The Origin of my Coaching Philosophy

This is the start of my second season as a youth soccer coach. Last season, my kids were U-5s. We were the youngest team in the league. The date cutoffs in our league are 8/1/02 - 7/31/03. All of my kids were born in 2003, and a few of them actually are younger than the league allows.

We formed the team with several families we are friendly with. Of the 10 kids on the team last season, seven were hand selected (not by ability, but because they were friends) and the other three were assigned to the team by the league.

We started out doing all the drills you read about on the internet: red light-green light, variations of tag, sharks and minnows, relay races, knocking cones over, keep your yard clean, etc. I immediately dispensed with all of the recommended drills that are non-soccer related, like duck-duck goose, and did not incorporate any drills that involved touching the ball with your hands. Believe it or not, lots of coaches recommend drills that ask the players to pick up their ball with their hands or to touch the ball with their elbows! How is a five year old supposed to figure out what to do when they are being coached to violate the golden rule of soccer: no hands!

I also dispensed with stretching and warming up. These were five year olds! They aren't going to pull any muscles and they are in a perpetual state of being warmed up. Have you ever seen a kid stretch before they play on a play ground? Of course not. My kids wake up every day at a full sprint. By eliminating the warm up, I was able to keep practice to 45 minutes, which was a big hit with the parents. My goal was to do drills for 25 minutes and scrimmage for 20 minutes.

We had one practice before our first game. In the first game, we got absolutely clobbered. A couple of my kids could hold their own, but the rest didn't seem to get it at all. They were kicking the ball aimlessly and didn't seem to understand that the point was to take the ball to the other team's goal. Our league does not keep score, but rest assured that my boys knew they had been whooped. It was obvious from the looks on their faces.

After the game, I started thinking about what when wrong. My kids were plenty athletic, so it wasn't like we were a lost cause. The other team was bigger and older than we were, so that certainly played a role. But it soon dawned on me that our practice did nothing to prepare the boys for game conditions. Now, don't get me wrong here. I fully understand that the point of youth soccer is not to win games, but to develop soccer players. But I really questioned whether my drills were aimed at developing soccer skills and whether they were enforcing the right habits.

Let's take a look at a representative drill. Red Light-Green Light teaches the kids to amble aimlessly, and fairly slowly, around a small field with no defenders and no sense of which direction is preferred. Not only does that drill not teach proper soccer skills, it actually creates bad habits. It encourages slow, aimless dribbling, rather than the fast, purposeful dribbling that is required at game time. In fact, all of my drills were like that!

All of the drills have two things in common that are considered good for young kids by the soccer powers that be: they are fun and they keep all of the kids involved. Can't argue with that. No way should five year olds be asked to stand in line and wait for more than a few seconds. But isn't it possible to design fun games that keep all the kids involved while simultaneously enforcing good soccer habits? I was determined to at least try.

The first thing that occurred to me was that all of my drills should involve a goal. That way, the kids always know where they are headed or, in the case of defense, what they are trying to prevent. It doesn't do any good to learn how to avoid a defender unless you're also going in the right direction. It also doesn't do any good to learn how to defend unless you're also defending in the right direction.

Second, I was determined to keep it as simple as possible. Following directions is not a strong point for five year olds. They also can't execute complicated tasks, like consecutive passes (the first pass is always off the mark, making the second pass impossible).

My kids loved sharks and minnows at our first practice, so I decided to keep that drill. But I had to modify it to make it more reflective of a soccer game. In the first version we tried, I had the kids dribble from one end of the field to the other trying to avoid the shark. I decided that it would be pretty easy to incorporate the goals since we were already going the length of the field. So, I painted a center stripe on the field and told the shark to only defend the initial half of the field. Once the minnows got past the center stripe, they were free to take the ball to the goal and shoot. This really focused the kids on not only getting past the shark, but also taking the ball to goal. Sounds kind of like a soccer game, doesn't it? The drill was still fun because the sharks all got to put cones on their heads, a good consolation (because it's just plain silly) and also a good way to designate who the sharks are. Sharks and minnows remained a big hit, but now it was actually teaching the right way to play.

Now I had the idea! With drills like this one, we were going to get pretty good. And the next Saturday's game proved it. My kids were unstoppable, taking the ball to goal and scoring quickly and methodically. I was thrilled. Of course, part of it was just the kids figuring out what to do on their own. But I think some of the success was attributable to my redesigned drills.

This blog will follow my team through our second season and pass along other coaching tips. If you're just starting out, go to Walmart and buy some cones, buy a couple pop-up goals and get yourself some cans of line paint from the local hardware store (assuming your field allows paint, or at least won't notice it!). With the right drills, you can build a solid team and teach your kids the right way to play, and love, soccer.