Coaching Manual?

[djasha68]

This is just my view on how to coach children. Not teaching anyone to suck eggs, may be usefull for the new coaches.

Having read many different posts on how we should be coaching children, it has become evident that their are a few ideas we should all look to follow, but it is also obvious that there is no definitive way to accomplish a perfect training session. As each child can have different reasons to play football, different levels of ability and learn in different ways, a coach has to be versatile, adaptable, dependable, open to new ideas and have the ability to get the childrens respect, as well as a good understanding of the game. Remember you dont get respect because you are a coach, you get respect because you are a good coach, that has an ability to get all your team to enjoy every session.

The keyword now is FUN. Freedom to play without the restrictions that the adult game needs to win games, is now seen as the way forward. Going back to street football, unorganised games that have little restrictions. No one telling them to mark him, or thump the ball out of defence. These games are competitive though, make no mistake children will argue over everything. Difference is they are not being told what to do by dad, and because dad told me, it must be right! Imagine playing Monopoly with your sister and dad walks in and stands over you and shouts "dont buy Old Kent Road, its rubbish you should have thrown a 6, come on lad try harder." Seems silly, but that is what goes on every weekend at football grounds all over the country. The GUBOG campaign is a large step back in the right direction, back to how we used to play our game.


FUN FIRST
So our first job as a coach is to make training as enjoyable as possible. This must come before everything, because this is the base for every other part of what you want to achieve as a coach. Dull sessions will mean players will not want to or be able to learn new ideas each week, could you learn if you thought your coach was boring? The best teachers inspire minds to think about problem solving.

PRAISE
"Well done Dave, the way you handled that account was superb, I am really pleased with your performance." If that was your boss saying that to you, how would that make you feel, would it make you want to stay at your job? For most of us the answer is YES, why though? Because being praised makes you feel good, makes you feel respected and you now feel a bond between yourself and the boss. That bond has the effect of making you want to try harder, so you can get more praise, to make you feel good and respected. So as the line in a hymn goes, (dont ask me to name it though) Praise Him, Praise Him. Use it as much as possible it will reap you rewards in the long run. Sometimes take a player to the side and say how pleased you are with them. Dont praise the same players every match infront of the whole team. The players who you have not mentioned may feel left out.

BEST WAYS TO LEARN
What about the technical stuff, this is where you get different opinions. Do you mainly use ssg to teach technique, let the game be the teacher we are told now, or do you give them a ball each and work with a ball each for the majority of your session? You only can answer that, you work with the children but the answer will be found in how they enjoy your coaching. Do you play fun games, ssg or work on different turns, dribbling exercises etc? What ever they enjoy the most is the way you want to teach them. My son likes to be shown step overs, turns etc and be taught how to do them, more than he likes ssg at training. Majority like ssg and fun competitive games, so I spend more time on the last 2, but will throw in a few examples of turns, before a game. Last training session we used 2 Futsal balls and had 2 games going on, the emphasis was on being creative, as the games went on, few of the lads did not try anything to beat people, were looking to pass the ball all the time. During water break we did 2 mins of examples of ways of beating opponents, so I was able to demonstrate in a way that my son likes to be coached. I believe that the majority of children, especially U13 like the fun games and ssg without too many stop starts. Older teams will be more willing to learn formations, which will involve lots of stop starts. Still very important to make it as much fun as possible, DONT stop start every time you see a mistake, let the game have periods of no coaching. Remember to show good examples of what you are coaching, not just the bad ones.

RECAP:

1) Make Training FUN,FUN,FUN.

2) Praise children as often as possible.

3) What the children enjoy the most is the way they will learn more.

4) Consider age differences, U8 have different needs to U14`s.

5) Look to show good examples more than bad examples.

6) Let the game be the teacher.


VARIETYVariety is the key of life. Same approach to coaching will help keep your sessions more fun. Dont be afraid to try new games, ideas. If you know another good coach invite him down to do a session for you, a fresh face can work wonders for your team, also you may learn something new. Have players move around, defenders one week ,attackers the next, let them experience different roles in the game. This is a good way of finding out what positions may suit them as they age. Look for new ideas, games where ever possible. Places such as internet forums, youtube, books, dvd`s, game consoles, tv, live games, other teams coaching sessions are all good ways to enhace your coaching knowledge. I have picked up a few ideas from seeing a coach/manager being interviewed on tv at a training session, watching what was going on behind the coach, I have picked up a few different ideas that I could bring to a training session.

COMMUNICATION
When talking to a group it is important that you have their attention first, also make sure you can see them all, dont let some of the group sit behind you. Eye contact is quite important, nothing worse than talking to a group and some of them are looking at another team, not concentrating on what you are talking about. This may sound obvious, but it is common for coaches to start a team talk with their backs towards some players, or a few of the team talking to each other. Get them involved in your conversation, ask questions to get them to think about solving problems. If you have a couple of boys/girls talking wait to they shut up, I have found that the team will soon tell them to be quiet if you just wait for silence, or put a finger to your lips they will soon get the message. My assistant manager has made the mistake of talking to a group when they are all over the place, no one had settled, so none of the lads were taking information in. Once again age does limit what and how long you talk to them for. My U15 team are now old enough to talk to about tactics, have a decent understanding of the game, so they can respond to most things you tell them. Talk formations and tactics to U8 and you might as well talk to them in Martian. Concentration of young children is quite short, so dont make long speeches, its a waste of time. Short to the point instructions will work better with young children.


PLANNING
Planning your sessions is important, have a clear view of how and what you are going to coach. Have a stack of session planners available, you may have set a exercise up that needs 12 players, only to find that you have 7. Odd numbers can create problems for inexperienced coaches, so work out how you will use the spare man before you start the exercise. There is nothing worse for a coach or a team, if the coach has turned up with no idea of what he is going to do. I know I have done it. I then make things up as I go along, quite often then you have no progressions in mind, wasting time setting out pitches,cones etc. You should be starting and no exactly what you are going to do, although you should be able and willing to change an exercise if it is too easy/hard or the players are not enjoying it, move on asap. Good planning will allow you to be adaptable to the needs of the players.

RECAP:

1) Try out new ideas/games.





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