to the fact that one thing that young players find truly hard is to use a straight leg to kick the ball? In coaching soccer drills, this is by far the biggest problem that a coach and the players face. The player has to be in total balance and the leg used for kicking the ball is bent at the knee. Both power and stance to kick the ball emerges from below the knee.

This is the preliminary position in soccer practice for almost all kinds of kicks. The rushing of the foot from below the knee creates an immense impact on the ball. This offers great amount of power to players for carrying out different types of kicks. However, what type of a kick would it be is determined by the precise contact of the foot on the ball.

For example; it could be thumped very high, driven low, turn sharply to the left, or move to the right.

There are three basic passes in soccer namely, a side foot pass, the outside of the foot pass, and the instep drive. We’ll now chat about them further.

Soccer Coaching

The side foot pass: In teaching soccer, this is the most widely used and the simplest pass. Normally, it is used to make short distance passes. Though it is a little slow and quite predictable during the game but is very easy for the kids to learn and execute accurately. The ball makes a contact on the inside of the foot and ankle, and the foot is turned outward.

In coaching soccer drills, players should know that their body need not be tense during the movement with the ball. This is by far the most critical rule applicable to all types of kicking actions. The ankle and the foot need to be stiffened only at the time when the players is about to get in contact with the ball.

Once the players become confident, their overall action should seem relaxed, smooth and effortless.

Outside of the foot pass: Since this pass can never be predicted, is pretty accurate and quick, players must be trained on this even though it’s a little tough to master. The ball gets in touch between the outside edge of the foot and the laces with the foot extended and turned inwards. The pass is then transformed into a quick throw for short distances by using the foot.

In coaching drills, it’s imperative that the players maintain a comfortable posture.

The Instep Drive: Both the versions of instep drive i.e. the low driven version and the lofted version are brought into play to pass the ball over longer distances. Once mastered, this style can also be modified to make a “chip pass” or an “in swinging pass”. The approach of the instep drive is slightly angled and the non kicking foot is placed about 12 inches to the side of and behind the ball.

The contact with the ball is made between the laces and the inside of the foot and it should be stiff and extended.

So then, go on and train your players on these basic techniques of kicking along with the variations so that the ball does little different things.

To know more about coaching soccer drills, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community that offers effective and practical knowledge to help you excel in your career as a soccer coach.

Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn  how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Soccer Training Drills.

In coaching soccer drills, there’s no doubt that perhaps the most complex part is that of finding out the most appropriate method of managing the conditioning schedules of the players. The reason I say this is because in the last few years, the fine line between coaching and educating has gradually dissolved.

Unfortunately, not all coaches realize that teaching soccer involves designing coaching plans specific to the players’s requirements. They should make an effort to develop them professionally together with educating them on the game. There have been a number of situations where this educational facet of soccer has not been considered at all.

Yet, there is just one code that must be adhered to while determining the coaching drills for the kids. Any player who wishes to become a great soccer player of huge prominence should first attempt to grow as an individual. A coach should therefore act according to the above principle.

If we try to figure out something that cheers a former player to become a coach is pretty easy.
Once his playing days are over, he desires to remain involved in the world of soccer. This results in many successful soccer players settling down as coaches. But they fail to seriously consider the nature of this job.

Soccer Coaching

Some of them take this as an opportunity to get into the field of coaching and training adult players. There are still others who take this up because they truly love working with kids and wish to share with them their passion for soccer. Both these reasons are valid and well accepted. It’s not just these responsibilities that follow your choice but also certain ethical duties that must be looked at while making a choice.

Communication is the main feature with respect to coaching soccer drills, and unfortunately it’s the trickiest for a majority of people to understand. It is not enough to have a great career history spanning many years of top rated success and achievements to qualify as a professional coach.

There are some very important goals that a youth soccer coach needs to set for himself. It’s a capable and an expert coach who alone can cheer his players to fall in love with soccer so much so that they begin to experience it as an upbeat and a stimulating practice. During the soccer practice, the players should feel at ease all the time so that their feelings are conveyed openly in course of the game.

All players in the team vary in terms of strength, style, and individual skills unique to them. What’s not important is that every player must possess the competence and talents of a great player. What is most important is that every single player must be able to reach his own ability ultimately.

So we must understand that not every soccer player is cut out to be a skillful and a proficient youth team coach. He should have a special bent for working with young players; an innate gift for human contact and emotional relationships.

Some food for thought; you should seriously consider what truly motivates you as it is a major requirement in this context.

There is lot more that you can equip yourself about coaching soccer drills by just subscribing to our youth soccer caching community that offers a great amount of knowledge by way of articles, newsletters, and videos.

Andre Botelho is known online as “The Expert Youth Soccer Coach” and his free ebooks and reports have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Learn how to skyrocket your players’ skills and make practice sessions fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Soccer Drills.

In coaching soccer drills, there are certain training tips that I’d like to share with you before you initiate your training program even if you have been doing this for quite a long time. Let’s say that the soccer practice has one broad goal for both the coach and the player and it is to have fun while participating in the practice sessions.

Here, it’s easy to lose track of the fun part if you are not cautious. For this reason, I suggest that your goals should be as precise as possible both for your own good and for the good of your team. Some examples are; focus on player’s individual soccer skills, promote the importance of their physical fitness, and help them grow into mature, professional, and sporting soccer players.

Since you are the coach, you only are responsible for setting high standards of sportsmanship for players. Cheer them to have an attitude of fair play, sportsmanship, and team spirit. However, in teaching soccer, you can have numerous other objectives that you can add to those mentioned above.

One more concept that needs to be highlighted in youth soccer coaching is the notion of winning the match. When you coach your kids, you must instill an open concept of winning in their minds. Let them know that to be tagged as winners, they must focus on playing their best game and not worry about the results.

Soccer Coaching

This will take away the pressure off the kids and they’ll focus more on playing their best game rather than just winning it.

It’s important that your instructions during coaching soccer drills are to the point and exact for players to fetch expected results. Before coaching, you need to teach your players about some explicit do’s and don’ts in soccer. The difference in coaching and teaching is that the former is done with a group of players who are already familiar with the basic skills and concepts of the game.

In the process of coaching drills, it is nice to first impart 5 to 6 demonstrations about a drill to the kids and then let them practice it themselves. It is effective because young players are more receptive to seeing than listening. If you endeavor to explain in instructions, they will not understand it. Rather they are pretty good at imitation.

Therefore, consider giving demonstrations wherever you can.

Finally, but still very important is your ability to keep the kids engaged in important activities. This holds even bigger importance when the weather is not conducive to a regular session. It is well known that the kids love playing in the rain. Hence, instead of simply cancelling the session, it makes more sense to have them play soccer games or something like that.

Just make sure that in a situation like this, your kids have an extra layer of clothing and proper footwear.

Now get out there and start incorporating these teaching suggestions into your practice sessions. The results will make you happy.

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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 soccer drills.