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Coaches should be organized

Being an effective soccer coach requires a great deal of organization. Some clubs have team managers that handle scheduling games, referees and fields. In other organizations, all of this responsibility falls on the soccer coach. As many coaches have full-time jobs, being able to juggle their careers on and off the pitch is key.

As a coach, you need to be on time to your practices and have everything ready to go when your players arrive. A sloppy coach results in a sloppy team.

Coaches should be good communicators

It's unavoidable, you will have to deal with the parents of the players. You can prevent a great number of problems before they happen by establishing an early line of communication with your parents. Make sure they have your email address and cell phone number so that you can be contacted.

It is also important that you have contact information for every player's parents as well in case you need to address them outside of the field. I recommend creating some clear boundaries as to when you are willing to talk with the parents. They should respect your time and not hold you up every night after practice.

I also recommend a 24-hour cooling off period for parents before they can confront you after games. Letting cooler heads prevail can prevent hurt feelings and communication breakdowns.

Obviously, you have to be a skilled communicator with your players both in training and game situations. The good news is this is usually much easy than dealing with the parents.

Coaches should be a student of the game

No coach knows everything about every single aspect of soccer. However, the best coaches are constantly striving to learn more. They read books, watch coaching videos, attend seminars and talk with other coaches. Hopefully if you have coached for a long period of time you have a love for the game. If you are a new to soccer, it is my hope that you grow a passion for the beautiful game.

Either way, it is critical that you are always working to improve you coaching skills and knowledge.

Coaches should be good planners

This soccer coaching skill goes hand and hand with organization. Coaches should arrive to practice with a definite plan in mind. In addition, coaches should have an overall goal for the team. Each and every soccer practice should be building towards that goal.

If your main goal for the team is that they become fundamentally sound, then you should plan technical work in each session. If you want your players to know how to possess the ball for prolonged periods of time, then possession drills should make up the bulk of your practices. Players will need many repetitions in order to learn a new skill; one practice session isn't going to cement a concept in place.

Coaches should be able to teach technique

This is a tricky coaching skill for some as not every coach is a former player. If you are unable to demonstrate proper technique to your players, it is critical that you find someone to help you that can.

Kids learn a great deal by modelling what they see. You don't want them to pick up bad technique or habits from seeing improper demonstration.

Try to find an older player in the club or another coach to assist you with these demonstrations. Begin working on your own to improve your skills with the ball so that you can handle this in the future.

The ability to demonstrate proper technique is one of the most important soccer coaching skills that you can develop.

o Batistuta from Argentina

o Ronaldinho from Brazil

o Petr Cech from Czechoslovakia

o Diego Maradona from Argentina

o Michael Owen from Britain

You should know that soccer game carries risk of injuries. You should always remember that the main injuries occur while playing. The top five types of injuries may occur during playing soccer game which is given below.

o Injury on the head - While playing unfortunately the ball may hit your head. If the ball hits hardly, pain will be severe and may also endanger your brain. It may also hurt to your eyes and mouth. To avoid this you can use preventive mouth guards and eyewear.

o Fracture in the bones - If you fall down suddenly, it may also lead to fracture.

o Sprain in the ankle and knee - While playing if you stop suddenly or unexpectedly if you change the direction sprain occurs. A proper warm-up sitting if you do before the game is the best defense against this sort of injury.

o Strain on the muscles - If you stop frequently while playing or changing the direction suddenly will also cause strain on your muscles. Exercise you should do during warm-up sitting time. To avoid this injury proper footwear you should wear to guard against strain to your muscles.

o Injury on the knees - While catching the ball you may slip down and get hurt on your knees. This type of injury occurs when you stop abruptly or changing the direction suddenly. In this case you should take long rest with plenty of time to put your feet up.

Thus, all these injuries will be very severe, so you should know all the given injuries as well as how to prevent these types of injuries when they occur. To avoid these injuries proper training, exercises, use of protective gears, proper maintenance of soccer playing field, should be undertaken. These preventive measures can ensure you from injury-free of cost and you are able to play capably.

This will increase the enjoyment of the game for all those involved as well as your family. Play soccer game for a long period and prosperity.

About the Author: Mirsad Hasic is the owner of soccer training guide, where you will learn how to play soccer. You will also find find free soccer drills, soccer moves, soccer positions, and much more.

