In the past, I used to drive a lot on business. I often had to make several trips where I would get up at 3 or 4 am. Same night Needless to say it was hard trying to stay awake so I would channel surf and listen to talk radio, the louder it was the easier it was to stay awake listening to it. There used to be a woman named Dr. Laura who would show up from time to time, who had a somewhat famous book published called “Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Ruin Their Lives”. While the title of the book seems pretty harsh, it was right on target, detailing 10 very common but absolutely preventable (not common sense) things that women used to do to destroy their own lives. She often thought there should be a book called “Ten Dumb Things Youth Soccer Coaches Do to Mess Up Their Teams.”
Common threads of failed equipment
Unfortunately, there are a number of things that are often common threads in underperforming youth soccer teams. After coaching for 15 years in 6 different leagues and founding/managing several youth soccer teams, I have seen a lot of bad youth soccer teams. I even took two years off from coaching to study the best and worst youth soccer programs not just in my immediate area but across the country. While there’s certainly more than one way to skin a cat, there seemed to be a lot of common ground across teams that were consistent bottom dwellers. These are teams that were consistently bottom of the table year after year and had a real problem retaining players. It was painful to watch some of these teams practice and play, I really felt for the poor kids who had to play for some of these coaches, unfortunately it was obvious many of the kids were playing what would be their last season of youth soccer. In many cases, these teams had a lot of talent, more than I had imagined, but they were being coached so badly that they weren’t lucky enough to have much individual success and little to no team success. While some of the coaches obviously meant well but were at a loss, there were also plenty of coaches who seemed very confident in their abilities and approach, despite their overwhelmingly poor results. While I could write volumes on why these teams fared so poorly, I’ll try to give you my version of the top 10.
The top ten things youth coaches do to ruin their teams
10) Playing too much.
Some of these underperforming teams were struggling through the middle of practice and didn’t do a single rep of fit-and-free or bird-dog.
9) Too much conditioning.
Most of these teams spent 25% to 40% of their practice time doing non-football conditioning drills. These youth soccer teams would have been great if they had been competing in a cross country meet or pushup contest, but when it came to playing soccer, they got crushed every week.
8) poor defensive schemes-
These teams used defensive schemes that were designed to stop fouls by college football and college or professional football players, not plays or offenses by youth football and youth football players. Let’s not even start with those who have minimum rules of the game and how their defenses rarely adapt to the play of these defensive players in situations where they can execute and provide value to the team on every play.
7) Blame the kids.
The coaches blamed the children for the lack of “effort” or lack of talent for the lack of success of the teams. Many of these trainers were “greener grass” types. Coaches who think they had to have top talent or big size to compete. Any lack of success was chalked up to being a ‘Jimmies and Joes’ situation in which his team came out “jocky”. Rarely have any of these coaches taken personal responsibility for the team’s lack of success, it’s always the kids, the referees, the weather. , breaks, sick player, the other team, cheating, the dog ate the homework blah blah blah
6) Lack of training effort.
While the typical youth soccer coach spends 110-160 hours per season on practice, travel, and playing time alone, many don’t spend a single hour researching how to become a better youth soccer coach. Less than 15% of youth coaches ever purchase training materials. When these underperforming coaches were asked about training materials, most had no idea these materials existed and did not possess any. The other kind of coaches laughed as if they knew everything they needed to know and didn’t bother owning any either, despite their teams’ constant lack of success.
5) Silly Playbook.
These coaches’ playbooks often looked like the best 25 plays (or more) the coach had seen on TV on Saturdays and Sundays. There was no series basis for these infractions, most plays defending themselves and often combining with a variety of formations. Other offenses included those that had no chance of success unless his team had a monopoly on the best talent in their respective league. These offenses did not fit the talent or age group of these respective teams. The playbooks often exceeded 40-50 plays, none of which were perfectly executed.
4) Non-existent blocking schemes
Non-existent or poorly trained blocking schemes. “Ban the guy in front of you” seemed like the basic approach, but of course that’s not a blocking scheme or rule. None of these teams would pull, down block, double team, trap, or even cross block. Blocking was obviously not a priority and was not usually assigned to the head coach.
3) Do not teach using progressions.
Many of these coaches had played soccer, but had no idea how to transfer their knowledge to their players. In the end, it doesn’t matter what the coaches know, what the players know matters. These coaches had no idea how to teach in a progression and were often trying to teach techniques that the average youth soccer player would have very little chance of consistently executing well, even if taught correctly.
2) Teaching age-inappropriate techniques.
Many youth soccer coaches have no idea what the average kids in certain age groups can and cannot do. Many coaches are frustrated that the average youth player can’t do what the coach did in high school at 18 with 9 years of playing experience under his belt, not to mention body maturity and practice schedule throughout the year. year that most high school students do now. Others (very few) underestimate what can be done, yes, 8-10 year olds can pull, catch, throw short passes on the run and play zone defense, but no, they cannot throw 20 yards or block 9 technical defensive ends. .
1) Poorly “Designed” Practices/Poor Priorities.
Too standing still and at a pace that makes a snail look like an Indy 500 because on race day. No wonder the kids are bored and it seems like they haven’t practiced much, they wasted most of the practice with long gaps between exercises, reps, everything. Poorly planned and poorly executed practices that seem to give priority to wasting time. Emphasize and spend valuable time on nebulous non-critical factors instead of concentrating on refining the critical success factors of youth soccer team and player development. Instead of perfecting technique, making players responsible for perfecting technique, perfecting schemes, and developing players, time is spent elsewhere or needlessly wasted.
Please don’t be offended if you are doing one of these things. The reason I know this list so well is that not only did I watch underperforming teams do all of these things, but I was at fault for doing it myself until I saw the light of day 8 seasons ago.