1.0 Getting Started with Your Team

Your division coordinator formed your team. Based on player evaluations from the previous season and on registration information, the coordinator tried to give you an overall balance of older and younger players, and experienced and inexperienced players, including kids with parents who may have volunteered to assist you or to be a team parent.

1.1 Making First Impressions

It’s best to contact your players and parents as soon as you get the roster. If for any reason the parent or the child has the impression that the player isn’t supposed to be on your team, contact your coordinator immediately.

Set the tone right away with parents and players. This is a recreational league where every player plays at least half the game, so you should emphasize having fun and learning about soccer. There’s a section later in the book about structuring practices to provide variety and to minimize boredom.

Let the parents know that no matter how little they may know about the game, you can use their help at practice. In the section on practices later in the book, we’ll look at using as many volunteers as possible to keep the kids busy.

When contacted, the parents expect to hear the following information:

- Your name and phone number

- When and where practices will be held, and for how long

- What to bring to practice

- Some parents will inquire whether certain of their child’s friends are on the team

- Reiteration of league information, such as when the first games are, how many games there will be, and so forth.

1.2 Practice Fields

When your coordinator gives you the roster, or shortly thereafter, he or she should let you know when and where you will be practicing. Because of the limited amount of practice fields in the area, the coordinator must assign the practice times and fields. The program has arranged for exclusive use of the fields you are assigned at the times assigned - you have the absolute right to practice there.

The fields will be lined, the goals erected and netted on the last Saturday in July each year, prior to the first week of practices. PLEASE VOLUNTEER TO HELP OUT WITH THIS PROCESS IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN – many hands make light work.

The county is responsible for cutting the grass on the school fields.

1.3 Player Equipment

You should let the parents know that each player is expected to wear shin guards and bring water and a soccer ball to all practices. For games, a ball is not necessary, but each player must wear shin guards and should bring water.

1.3.1 Mandatory Player Equipment

In soccer, in all levels of play, it is mandatory for each player to wear shin guards as a matter of safety, whether in a recreational league like this, or the finals of the World Cup. Players will not be allowed to play in games without shin guards. Thus it is a good idea for you as coach to require all your players to get in the habit of wearing them for every practice. Shin guards are inexpensive and available just about anywhere sporting goods are sold in the area, including our local national chain retailers. Younger players can wear just about any style, older players should consider guards that cover the ankles as well as the shins.

1.3.2 Recommended Player Equipment

Practice starts in August, so a filled water bottle is essential. (Arriving with an empty bladder is a good idea too.) Players should also bring a soccer ball of the right size to each practice. Check with your age group coordinator for the latest information, but in the past clinic teams have used size 3 soccer balls, players from 1^st grade through 6^th grade used size 4, and 7^th grade and above used size 5 soccer balls.

Players should wear soccer cleats or sneakers, and athletic clothing appropriate for the weather. Soccer cleats are slightly different from football cleats, and are very different from baseball spikes. The size and shape of the cleat is actually regulated by the laws of soccer, and spikes are illegal. Football cleats tend to have a cleat up in the forward-most part of the toe, but this is a nuisance in soccer, as players need to be free to kick the ball.

1.4 Coaching Equipment

The League will supply you with two soccer balls in a ball bag, a set of pylons, and a goalkeeper’s jersey and gloves. These are the only essentials, but you might find additional equipment handy:

- A ball pump, to inflate balls (important)

- First Aid Kit (important)

- A few extra balls (important)

- Extra Pylons (depends on your coaching style, can do without)

- Paper & pen, or dry-erase board for diagramming positions (optional)

- Penny jerseys (same color T-shirts work) (kind of nice, but can do without)

1.5 Assistants and Team Parents

If there were enough volunteers to go around, your division coordinator assigned an assistant coach and a team parent to you. If there weren’t enough to go around, a top priority for you should be to convince a couple parents to assume these roles.

The assistant coach’s job is to assist you in running the practices and games. The assistant coach need not know much about soccer, for the most part they will be organizing kids in accordance with your plans. There is no end to the number of assistant coaches you can find uses for. You will need help with lineups, pre-game warm-up drills, making sure shoes are tied, keeping players together and behaving on the sideline, etc., etc. Never, ever turn down someone who is offering to help out. And don’t feel bashful about asking parents to help out – they’re willing, just not aware of what you need help with. If you like, you can apply titles, like Bench Coach, Substitution Coach, Other-Side-Of-the-Field-Coach, Shoelaces Coach, etc.

