Archive for May, 2010

Youth Soccer Drills: Learn To Create Goal Scoring Opportunities

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Youth soccer drills

It is almost certain that young players enjoy playing soccer the most when they are able to score maximum goals. In designing the practice schedule, include such youth soccer drills that have many opportunities for them to score goals.

Use small sided games, full field scrimmages, and shooting drills to create opportunities for them. It’s better to keep diverging the process in kids soccer drills, when performing small sided games and full field scrimmages.

You can also include games that don’t involve a goalkeeper or restrict the movement of the goalkeeper within restraining lines. The idea of adding more goals or broadening those that are already being used also works well when the intent is to add to the number of goals scored.

With time, as players become competent in shooting techniques and its tactical knowledge, the possibility of scoring more goals arises. Just like passing skills, shooting techniques should be introduced to players at the beginner stage. These can be then emphasized more strongly at the later stages of a player’s development.

Youth Soccer Drills

In relation to youth soccer practice, performing drills is the most efficient method of improve player’s shooting skills. With a view to score goals efficiently, players should perform shooting drills and develop their shooting skills. However, make sure that your player’s develop their shooting skills gradually.

Different forms of youth soccer drills can be designed with a view to perk up the shooting skills of players by including the following strings in them;

1. Stationery player shooting a static ball.

2. Stationery ball being shot by a moving player.

3. Moving ball being shot by a stationery player.

4. A moving player being shot by a moving player.

In youth soccer coaching, players should be taught how to strike the ball properly while shooting. Majority of the players take the shots using the inside of their feet. This increases the shooting abilities.

In situations when a lot more power is required, the players should be trained to use the instep of their foot to strike the ball. Their toes should point downwards and the ankles must be locked.

How the non-kicking foot is placed determines the elevation of the shoot. Instruct the players to place their non-kicking foot slightly away from the ball. This will keep the shot to the ground. Try to keep the players focused on striking the ball. You can remove all the distracting equipment such as players and balls so that they focus better.

As shooting techniques improve, keep on adding to the level of difficulty in the practice games. Take for example, when their shooting improves, make them work with balls at different speeds and levels.

Now get out there and include a lot of shooting exercises in your youth soccer drills for the practice sessions.

Subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community and you’ll find tons of information and tips on soccer skills, drills, and techniques available by way of newsletters, articles, and videos updated with latest and the most relevant information.

 

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 practice sessions fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Soccer Training.

 

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Youth Soccer Drills:Secrets Revealed

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Youth soccer drills

Let me tell you that in order to prepare and support your kid’s development, it’s essential that you carefully plan their practice schedule. Youth soccer drills designed to augment player’s skills must be performed if the players have to reach a given level of success.

When it comes to youth soccer coaching, the players must first be taught the basics by way of drills in training. Have your players do the stretches and warm-up sessions before they start with the practice sessions. Warm-up and stretching activities enable the players to stretch their muscles and prepare them for practice.

Every practice session should necessarily have an explicit objective. Therefore, classify just one or two drills and work upon those drills only. Design your training program in such a way that every week you cover a different set of drills. The day you start playing the practice games, perform those drills that can highlight the skills that are lacking in your players.

A common reason why most teams end up winning some matches towards finishing time is the fact that the other team wears out. As a result, it’s necessary that a soccer ball is used maximum in carrying out the drills meant for strength training.

Youth Soccer Drills

You can divide your youth soccer practice session into two groups. Cardiovascular resistance and muscular strength can be two categories that result in developing alertness, power, co-ordination, pace, and quickness in the players.

In relation to youth soccer drills, “running in formation” is one that is very interesting and efficient. This uses the entire team. It is a great way to build teamwork. The players learn the value of your advice. Also, it is very impressive to see your team running around the filed in perfect formation, prior to the game.

“Following the leader” is another wonderful warm-up drill. This leads to the players learning the ability to dribble the ball in cohesion. It also uses the entire team where each player has a ball.

Having full control over the ball, also known as “touch on the ball” is very important in soccer. Use the “roll over” drill to help the kids learn this skill. This drill is very enjoyable. The players may feel a little intimidated in the beginning because they can’t keep the ball straight in a line. But this will improve with time and practice.

This drill is very useful in helping the players learn balance, agility, and a touch on the ball.

Your kids soccer drills should cover just about everything that a soccer player must learn. “Karaoke” drill is the best for this sort of an exercise. Using this drill, the kids run, handle the ball, and keep their balance along with building cardiac endurance.

Make no mistake about it. Whenever there is a talk about youth soccer drills, this drill is best known to develop all the skills in the players.

Our youth soccer coaching community has tons of information in the form of articles, videos, newsletters and so on and you can access all this by subscribing to it.

 

 

Andre Botelho is a recognized expert in youth soccer coaching. He influences well over 35,000 youth coaches each year with his unique coaching philosophy, and makes it really easy to explode your players’ skills and make training more fun in record time. To download your free youth soccer coaching guide visit: Youth soccer drills.

 

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Roy Hodgson’s Rise To The Top

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Roy Hodgson has confounded the odds by guiding Fulham to the 2010 Europa League final. Italian giants Juventus and holders Shaktar Donetsk were just two of the teams Fulham beat during a memorable campaign.

 

As a player, Hodgson was on the books at Crystal Palace but never made a first team appearance. It was when he moved into management that Hodgson started to make name for himself. The early part of his career was in Sweden with Halmstads, Orebro and Malmo where he won the Swedish league against the odds with Halmstads in 1976 and 1979.

