Soccer Skills:

Does Your Soccer Team Have fun...and Win?

Learn to develop players and dominate teams

Tactical

Soccer Tactics are the strategy behind the game. It is “X’s and O’s” of how you will implement offense and defense. All tactical articles will be identified with the green panel of the soccer ball (shown left). While soccer tactics can be explored on a general level, it is best if we examine what is appropriate on each age level as players become more capable as they become more aware as people and as players.

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Fitness

Fitness and nutrition becomes the top of the pyramid where performance can be impacted by training and is only appropriate at older ages where mastery of ball and tactics, as well as a developed body make sense. While we can all eat healthier and become fitter as adults, it’s important and fundamental to understand that fitness – as a concept – isn’t age appropriate until you reach eleven.

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Technical

This is really the core of our work as youth coaches. How do we help develop the necessary technical skills within our players? What are the best drills and where should we start? Dribbling, trapping, heading…it’s all so overwhelming.

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Psychological

If we strive to understand our players and their capabilities, we are fundamentally in a better position to meet their needs and connect with them as people, so we can motivate and inspire them. One of the biggest mistakes that we make is that we approach the game through our eyes – not our players’ eyes. As a result, we treat kids as “little” adults instead of, well, kids.

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Team Management

Before you even meet your players or step onto the field, you are managing the team. This area encompasses all aspects of the game because you are the director. Not only does this include the four on-field aspects of the game, but also all the things that need to happen off the field: coaching philosophy, team meetings, paperwork, interfacing with parents, quickly disseminating information, injuries, tryouts, etc.

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Coaching Sphere

We developed the CoachingSphere as a framework to help you visualize your role as coach and to cultivate the best development of players and teams. The five areas are: team management, player psychology, technical skills & drills, soccer tactics and fitness & nutrition. Utilizing this framework enables us to easily break down each of the five building block components and examine them individually and in context for the team and the player for maximum player development.

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Who do you coach

Discover Age Appropriate Soccer Information for your Team

Soccer Skills

Find Fun Soccer Drills that Will Challenge your Players

Free Soccer Drills
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Soccer Skill:
Dribbling

Heads-Up Follow the Leader

Heads-up Follow the leader is an excellent dribbling drill to help build player confidence when dribbling. Many young players are so afraid of losing the ball that they don't ever pick their head up to see the field. This exercise demands close dribbling and picking the head up to be successful. It can be used as a building activity for a dribbling themed practice or as a warm-up

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Soccer Skill:
Passing

Shooting Gallery

Passing and shooting are inherently similar; a shot is simply a pass to the goal. The Shooting Gallery begins players thinking about passing and shooting at a target. The competitive nature of the game makes it a game kids love.

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Soccer Skill:
Agility

Shipwrecked!

Shipwrecked! is a fun, lightly competitive warm-up and agility activity for your aspiring soccer players. They'll have a competitive flair while learning to be heads-up with quick thinking.

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Soccer Coaching Blog
mindset-article

The Mindset List: How can it help your team?

Every year since August 1998, two college professors from Beloit College in Wisconsin publish the College Mindset List. The list contains references to the world that are – and never were – part of this incoming college class’ mindset. The goal? To help professors re-adjust their minds to the perspective of the incoming students. Professors [...]

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Puma Set to Launch Project Pink Initiative

At Soccer Classroom, we believe in giving back to the community – hence, why we created a coaching site for volunteer parents! We were delighted to read about this initiative from Puma to support breast cancer research through the launch of their Project Pink Initiative. I hope Puma puts out nice product that people can [...]

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Parents: Gifts from God or the Soccer Devil?

When I was a young coach straight out of college, I made a critical first mistake: I underestimated the importance of my soccer parents. Now, I was lucky. The highly competitive team I inherited, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, already had a strong soccer culture and everyone knew their roles. But, if I hadn’t walked [...]

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Smart Sounding Soccer Sayings for Parents

At Soccer Classroom, we believe in the philosophy: Players, play Coaches, coach Referees, ref Parents, cheer! Since we certainly want our parents to be cheering (and not coaching) from the sidelines, here are some of our best soccer phrases to help you sound like you hold a Professional “A” Fans badge (no such thing exists…but [...]

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World Cup Perspective: US Coaching Thoughts

With Spain’s Extra time goal, the World Cup has concluded and Spain etched their name in history. It was a worthy World Cup final – albeit a bit of a tough one out on the pitch. As a wrap-up, the NSCAA, on its blog today, interviewed three former US National Team Coaches (Bob Gansler, Steve [...]

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