Soccer Drills - the 4 Things You Must Know to Create Fun and Exciting Drills for Young Soccer Players

Every week around the world, millions of children go to soccer training ready and willing to learn, and excited about kicking a soccer ball around the park. This article will look at some of the challenges faced by their respective coaches in how to keep them interested, teach them new skills and let them have fun so that they turn up on game day ready to play. Soccer Drills should cater to children of different levels of abilities, they should be planned prior to the training session to address the needs of the children, they should help you foster good relationships with the parents by demonstrating your level of interest and knowledge, and they should teach the kids new skills in a positive manner. This article will introduce you to four vital concepts to help you to teach your players new skills by planning and utilising soccer drills in a fun and educational manner.

Anyone that has coached a children’s sporting team understands that players have differing levels of ability, and different physical statures. One of the great things about soccer is that large physical stature is not a prerequisite for success. The challenge for the soccer coach is that they will be dealing with children with different physical statures and different skill levels within the same team. Soccer drills must be adaptable to cater for these differences within the team. They must also offer extensions so that as players learn the skills they can be extended further.

It is always astounding to me when I talk to coaches of children’s’ sporting teams that many of them go to training without a clear plan of what will happen in the session. Failing to plan is planning to fail. A plan does not have to involve great detail but should be written down. How long does the session go for? How long do we warm up for? How long is spent doing soccer drills? How long is spent reviewing last weeks’ game? What were the strong points from the last game and what drills can I use to reinforce these? What areas do we need to improve and what soccer drills can I use to do this? Remember that it is OK to change your plan during the session, but if you don’t have a plan in place in the first place you are destined to have children that get bored. And we know what happens after they get bored!

How do you teach the children? This has a huge bearing on their confidence level and also on your relationship with the parents within your team. And rest assured if you maintain a positive relationship with the parents then this will make training the children alot more rewarding. Do you criticise? Do you yell? Do you point out the faults of the children? (And forget to mention when they do something wrong). Sounds terrible doesn’t it but sometimes we get so caught up in the emotion of the moment and what everyone else is doing that we forget about our own behaviour. It has been scientifically proven that children learn and improve many times more quickly with praise than with criticism. I found most successful the formula of 2 doses of praise for every dose of correction. When I found myself wanting to criticise I first made myself praise. I then offered correction, and I then praised again.

I once heard a coach say “I just wish the kids could learn what I am trying to teach them!!’ He was very frustrated at the time. What he failed to realise was that what he was trying to teach them was not appropriate for their stage of learning. So make sure your soccer drills are appropriated for your team, plan your sessions so they are fun and educational, and teach your children in a way that is positive and truthful. And at the end of the season your success is not measured by how many games you won. Your success is measured by how much your children learned, how much fun they had, and how many of them come back to play next year.