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As you are probably aware, dribbling a soccer ball is one of the first things taught to younger players learning how to play soccer.  Some of the best dribblers in the world come from Brazil.  Why is that?

Brazilians often relate their soccer to music, and have great rhythm when running and dribbling with the ball. The way to achieve this rhythm is to keep your upper body relaxed, allowing you to be flexible and also helps you have much better upper body movements for deceiving the opposition. If you maintain a stiff body posture, your movements will be stiff and awkward and not really deceptive at all. A really good tip to get a looser torso while teaching dribbling is to encourage your players to open their hands. By doing this, the upper torso becomes loose and flexible, which in turn will lead to better upper body movement for body fakes. For instance if you try dipping you shoulder one way and then going the other way, the "dip" will be far more effective with a loose upper tors, and therefore far more likely to deceive the defender.To emphasize the point, make a fist with both hands and clench your fists tight. Now try moving your upper body and you should notice how stiff and awkward it is.

Here are 2 "secrets" of dribbling that are seldom taught, so I encourage you to get your players to try them.

Secret #1 for dribbling is to keep your upper torso relaxed and keeping your hands open and floppy

When dribbling it is more effective to be "small". The reason for this is similar to the reason for the first tip. By keeping small and close to the ground with your legs slightly bent, you will have greater mobility and able to twist and turne to deceive the defenders more easily.

To Emphasize the point, stand straight up with rigid legs. Now try and deceive a defender by lunging one way and then going the other direction. Now try it with the legs bent and in a more relaxed fashion. See the difference?

Secret #2 for dribbling is to keep your knees slightly bent and keeping close to the ground.   Stand small NOT tall.

Here's a drill to help with this and you can incorporate both secrets into this drill

Have your players dribble the ball around and on your command the players must stop the ball "dead" using the knee.

Stopping the ball with the knee automatically achieves two things;

(1) gets the players to lower their bodies by bending their knees, getting their body low to the ground (coiled and ready to accelerate).

(2) forces the shoulder to dip and makes the upper torso turn.

This type of action is is important to help deceive your opponents when faking to go one way before exploding in the other direction

During the practice alternate knees, try double touches, right, left and continue dribbling, vary pace of the exercise.

Incorporate this little tip in your next warm, its' fun and productive.

Nigel Reed has been involved in soccer during the 60's, 70's and 80's as a player and has been coaching youth soccer in Australia since 2000.

Learn more on How to play soccer and take advantage of the Free Soccer Drills on Nigels website

Good luck with your coaching, unless you play my team of course and remember Practice Makes Permanent

© 2009 Coaching-Youth-Soccer-For-Success

Who's soccer style is more beautiful/attractive: Arsenal FC or Barcelona FC? And who's style is more effective?

For me, I see distinct differences in the styles of Arsenal FC and Barcelona FC. Both play beautiful/attractive football that is easy on the eye, but Arsenal rely on quick one-twos interchanges and short passes, Barcelona rely on more possession football and not really on quick interchanges or short passes. Both teams require their players to be very mobile and run into spaces, playing the ball to empty spaces than to the feet. But that's the only few similarities I see between the two sides, as well as the 4-3-3 formation both sides apply.

Arsenals game is a mixture of the English and technical game. Barcelona plays just posession. But possession is good if it fits the style of the league. La Liga is a very technical league while the Prem is the long ball slide tackling frenzy. Barcelona walk with the ball, because the others allow them too. But Arsenal cant do that because of the high pressure of the English game. But Barcelona is much better to watch and its more effective on the ball. Arsenal is trying to put something where it doesn't belong and it is hard for them to play the way they do, because it is forced.

Cannavaro!

Most youth soccer coaches are both parents first and as we all know supporting a family and balancing work and home life is becoming increasingly difficult. It would follow that most youth soccer coaches would benefit from a resource that would save them time and make coaching less of a hassle.

Putting together a plan for training a time right takes time and knowledge about soccer. The best coaches have plan for what they want to teach their team, and they have a vast supply of drills to draw from that helps them cover each topic.

