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factors that are instrumental in ascertaining your team’s philosophy and fulfilling it. This philosophy can be applied to your youth team with relative ease as it is easier than you think.

The 6 essential factors which are required for an effective youth coaching philosophy are; parents, coaches, excitement, selection, time, and success windows.

Regular communication with Parents: When it comes to soccer training, parental influence is the key influence in the mental and physical well being of your players, especially on the day of the match. A brochure of the “parental responsibilities” at the beginning of the season is not enough. Meetings with the parents should be set to discuss the concerns and reminding them the important points.

Upcoming soccer coaches: Your philosophy should emphasize the importance of development of the coaches along with the players. Assess and see if you can turn one of your kid’s parents into a soccer coach? They are the ideal candidates, not necessarily to start immediately, but may be in the future.

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Selection: Players with great soccer skills drop out mainly due to non-selection. Studies reveal, that the players think that they would not get selected for a good team so they opt for a bad team. Therefore, with the help of a rational selection system all the player could be given equal game time.

Time: Start the session on time and tell the parents to be on time as well. When you define the start times and finish times clearly, it helps you deliver the session effectively.

Excitement: Is it absolutely necessary that all the soccer coaching sessions are entertaining? Yes, try to make every session enjoyable for the kids but also understand that it may not be possible every time. Therefore, go for a positive attitude as an alternative.

When training the kids, it is certain that the coach will have problems with ideas on how to make practice drills interesting. As such, the biggest hurdle that the coaches face is with regard to the creativity aspect of coming up with fun drills every now and then.

In soccer drills, it makes sense to keep escalating the difficulty aspect so that kids get skilled. The best way of doing this is to get started with a game, look for a problem, and then rectify it with a drill.

Success windows: Make an effort to create a success window for the season as an important part of your training. This necessitates for you to determine a lower limit and an upper limit of time with a view to measure the level of success that needs to be achieved.

To take an example, time frame of minimum four and maximum eight weeks. This can be achieved for both the team members and the individual members.

In your interest, embrace a soccer coaching philosophy like this become a part of the development phase of your kid’s training once the basics have been covered. For more information, join our youth coaching community which has a collection of relevant material and resources on youth soccer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andre Botelho is the author of “The Expert Youth Soccer Coaching Guide” and he’s a recognized expert in the subject of youth soccer coaching. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun in less than 29 days! Download your free pdf guide at: Soccer Training