Tactical Training for Youth Soccer
Each of the youth soccer coaching articles linked below offers some helpful advice about teaching soccer tactics to youth soccer players. Coaching youth soccer is fun, but it is also challenging. It is challenging because although young players can learn quickly if the teaching approach is appropriate, it is not always obvious to adults beginning as soccer coaches what "appropriate" means. Oddly, this applies nearly as often to professional players becoming coaches as it does to parents becoming coaches.
Keys to Teaching Tactics
The keys to success in teaching soccer tactics to youth players are these:
- Teach simple soccer tactics that the players can use with the skills they possess.
- Teach basic soccer tactics that are appropriate to the players' age and match.
- Use simple, direct, and unambiguous language, and keep it brief - no long lectures, no sarcasm that could be misinterpreted, no jargon.
- Speak carefully and be specific and brief.
- Seeing is better than hearing. Doing is better than seeing. So, introduce your topic, show it, and get the kids doing it quickly.
- Teach one tactical idea at a time. Don't make a distraction by making other corrections.
Defending
- Team Defense
- Counterattack
- Sigi Schmid: Pressure, Cover, Balance
- Teaching the Flat Back Four
- NSCAA Clinic Reports 1998
- No Get, No Turn, No Move, No Shot
- A Defensive Teaching Plan by Age
- How Can I Teach When to Tackle?
- Should We Focus on Defense at U12?
- Role of the Stopper, Pressure, Cover, Balance
- What is "Backs On"?
- How to Teach Better Marking and Tracking?
- How to Teach Pressure, Cover, Balance?
Attacking
- Scoring More Goals
- Wing Play Practice
- April Heinrichs: Runs Off the Ball
- Jay Miller's Speed of Play
- Coaching Possession Soccer
- Tune up your 4-4-2
- NSCAA Clinic Reports 1998
- Don't Coach Possession Soccer?
- We Can't Move the Ball Up the Field to Score
- How Can I Coach 2v1 Overlap?
- Backing Up
Organizing the Team
Web Administrator Ken Gamble