Learning when to pass is easy. Stand near any field and you will hear dozens of parents who never played the game yelling to pass....

For the past couple of months I have been coaching a U10 Boys team and although I adhere to most of my personal philosophy regarding youth soccer development, I feel that I always fail in so many areas.  I am never happy as a coach and it is never about the boys’ performance, but rather the way I carried myself during the match or training session and how I managed the game.  I find that I need to keep studying and learning and talking to people about it or I fall back into my conditioned ways of focusing on winning.   I’ m far beyond win at all costs, but I do win at some costs and I desperately want to get past that. 

I believe strongly in the game being the best teacher.  I believe in positive coaching and doing my best to keep kids feeling confident to try creative things on the pitch.  I praise my players and give them positive reinforcement.  I rotate my players so that different players sit at the beginning of each game and my players get equal playing time.  I strongly believe that up to 13 years of age, this must be the way.  Consistently sitting on the bench kills kids’ confidence and does nothing to develop the creative players that our country lacks today.

I encourage my players to hold the ball and use their skills rather than just boot it away.  I believe that the game will teach them best, I really do.  By holding the ball and trying to dribble defenders they will learn far more than if they just pass the ball away as quickly as possible.  Kids need to have successes and failures on the field on their own to learn.  Every time a parent or coach yells for a kid to boot the ball or kick it away or pass, we are removing an opportunity for a player to potentially do something special and learn something that may stay with them forever.

Learning when to pass is easy.  Stand near any field and you will hear dozens of parents who never played the game yelling to pass.  If mom and dad, who really know little to nothing about soccer, can get it why can’t we trust that the kids will get it when they are a bit older?  We only have until a kid is 12 or 13 to develop their skills.  After that, teaching passing and tactical play is a breeze.  Developmentally they are more prepared for it at 13 and we didn’t waste valuable moments that they could have been developing skills.

I refuse to be a remote control coach who tries to manage every move my players make.  I make corrections off the ball.  I call players over to give them a bit of guidance…I generally sit and watch my kids play taking note of things we can work on.

In training sessions I insist that the players are all involved and I teach through 3v3 and 4v4 games rather than drills where the kids are lined up.  For me, practice time is so precious and I would hate to waste any time running the kids without the ball or sitting for 5, 10, or 30 minutes listening to me talk.

I play my kids in all different positions because I think it helps them to learn more and develop more fully as players.  At age nine or ten no one knows what type of player a child will become so we must play them in different positions.  I believe that we effectively kill off potentially great, magical soccer players every season by forcing them into positions at an early age and never letting them out.

Despite all of this I still fall short in one area.  I really love to win.  I suppose it is my competitive nature as a lifetime athlete.  Maybe it is that old American ‘exceptionalism’.  Whatever it is, I do secretly pride myself on winning.  I don’t win at all costs.  I do adhere to my philosophies, more than most, but I do let my decision making be driven by my desire to win.  I still think I “get it” more than most people, but I do still fall short in this regard.  I have to get better at this to become the coach I desire to be.

I believe we (I) must take our focus off of winning and move it to developing players fully so that they understand the game at their core, not by us teaching them, but by learning and feeling the game all around them.

Immersion. 

I promise you that Lionel Messi, who is by far the most magical and creative players in the game today was not born that way and wasn’t trained to be the way he is, but rather he developed.  He plays like a child.  He doesn’t think – he just plays instinctively.  This is the opposite of the American way right now.  Our soccer is run by guys who played in college and use lots of catch phrases and run patterns and can analyze systems of play…blah blah blah. 

Many of the most valued coaches and trainers in our country are the exact opposite of what we need.  This system is so entrenched right now, that it will take one or two generations of “soccer guys” (and gals) to cycle out before we see any real change.  National team boss Jurgen Klinsmann is a great soccer mind who has the right ideas, but has his work cut out for him.  I hope that if he stays strong and can have some impact on the entire system, then we might have a chance…

The reality is that to truly develop magical players we need to move away from this focus on competition.  That may be a lot to ask.  Competition is at the core of the Americans psyche and maybe that is not a bad thing, but it doesn’t do a lot to develop great players.  Soccer is so different than nearly every other sport in the planet and certainly in our country.

Since the competition is likely here to stay, we need to work even harder to create ample opportunities for kids to play in an environment that fosters experimentation and creativity.  Whether it is a formal part of our training schedule or it is on the street, in the parks, at school or at one of the many indoor places popping up that run pickup sessions, kids must play massive amounts of unstructured games between 5 and 13 years old if we really want to be competitive in the world when it really matters at the national team level.

 "Street Soccer"

I don’t know that I will ever stop wanting to win, but I hope that as I continue growing as a coach, that I will do a better job of trusting my players and allowing them to grow and struggle, and sort things out for them selves.  I am stealing this line from another article I read about developing players, but…give someone a fish and they will eat today, but teach them to fish and they will be able to eat for a lifetime.  The same applies to our players….

I may not be a great coach, but I know a bad one when I see one...

Let me start by saying that I don't think that bad coaches are bad people. I think they are good people who care about kids and want to help and believe in themselves. They just haven't been taught properly how to coach kids in our beautiful game.

That said...I watch other coaches out there, hoping to learn something and I am sadly now no longer surprised when I see really bad practices.