The team parent handles many of the administrative details for the team, and there are quite a few such details. Many of these fall into the category of helping the coach to communicate with the parents - things like disseminating the team picture information, arranging a schedule of which parents are to bring snacks for each game, filling out the game summary forms, helping to arrange an end-of-season party, and so forth. The team parent does quite a lot for the team -- be sure to thank your team parent with an end-of-season gift.

2.0 Making Your Practices Work

2.1 Training for Soccer Coaches

The league organizes coaching clinics and licensing sessions to enable coaches to learn soccer coaching techniques from top coaches and players in the area. Don’t be intimidated by the sound of ‘Licensing sessions,’ these are outstanding! The league even subsidizes the cost of these sessions. They are geared for people coaching younger players, and they run you through hours of ideas and examples of things you can do to make practices more effective and more fun. And you will personally come to understand the importance of remembering to bring water to practice!

You can find these on the Internet by looking at the league website:

www.eteamz.com/fosoccer

or by looking at the organizations that run these training sessions:

www.nscaa.com (The National Soccer Coaches Association of America)

www.msysa.org (The Maryland Youth Soccer Association)

2.2 Planning your practices

2.2.1 Assistants:

You will need to be able to demonstrate a variety of soccer techniques to the players during your practices, throughout the season. If you aren’t the right person for this task, find someone who can fill this role – an assistant coach or a parent. Another idea would be to enlist the aid of a middle- or high school age soccer player in need of community service hours and arrange to have them be your assistant for the season in exchange for signing off on the hours they assisted.

2.2.2 The Practice Plan

Prior to each practice, write down an approximate sequence of activities for the players and the time for each. Work through in your mind how the practice will flow from one drill to the next, will you need pylons, the goals, when will the breaks be, etc. Share this with your assistant coaches and deputized parents in advance if possible. You will enjoy great returns on your investment of 10-15 minutes of planning before each practice. By writing down a practice plan beforehand, you’ll be assured of using the time you have in the most efficient way possible.

On the subject of time, consider the policy of John Wooden, the great men’s basketball coach at UCLA. Wooden very seldom scheduled a practice to last more than two hours, claiming that to go beyond that time limit was counterproductive. At the same time, Wooden’s practice plans were legendary for their efficiency. If two hours was a limit for Wooden and his world class athletes, there’s a lesson for all of us: organize; practice hard; don’t overdo. Once the kids pass a certain point of mental and physical fatigue, they’re going to check out on you mentally and emotionally. They may still be at practice, but they’re not learning any more. Remember, practice makes permanent, not perfect. If your players are too tired, they will develop lazy practice habits that your repetitions are reinforcing. Worse yet, they’re not having fun. Go for quality repetitions in your drills, and when the drills get old, move on. Practices for elementary school age kids should last 60-120 minutes, but only the older kids will really last longer than 90 minutes.

In teaching motor skills to kids, it is important to set a solid foundation and build upon it. Nelson McAvoy, in his book Teaching Soccer Fundamentals has these guidelines on the pattern of buildup:
            "- Go from individual work to team work
            - Go from structured to unstructured
            - Go from low work rate to high work rate
            - Go from least gamelike to most gamelike
            - Go from low pressure to high pressure
            - Go from least fun to most fun
            - Quit before they want to quit
            - Emphasize only one theme per practice and make corrections only in that area."

Another benefit of the practice plan is that it earns you credibility with the players. One of the neat things about coaching is seeing a group of players progress from being strangers to being a unit. That unit needs a leader, and you’re it. A practice plan gives the kids the impression that you’ve got it together, even if you don’t particularly feel like you do. Know what you’re going to do, and deliver the material with a sense of authority.

If you do try a drill or practice game that doesn’t work, don’t force it. Drop it and move on - it happens to everybody. That’s why it’s not a bad idea to have a little more planned than you intend to use. Draw a line across your practice plan where practice will stop if all goes well, but have something in reserve if you hit a clinker.

