Recreational Soccer Teams

The volunteer coach that will be gearing up to train a recreational soccer team would plan differently than one that is leading an elite team.

For one thing the main theme should be the fun factor of the learning to play soccer and planing accordingly is important. Depending on the category the planning would involve skill sets that will be varied among your young players.

In most cases the soccer association that you are affiliated with will offer some kind of help if you are new to the sport or to coaching it. Although it is recommended that you learn how to coach using as many resources as you can namely the internet. In doing so you will realize that training U5, U6, U7 and U8 categories is slightly different than if you are at the U9, U10, U11 and U12 categories. And as they get older the fun factor is still important but there is the competition element that will come into play. Like in most cases when learning a discipline there are steps that build on previous steps and learning to play soccer is not different.

Most soccer associations  will have course offerings that will cover different levels of coaching. When you are beginning you will probably be offered the first level which will cover the youth level. In most cases it will apply to the the level you will be training. Find out what the club has to offer you and make it part of your learning process. Keep an open mind even if you already have athletic skills acquired from your youth. Playing a sport even one like soccer is not the same when teaching it as a coach.

Preparation comes with learning how to teach a sport skill even if you already know how to do it yourself you need to be able to teach it. You will need to be very open minded as how you teach it will heavily depend on the category you will be coaching. This should become part of you preseason preparation and needs to be part of your presentation during your initial parent meeting.

How do you gain your coaching knowledge? Do give much thought on how you will present a particular soccer skill? Do you plan a parent meeting at the beginning of the soccer season?

The Parent Soccer Coach

So you find yourself accepting to be a soccer head coach for the the very first time. There may have been many reasons that you decided to accept this role and the main one could be that there wasn't anybody else stepping up to the challenge. In an effort to support the need and not have the soccer league abolish the team your child is part of you decide to help.

These are all very good reasons and you are definitely doing a good service for a much needed community activity. There are some perspectives that you need to consider along with some tips that will allow you to ease into this new role.

From my years of coaching first my children’s teams then other teams where my children were not a part of there were realizations that I would like to share with a new head coach.

First it is the acknowledgement that a coach is a role model not just to the young players that you will be training but to the parents that you will be interacting with. This maybe hard to do at first but you need to keep your perspective and realize that the team along with the associated parents, will be looking to you to be a leader in all aspects. The way you act and how you communicate will become very important. It will be a factor in how well the team will gel and the fun that will be experienced by not just the young players but their parents.

The other factor that is most important concerns your child. I have come across many parents that live through their children when it comes to sports. You must separate this feeling right from the start and understand that your time has passed and now it is your child’s time. Each child learns at their own pace and they perfect their talents in due time. Your attitude and actions play a big part in this development and your patience needs to be at its peak.

And lastly the realization that you will be leading a team of players should be fully understood. I have seen soccer coach parents that place their child on a pedestal and put undue pressures on them to be the best on the team. Such a parent coach fails to understand that they are leading a team as a whole and rightfully so you need to train and teach each player equally allowing and helping each player to play and develop to their full potential. This means that your child needs to be treated equally just like the rest of the players on the team.

At the younger categories it is a lot about teaching the skills needed to play the game. As the team evolves and advances to higher categories the rules of the game become a large factor till eventually you are delving into the tactics and strategies ofsoccer. This is a learning progression for both the parent coach and the team they lead.

Therefore, as you ponder if you should have accepted being a head coach and acknowledge that it is a big responsibly there are things that will facilitate your experience. These are tips that I have used during my years of coaching and have yielded great results. I will cover these in another blog but for now the points I have listed here are a good starter as food for thought.

Being the best soccer parent coach you can be is a rewarding experience for both you and the people you will be interacting with. It is a learning experience in not only the soccer sport but in people management and learning to do it well will create lasting lessons to the team you lead. After all you will be a role model and if you do it to the best of your abilities you will be teaching life lessons to the youth under your charge. Along the way you maybe also influencing some of the parents within your team.

Noun: Role Model

Definition(s):

• A person regarded by others, especially younger people, as a good example to follow.
• A person who serves as a model in a particular behavioral or social role for another person to emulate.

Definition obtained fromThe Free Dictionary by Farlex