 

From there, Hodgson moved to Switzerland with Neuchatel Xamax before taking over the Swiss national team who he guided to the 1994 World Cup Finals and the 1996 Euro Finals. For the next 2 season, Hodgson was the manager of the Italian giants Internazionale. Inter reached the UEFA Cup Final in 1997 which was Hodgson’s final season as he headed to England with Blackburn Rovers. The move didn’t work out and he was sacked after 18 months.

 

For the next few years, Hodgson held a number of managerial positions but never really settled anywhere for long and in 2005, he took over the Finnish national team and took them tantalisingly close to the Euro 2008 finals.

 

At the end of 2007, Fulham offer Hodgson the managers job as at the time, they were struggling in the Premier League and needed a change of direction. Hodgson worked his magic as Fulham stayed up and the following season qualified for the UEFA Europa League by finishing 7th.

 

Fulham’s first season in Europe has been nothing short of spectacular. They have not had an easy route playing the holders, Juventus and the German champions on the way. Now, Atheltico Madrid stand in their way of glory in the final in Hamburg.

 

But what next for Roy Hodgson?  There is no doubt that his influence on Fulham will not have gone unnoticed. The England job has been mentioned but at present, Fabio Capello is doing an excellent job and will be in charge for some time. Perhaps it is a bit more realistic to think that Hodgson could well take over the English national team after the Euro 2012 finals.

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Coaching High School Soccer: Winning Tactics

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Coaching high school soccer

When it comes to coaching high school soccer, of all the things that influence a player’s performance on field is the conduct and attitude of the coach. A coach should prepare a course that stresses the development of a positive winning attitude with a view to have a mentally tough team.

In a player’s career, the coach is an important and a prominent authority figure. The body language, experiences, and attitude of the coach are key attributes that can shape, reinforce, or damage the player’s sense of worth and confidence.

In coaching youth soccer, mental toughness is about meeting challenges with positive self control. For this reason, in practice as well as in competition, the starting point should be the coach.

The coach can observe that closely controlled post-match schedule helps him or her in not getting either too low or too high. A successful coach will use ideas, stories, and metaphors, videos, and so on to shape the collective mindset of the team and prepare them to be mentally tough in performance.

Coaching Youth Soccer

In football coaching, the coach who wants a mentally tough team must demonstrate a controlled way to deal with emotional setbacks despite personal feelings.

Only when the coach shows a firm belief in the team’s capability to accomplish in spite of the problems, the team will have an outline for developing the same mind-set and feel motivated.

Dealing with mistakes and failure is another area in coaching high school soccer, for which the coach is solely responsible. How coaches react to failure decides the player’s motivation and his desire to towards correcting the mistakes. A coach has got only two choices.

To give a response to the players in order to improve them, their failures can be used as an opportunity to correct them. Persuade them to recommit themselves to the effort with renewed motivation.

Second, use failure as evidence of the player’s inadequacy and proof that they cannot meet expectations. This poignant overreaction will de-motivate the players.

One way that players become mentally tough is by accepting responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and actions and rejecting all possible excuses. While soccer coaching, the coaches can help the players by questioning and listening them rather than always telling the players of their mistakes. By discussing about their better performance which they could’ve delivered, the players can be encouraged.

This exercise is known as self-reference. Self reference can be encouraged in the players by the coach to motivate them to perform better. The coach can discuss the situation by asking the players their reaction rather than giving them a definition of the situation. “How do you feel you played?” or “Why do you feel you behaved that way?” can be taken as references.

It is important for the players to think deeply and thoroughly and then account for their reactions which are very critical part of the learning process.

Hence, apply these methods in coaching high school soccer.

Hence, you must subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community as it information in the form of videos, relevant articles and newsletters in abundance which will help you in being a better coach.

 

 

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 coaching sessions fun in less than 29 days! Download your free pdf guide at: Kids Soccer Drills.

 

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Who Will Qualify From Group G For Euro 2012?

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Every team will be desperate to qualify for the UEFA Euro 2012 Championships. In total there are nine groups. The best runner-up will join the nine group winners in the tournament. Following that the other eight runner-up will be drawn into two-legged playoffs. 

One of the main groups of interest in Group G which contains England, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Wales and Montenegro. As the seeded team, England will be favourites to finish top of the group. But having said that, they did miss qualification for the last tournament. 

The main competition will come from Switzerland and Bulgaria. Switzerland have qualified for three of the last four European Championships but not once have they made it past the opening round. They actually co-hosted the last tournament with Austria. They are a solid team without being anything special.  

Bulgaria have only qualified for the tournament twice, the last of which was in 2004. They have never progressed past the group stage. They used to be a regular at the World Cup attending every one from 1962 to 1974 and then in 1986 and 1994 where it finished fourth. That last time is was back was 1988. 

Its big name players are Stiliyan Petrov who plays for Aston Villa and Dimitar Berbatov who plays for Manchester United.  

Wales only previous experience with this tournament was in 1976 and that was when it using a completely different format. The eight group winners of which Wales was one were drawn into two-legged playoffs and those winners went through to the finals which were in Yugoslavia. They were the team that beat Wales in the playoffs. This was the last time Wales was in a major international tournament and it’s hard to see that change now. 

Montenegro is only three years old. It used to be part of Yugoslavia and then Serbia and Montenegro. They will struggle to do well in the Euro 2012 Group G.

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