The drills at soccer practice should be fun and informative for players. A good practice plan maintains a certain excitement level for players at all times, rather than boring them to the point of not showing up. These free soccer drills would be great for any team between the ages of 11 and 18. They feature numerous small-sided games and some basic skills drills that your team would absolutely love.

Each of these free soccer practice designs comes from a soccer-coaching manual I have put together called "Soccer Season Outsourced." The book is designed to do a few different things for any youth soccer team, but most specifically it is designed to make sure that players learn and improve their game, regardless of how much knowledge the coach brings to the table.

Another goal of the book is to level the playing field between inexperienced and experienced coaches by giving the novice coach various pointers and coaching points, plus all the practice and drill designs the team will need to improve. In essence, the drills in this book are designed to be the teacher, while the coach is there to basically guide the team along, as opposed to over coaching them. It is all about letting them play! Here are the free drills and soccer practice plans

Youth soccer leagues always need more volunteers to help coach. If you are a soccer parent who has not yet coached, I am confident that this soccer-coaching manual can help you become a great coach, even if you know nothing! If you are already a coach, this book will save you much time and heartache, giving you valuable drills that will turn your team into a dominate powerhouse.

Scott Carlson has put together numerous resources together for those coaching a youth soccer team. Please check out his Drills for Soccer Practice

No doubt, trying standard practice methods will help a person learn considerably; but for those who are not satisfied with being good enough there are a few free soccer drills that can help them become stars in their own right.

These free soccer drills allow a person to practice on their own which is another reason why using these drills instead of the standard ones is preferred by many budding soccer players.

Learn To Juggle The Ball

The first free soccer drill that you need to learn is the one known as juggling. However, even though you will not be required to juggle a ball during a real game of soccer, the skills that are learnt through juggling will help a person improve their soccer skills as a sort of side-effect.

What’s more, learning to juggle is fun as well as easy and it is easily performed on one‘s own.

The more you juggle a ball the better will your feel for it become and this will help you improve your dribbling and trapping skills. In addition, you will become more adept at maneuvering a soccer ball with your feet and your concentration levels too will improve considerably.

Another useful free soccer drill that you should practice is the one known as dribbling one on one. However, this free drill requires that a pair of players practice with each other and so is technically not a drill that can be practiced on one’s own.

During real games you will be challenged by the opposing team’s players and so you need greater skill and ability to outmaneuver your opponents and this is where this particular drill can help you achieve your objective.

Another useful free soccer drill is the one known as one-touch passing. This is another free soccer drill that requires a group of team players to practice the drill which is intended to help players improve their ball handling abilities and to also improve their agility.

The most important aspect to achieving success through performing soccer training drills is that you need to be much focused. This means that these training drills have to be tailored so as to help a player develop specific skills that will help them become more adept at playing in certain positions on the soccer field.

Among the more unique youth soccer drills there are those that involve games in which, unlike most youth soccer drills, the players need to actually keep scores.

Not Silly, But Fun

Good youth soccer drills should not be silly though at the same time they need to be fun while at the same time they should also be effective in imparting the necessary soccer skills. Use of practice games can prove to be effective in teaching youngsters the proper way of playing soccer.

Rather than use elimination games, a good drill should ensure that the game promotes active participation of the players because a participative game will ensure that the players have a better chance of learning twice what other drills are able to achieve.

The importance of making the players keep score during the drill is that it makes their game more realistic and this motivates the players to play harder as well as learn when action is thick and fast. This also ensures that players take greater interest in the drill and will be attracted to it and so will learn a lot more in a shorter span of time.

Some useful tips to ensure that your youth soccer drill works out right is learning to avoid lines and making sure those players remain active. In addition, each player should be given their own ball and the players must make at least two hundred touches in each practice session.

During the youth soccer drill, the coach needs to also ensure praising and hustling as well as improving the skills of his players and must also inculcate in their minds the need to play the game with a good and positive attitude.

The Good youth soccer drills will ensure that players are taught the right techniques and the drill must also simulate actual playing conditions. In fact, by ensuring that the players have to keep score the level of competitiveness will rise, pressure will mount and this will help teach players to perform well even under extreme pressure situations.

There are also a number of free soccer drills that can give life to the adage that practice makes a person perfect. Therefore it is necessary to pick only those soccer drills that will help in transforming an ordinary person into becoming a star player.