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, it’d not just the players but also the coaches who have a problem here. It calls for the player to keep complete balance and bend the leg at the knee in order to kick the ball. Both power and stance to kick the ball emerges from below the knee.

In soccer practice, this is the starting position for almost all types of kicks. The speeding up of the foot from below the knee generates a great 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 hit very high, driven low, swung over left, or lean towards right.

There are three vital passes in soccer i.e. a side foot pass, the outside of the foot pass, and the instep drive. Let’s discuss them further.

Soccer Coaching

The side foot pass: This is the easiest and the most widely used pass in teaching soccer. This is usually employed 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 touches the inside of the foot and the ankle with the foot turned outwards.

When you are in the midst of coaching soccer drills, teach the players to be at ease with respect to their body. When it comes to different kicking actions, this rule is the truly indispensable. Players should strengthen the ankle and the foot only at the time of making contact with the ball.

Subsequently, as players are convinced of their ability to perform it, the action should come out smooth, natural, and relaxed.

Outside of the foot pass: This pass is a little complex to teach and learn but it must be learnt well as it’s the quickest, most accurate, and unpredictable pass. The ball gets into contact between the outside edge of the foot and the laces with the foot turned inward and extended. With the help of the foot, the pass is modified into a quick flick for short distances.

Throughout the coaching drills session, the posture of the players should be relaxed.

The Instep Drive: Both the versions of the instep drive namely, lofted version and the low driven version are applied to pass the ball to longer distances. Once the players are confident in executing it, make a “chip pass” or an “in swinging pass” by introducing some changes in it. As 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 ball then comes into contact with the laces and inside of the foot which must be hard and extended.

So now coach your kids the various techniques of kicking the ball and with variations to let them do different things with the ball.

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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.

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 requires both skill and character to produce quality shooting. But other than this, winning attitude is also equally important.

Even though, all players must do this but it is more onto the forward players to shoot the ball. While teaching soccer, put shooting on the top of your priority list.

There a number of things that may come out of shooting. Shots can be positioned towards a goal. The goalkeeper might drop the ball exactly at the feet of your forward player. Directionless shots can become beautiful passes. Ground shots may spring back. You might even score a goal directly from the shot.

At the time of soccer practice, the attacking players always try to make the most of every goal-scoring opportunity. They are trained in a way that they think of nothing else but scoring goals. In England, these attacking players are called sniffers. This is due to the fact that they are always on the lookout for scoring chances.

Soccer Coaching

They consider every chance the last chance to score a goal and hence shoot accordingly. They are always present at the right time at the right place. Amazingly, they have the ability to be in the wrong place at the right time. Hence, in coaching soccer drills, you must instruct the players to hit the ball whenever they get a chance.

As a rule, a shot is whenever the ball it hit in the direction of the goal with the intent to score. But the most successful technique to drive the ball is striking it through the middle by using the laces of the foot. The player’s head should be over the ball, his toe extended, and his upper body should remain steady.

During the coaching drills, teach the players to shoot the ball low and wide of the goalie. Herein, low ground shots take priority over high shots. This happens due to the fact that goalies have to stop the low ground shots by stretching their hands a lot more in comparison to high shots, thus making it difficult.

Young players tend to score more when they practice inside regulation sized goals by kicking the ball above the head of the goalkeeper. You need to discourage your players on this as this leads them to a habit of shooting high goals. In coaching soccer drills, stop this practice by not letting your players to practice in adult sized goals.

Now get out there and start teaching your players to look up once before they shoot the ball with a view to check the position of the goalkeeper.

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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.

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. Work out a common objective for the team as well as yourself as a coach, for instance; during soccer practice the players must enjoy the game while they are a part of it.

At this time, it’s essential to follow your goal and not feel distracted by other things. 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. A few examples are promoting the physical fitness of the players, developing a good sporting attitude towards competition, and focusing on the individual soccer skills.

It is your duty to set reasonably high standards for players in relation to sportsmanship. 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.

In coaching youth soccer, winning is also an important concept that should be paid due attention. Try to infuse an open idea of winning the game inside your player’s minds while training them. Teach them that as long as their performance is out of ordinary on the field, they are winners, no matter what the final result.

Soccer Coaching

It has the effect of encouraging the players to give it their best shot and play the game without unnecessary pressure to win anyways.

When coaching soccer drills, always keep in mind the importance of giving clear and correct instructions if they are to be helpful. Before coaching, you need to teach your players about some explicit do’s and don’ts in soccer. The dissimilarity between coaching and teaching lies in the fact that coaching is concerned with a group of players who are already familiar with the game to a certain extent.

While coaching drills, it is preferable to first demonstrate the drill to the kids and then give them a free hand in executing it themselves. It is due to the fact that kids grasp visualizations more effectively than simple instructions. If you try to explain everything as a lecture, they may not get it. However, they are good at replicating things.

Consequently, at all possible times, give a demonstration.

Lastly, but still no less in importance is to keep the kids engaged in meaningful activities. This becomes even more important when the weather is windy, wet, or cold. It is very well acknowledged that the kids find it enjoyable to play in the rain. So, instead of revoking the session, it makes more sense to find alternative ways to let them have fun.

Just be sure that the kids have additional layer of clothing and proper shoes in situations like these.

Move forward now and start using these tips to your training sessions. You will be astonished to see the results.

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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.

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. That’s probably because the similarity between coaching and educating the players has been getting some recognition in past few years.

I’m sorry to say that even today, there are many coaches who fail to recognize the importance of designing player specific coaching plans in teaching soccer. They should make an effort to develop them professionally together with educating them on the game. In some situations, it is seen many a times that the educational aspect in soccer is neglected totally.

Nevertheless, while deciding on the coaching drills that kids are to perform; one rule should be kept in mind. 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.

What motivates a player to take on the role of a coach is very simple to work out.
After the player is no more a part of the team, he wishes to continue being associated with soccer. As a result, many successful players become soccer coaches. But they don’t realize the seriousness of taking up this role.

Soccer Coaching

It is considered by some as the first step that’ll take them towards the prospects of coaching 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. Theses reasons are both suitable as well as acceptable. But it’s not only these duties but additional principles too that need to be taken into consideration.

In coaching soccer drills, the key factor is communication and sadly it’s the one that people find most difficult to recognize. The absolute qualification of a youth soccer coach is not necessarily his successful career as a brilliant player consecutively for some good number of years.

In order to be accepted as a great coach, certain standards need to be set and followed. It requires a proficient and a skilled coach to push young players in loving soccer and regard it as an encouraging and an exciting incident in their lives. The players should be able to express themselves openly at any time during the soccer practice and it’s for the coach to ensure.

In a team, there are players with varied talents, stamina, and caliber. The fact that every single player in the team has the qualities and talents of a champion is not of much value. What is truly important is that each one of them eventually reaches his own aptitude.

It is therefore of great importance for us to realize that only brilliant players having successful careers make excellent and expert coaches. A special ability to work with kids is of paramount importance; an inborn gift to make contact with people and nurturing relationships.

Some food for thought; give some serious consideration to what actually motivates you as it is a condition in this context.

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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.