Coaching Philosophy
We
believe coaching is all about teaching. If you are a good teacher, everything
else will take care of itself. The challenge that faces you as a coach at every
interaction between you and the players is to determine what the lesson for that
session should be. There are three areas that should be covered in each
session:
The trick of coaching is to present all of
these aspects of the game in a way that is fun and effective. At this age, the
vast majority of the training time needs to be spent on proper technique and
footwork. I’m a big believer in the Coerver coaching methods, which are all
about foot work. We are devoting one of the practice sessions each week this
spring to nothing but foot skills. Again, the issue here is to make if FUN so
the boys are learning and improving without realizing it.
With young players, we spend most of the
training sessions on technical aspects of the game. we present some very simple
tactical patterns, field communication and set pieces. An example of one of
these tactical patterns is a drill in which we attack up the touchlines and
cross into the center of the field. As the boys get older, stronger and more
mature, We expect to present more complex tactical aspects of the game and see
them execute correctly.
The mental aspect of the game is very
important. For a coach, there should be two focal points for the mental aspect
– the team as a whole and each individual player. The first part of this is to
get the most out of each player on the team and to have the sum of the whole be
greater than the individuals. The mental aspect of the game is easy when
everyone plays well. Difficulty arises when everyone is not playing up to their
full potential and you need to figure out why and help fix it. A good coach
perceives the problem and implements a solution.
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