January 28, 2010
Coach Youth Soccer: Tips For Fun Drills
Understand this! In order to Coach Youth Soccer, it is always difficult to think and create new drills that are interesting as well as useful for the kids. In teaching soccer, the biggest difficulty is to keep thinking about new ideas that make the training for kids interesting.
What follow are some drills that you can teach youth soccer players. These allow them to concentrate on the game, become good at it, and at the same time, have fun with the game.
Get the kids going with dribbling and shooting: This is a simple drill that involves all the players at the same time. Ask the players to queue on a single goal line. Now, spread the balls all over the soccer field. Then, make the kids move with the ball as if they are attacking the opponent’s goal. They should shoot the ball as soon as they can.
This drill goes a long way in improving the stamina, dribbling skills, and confidence of the players. As the kids do not face any opposition while moving forward, it reflects their style of playing soccer.
Teach them to pass the ball: Tell the kids to position themselves at the far end of the field. Make them run to you fast as soon as you finish counting till 3. When they are running towards you, they should also try to take over the ball from the other player who has it. When you shout stop, the ball must be passed by the player who has it to someone else.
To coach youth soccer, these drills are the best tools to teach the kids passing and dribbling. In this way, the art of gabbing the ball from other players is also learnt by them.
Touch and Go: It’s a very interesting game which kids love to play. It requires the kids to stand in two rows under 40 meters away from the position of the goal. Also, the goalie should defend the goalpost. Situate yourself in between these two queues.
The ball should then be passed on to any one row to subsequently pass or shoot the ball with just one contact. The idea is to translate the ball into a goal. Once the goalie returns the ball, carry on with the practice.
If you have more than one goalkeeper in the team, keep them alternating between different sessions. This sport encourages team effort and helps improve shooting skills. The game also provides the opportunity to learn the skill of saving the ball from getting to goalpost.
Retaining the possession of the ball: This drill helps the players learn to move forward with the ball saving it from opponents. Get two players so that one plays as attacker and second guards the ball. Now let them both play their roles in the field and the one who succeeds to take over another wins a point.
These happen to be the simplest methods to coach youth soccer. You can make your kids perform these as they help them learn along with having loads of fun. If you would like more such tips and know about drills, join our youth soccer coaching community.
Andre Botelho is known online as "The Expert Youth Soccer Coach" and his free ebooks and reports have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Learn how to skyrocket your players' skills and make training fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Soccer Coaching Tips