Most parents will be able to relate to the final reason for developing a practice plan in advance. It’s a lot easier coming up with an organized strategy in the comfort of your family room, enjoying your favorite beverage, than it is to make snap decisions with the enthusiastic input of a dozen spirited kids.

2.2.3 Themes

One effective approach to a practice plan (again, this is primarily a suggestion directed toward the novice, it’s not the only approach) is to have one or two themes for the session. For example, you might have a practice session dedicated solely to dribbling or passing, and everything you plan for that evening is intended to stress some fundamental aspect of dribbling or passing.

Typically, you’ll start with a brief description of why the skill is important in the scheme of things, followed by a verbal description of how the technique is performed and, ideally, a demonstration of the proper execution of the technique. In any event, keep the talking and demonstrating short - they’re not going to sit still forever. Then it’s time to have the players try the technique. This is where having one ball per player and willing parent volunteers really pays off. Think back to when you were a kid. Was there anything more boring, more get-into-trouble-inducing than standing in line? Try to keep the lining-up to a minimum, and have as many kids participating simultaneously as possible. If each player has a ball, and you get three or four parents, siblings, etc., to help, you can keep your lines down to one or two persons per line. There are many drills and practice games in which everyone who has a ball can participate at one time.

2.2.4 Fun/Work/Fun/Work

The sections above advised you that you should make it clear that practice has to stay under control. At the same time, it’s a recreational activity which is, by definition, supposed to be fun. These don’t have to be contradictory concepts. You can provide the fun by using any of a number of time-tested practice games that are fun, yet force them to use soccer skills to succeed. One approach is to alternate more serious drills with this type of practice game. As an incentive to work hard at the serious drills, you can use the possibility of playing favorite practice games if the players concentrate on the serious drills.

2.2.5 The First Practice of the year

You’ll probably come face to face with your team for the first time at your first practice. If you’ve never coached before, this can be an anxious time for you, but following a few proven tips will make it easier.

You’ll have a lot of names to remember, so name tags might be a handy approach. The players will need to learn each other’s names and get to know each other socially. Try having each player introduce themselves by giving their name and school, and maybe something about soccer such as a favorite position. Emphasize learning the names during the first few practices. One good way is by having an initial kick-around in a circle, where the players must call the name of the player they’re passing to. This is a good habit to get into anyway, so you might want to continue this drill on into the season.

Introductions and learning names is particularly important with the younger kids. This removes a little of the strange, new-authority-figure atmosphere by establishing that they’re important, too. Keep in mind that this is a new experience for many of them, and that some of them may be feeling a little insecure (like the head coach?).

On the other end of the spectrum, some of your new charges may be feeling a little too secure. Again, it’s time to set the right tone with your team. For anything positive to come out of practice, there has to be structure and a sense of direction. Let the players know that you’ll have fun, but that practice isn’t synonymous with free play. Saying this isn’t enough, you need to run practices with structure and direction, and the players will take the cue for the most part. Again, having a well-considered practice plan makes things run smoothly.

A final thought while on the subject of having fun, and this is dealt with in more detail in the section on game day concerns: set the right tone with your parents during practice, too. Parents should be encouraged to support their kids by attending practice. In case practice needs to be halted due to a sudden thunderstorm, they will be there to bring their kids home. You might want to keep your ears open for attitude problems among the parents. It is rare, but sadly not rare enough. Parents need to understand that this a recreational league for the fun of the kids. Though competition and playing to win is an important part of learning sports, fun is the primary objective of this league, and negative attitudes are not welcome. Be prepared to talk to a parent about it, if it becomes more than a rare occurrence. Everyone will be a little more enthusiastic on game day, but if you establish a supportive atmosphere in practice, the supportiveness often carries over to the games.

2.3 The Sandwich

In one of the coaching courses available, for the introductory USSF “F” license, the instructor suggests that a practice follow the structure of a sandwich: bread, meat, bread. To start the practice, take the players through a set of warm up exercises. This will burn off some of the energy and excitement, and hopefully get them just tired enough that they will listen to your instructions. They’ve been cooped up sitting in their seats in school all day, and are itching to run around. The meat of the practice will be the skill development drills that the players need for soccer. This manual will supply you with a few ideas here, enough that you can use your own creativity and adapt them to the needs of your team. There are plenty of inexpensive coaching books available, and some of the better ones are listed in the reference section of this manual. The bread at the end of the practice will be a game-like activity that gives an opportunity to use the skills they have been working on in a game setting.

