July 7th, 2010 
admin Coaching high school soccer
I don’t know if you know this but communication is the most important element to succeed in coaching high school soccer. The art of communicating to the team is what coaching truly is. It lets you speak to mind in the simplest way and allow the other to do the activity in exactly the same way.
Speaking of soccer coaching, almost all the coaches are the former players who decide to take on as coaches. Even then they have to deal with many issues in coaching young players. These issues come up due to the inability to communicate properly. You must recognize that there are certain issues related to communication that need special attention if your job is to be made easier.
I’ll explain them one by one.
When coaches watch their kids playing, they tend to become emotional. The coaches become spectators instead of adopting a critical approach to observing the kids. They ignore the important facets of the game that could improve the team’s performance significantly. Here, they miss out on the important part of having a professional conversation aimed at getting a win.
Even though the coaches are well versed with the technicalities of the game, they are not trained specifically on communication. For example; in soccer coaching, many coaches are not aware of the utility of a flip chart or a video. When the coach finds it difficult to communicate his messages clearly, it brings monotony to the game even if he has a complete knowledge of the game.
Coaching Youth Soccer
It is even more important in case of coaching high school soccer because the players are not new to the game. They have been performing soccer drills on the same lines for quite some time, although at different levels. And one of the ways to avoid the boredom of repeating important messages is to keep varying the format.
It may come as a surprise to you that coaches often forget that their training sessions are carried out by people. They get so absorbed in the training and coaching as a process that they lose their ground. For instance; the communication is incomplete when an instruction is given to a player but without his/ her name thus making it difficult for any of them to apply it.
There are certain guiding principles in football coaching which are as follows:
• Every message coming from the coach carries equal importance. They should therefore be taken and read correctly.
• Your messages should have a positive impact on the players to put their best foot forward. Let them become better players with every passing day rather than pointing out their weaknesses.
• Pay equal attention to each player in the team. Studies indicate that coaches spend relatively more time with star players in team (up to seven times more!).
• Be proactive in communicating the problem the moment you see it coming.
• Reinforce the player’s self esteem by balancing praise with criticism. In coaching high school soccer, the balance should be a bit more towards the praise.
Accept as true. Application of these simple strategies to your training programs will have far reaching results for your team.
You have a lot more information coming your way if this is what really inspires you. You can subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community which has tons to videos, and articles to improve your team’s overall performance.
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 high school soccer.
Posted in 