I watched a U8 practice last week where the coach showed up 5 minutes late and then proceeded to set up a very complicated steel goal. The kids where standing around doing "stretching" led by a militant 10 year old boy who was helping out. After about 15 minutes the coach "taught" (read lectured) the kids about push passes. He explained in detail about push passes and then finally had the kids pass the ball back and forth with the inside of the foot. Finally they get to touch a ball, after at least 20 minutes of practice.

After this, the coach did a really weird and complicated drill with the kids in line running a lot and touching the ball very little. None of the kids got the drill and since only two kids went at a time, there were 8 kids waiting. The last drill was all 10 kids lined up, dribble toward the fancy, complicated goal, and shoot at the coach who blocked most, if not every shot that the boys took on goal. On top of all of this, when the kids screwed up they were made to do push ups.

I was ready for him to finally turn the boys loose for some 5 v 5 when he then had them do sprints, then ended practice and sent them home.

I wish I had made this up as a perfect example of how not to coach, but it was real.

People argue different reasons why the US with all of its organized soccer cannot dominate on the world stage. The most common reason I get is that there are soooo many choices and that we get our best athletes playing baseball and football.

I think it is more simple than that. We have good people with poor coaching skills killing any love for the game out of our kids.

Baseball and football can work with this type of coaching. They are a series of stops and starts and rely largely on skill. with play calling and a fairly straight forward set of goals. You can run baseball practices all season and only have kids play an actual game on game day and it works.

Yes there are amazing and magical baseball players and in no way do I mean to diminish the skill required to play these sports, but soccer is just different. It may seem like it works to train kids "our way" and we may get lucky and get a few good kids with talent who learn the skills and become good players, but how many truly great players have we produced...?

Cue the cricket sounds...

Soccer is like a language. You can spend years and years in classes and "learn" a language, but to really be a fluent speaker, with no accent, you have to go and speak and listen and immerse yourself in the language and the culture.

Soccer is even more like that.

Soccer more than most sports, is constantly moving and the game is played in hundreds or thousands of small battles in every direction, across every part of the pitch. No line up drill or sprint or shooting on a goal all day will produce an intelligent, creative player who can do magical things on the field.

Even more so, a player who is bored to death from a horrible practice session will almost never be inspired to go on and love the game, play all the time and become great at it.

One problem is that most coaches don't understand the game and how players develop. Sadder yet is that many of these coaches played their whole life and some still play. They just don't get it. Most of them learned the game the same way they are teaching it. They didn't play 4 v 4 when they were a kid. This goes to the whole lack of street soccer in our country. That is a whole other post.

I read at least one article each day about youth soccer development and the overwhelming majority of experts throughout the world say the same thing...

The game itself is the best teacher. Just let the kids play.

Coaches - even if you feel compelled to line them up, run them, do your complicated drills and lecture them for 10 minutes about how to do a push pass, at least at the end of the practice let them play. They aren't out there to learn how to do a push pass or sprint really fast across the field. They are there to play soccer. The sport gives them joy.

If you believe in what you just taught them then give them a chance to show you. You may enjoy watching them for a few minutes and their parents might too.

Lines, laps, and lectures...

No lines, no laps, no lectures…really?

I don’t think that many American coaches of preteen kids trust everything they learn and read. Any intelligent coach who has been through state license training or even through the most basic AYSO training has heard this popular phrase. The problem is, it is a cute phrase and easy to throw about, but very few coaches live by it.

They talk a good game, but when you go out to the training pitch you see it all around.

Lines
Laps
Lectures

I think that coaches don’t consider 2 or three kids standing for several minutes to get their turn in a drill a line. It must mean a line is only a line when the whole team is in it.

Same with laps, I assume. A coach may not send their kids for laps around the field (although many still do), but they will certainly line them up and run them for 10, 20, or even 30 minutes of a practice….without ever touching a ball.

Maybe stopping the kids constantly during a drill or a small sided game to talk to them for minutes at a time doesn’t constitute a lecture to these coaches, but I would certainly put it in the lecture column.

We learn it at every step of our coaching education, yet many if not most of us throw it out the window at our first opportunity. Is it an American thing born of coaches raised playing baseball, football, and basketball? Is it a human thing? Do we as adults need the order that lines, laps, and lectures provide? Is it the players' parents? If we don't line them up, run them, and lecture them it doesn't look like we are really training and coaching them, now does it? So maybe we do it to impress those parents who are paying the big bucks for us to turn their kid into the next college prospect.?

I am certain it is at least a combination of these. Most 'professional' coaches and trainers need to have a reputation and make people believe in them to make a living. Many do a great job with kids, don't get me wrong (even the ones who run kids and line them up), but they need to make a practice look like, well, a practice.

Kids playing small sided games doesn't look as orderly as kids on four corners of a grid lined up waiting to get into the mix. Having all of the kids compartmentalized into their little lines while you are not instructing them is much easier to manage as a coach, especially if you have a large group of kids.

The fact is, doing it the right way takes a lot of effort, training, and practice. Hmmmm, those are all of the things we ask of our players, and yet so often we sell those very players short. We cut corners because we either don't make the effort to create better training or we don't trust ourselves enough to do what we know is right.

Coaches, I challenge you. At your next practice do an honest assessment of whether you have the kids engaged, touching the ball, and having a good time while they learn the skills they need or are you falling into the comfort zone of Lines, Laps, and Lectures...Awareness is huge. Be aware and be the best coach and trainer you can. You can give them a love for the game. Don't just say it. Do it. Live it.