2.3.1 Top Bun - Warm up Drills

Individual Practice At Home

Let the players know that you want them working with the soccer ball on their own. One excellent activity is ball-juggling and Personal Bests. Teach the kids to use their thighs, their feet, even their heads, to keep the ball in the air, and count the number of touches. Each player should keep track of his personal best number of touches and try to beat it. Perhaps you would want to jot them down at the first practice and measure improvement over the season, and present an improvement award at the end-of-year party.

Another activity widely recognized for improving ball touch is wall work. Take your ball to a wall and bang it against the wall. Make a chalk number one on the wall and a number two and so on, and practice hitting the numbers in order. This activity is great because the wall gives all the feedback you need. If you hit it poorly, the wall will let you know. No nagging from adults is necessary.

To Open Practice:

Some coaches like to do the same warm up before every game and practice. The advantage of this approach is that the players get familiar with the routine, so they have an immediate sense of purpose (a good thing to have before, say, a 9:00AM game). That way, you’re not trying to herd them together and instruct them in the sometimes limited amount of time that exists between the end of the prior game and the beginning of your game. Something basic to start the warm-up, like jumping jacks, gets the kids used to the idea that they’re doing a group activity.

Warm-Up Drills:

The idea here is to get all the players moving in soccer movements.

Tag – Mark off a square 10 x 10 yards with pylons and make one player “IT.” They must tag another player who becomes IT. Tag-backs are fair game. This gets the kids moving in soccer movements, change of direction and pace, faking, dodging.

Stop/Turn/Go (Emphasizes dribbling under control) – Use the same 10x10 square as above. Each player begins with a ball, spread out in the square. Coach yells, “GO” and the players dribble their ball in the square, trying to avoid hitting another player or ball, keeping the ball close to them. When the coach yells “STOP” the players stop with their ball. When they go again they must sharply change direction and keep dribbling. Coach will vary the STOP/GO calls. Have the kids practice feinting (faking) moves.

Red Light/Green Light – Similar to the above. Players line up, each with a ball. A coach, the “traffic cop”, positions him/herself at a distance away from the line which will vary based on the age group and skill level. The object of the game is to be the first player to get to the traffic cop. When the traffic cop is facing the players, the red light is on, and all players should be still, with the stopped ball close to their bodies. Anyone who continues to dribble, or whose ball continues to roll while the red light is on, is sent back to the starting line. Use discretion on what is a reasonable ball control level for your age group and skill level. When the traffic cop turns his/her back on the players, the green light is on, and the players should dribble, under control, as fast as they can. Emphasize that the players need to dribble with their heads up (a prerequisite skill for developing passing skills later), so that they can stop quickly when the red light comes on. As the season progresses, the dribbling skills should improve, and you should become more demanding in how quickly the kids stop when the red light come on.

King of the Square – use the same 10x10 square as above. Players spread out, each with a ball. At the start signal, the players dribble around, keeping their own ball close by, while trying to kick other balls out of the square. Once your ball is kicked out, you CANNOT kick other balls out, you must fetch your ball and wait outside the square, maybe juggling the ball. Last player with their ball in the square is the King. Some coaches object to knock-out games, since the players most in need of work get knocked out first. To remedy this, add a "hospital" or "rest station" to the game. When the first player gets knocked out, he waits in the first bed of the three-bed hospital. The second and third players knocked out wait also. When the fourth player is knocked out, the first player in the hospital goes back in, so that there is always no more than three players out at a time, and the player out the longest goes back in next.

Hunters and Elephants – One player (hunter) is stationed at the top of the penalty area. All the other players (elephants), each with a ball, start at midfield. At the start signal, the elephants dribble the ball and try to score. The hunter kicks balls out of bounds, and once he/she has kicked one out, can go for more. Once your ball is kicked out, you must fetch it, and the next round you become a hunter. Continue this unti