EFFECTIVELY COACHING SOCCER DRILLS

Be prepared before the practice starts. Have all the equipment you need ready and set up your practice grids before the team arrives.

1. Stand in a position where all players can hear you and explain the objective of the drill and key coaching points very briefly.
2. Have volunteers demonstrate the drill and make corrections until they get it right. Demonstrate yourself only if necessary.
3. Ask players for anything they might not have understood and clarify.
4. Stand outside of the drill area, not in the middle.
5. Observe players and see if they can solve any issues by themselves.
6. If you need to correct, stop the drill, very briefly explain/demonstrate what went wrong and how to correct it.
7. Praise players for correcting it.
8. Observe again.
9. If the group is successful and there is time left, increase the complexity to keep players challenged. For example, ask to execute drill at a higher speed or to a higher level of perfection, or both.
10. For a 15-20 minute drill, the coach must not take more than 3 minutes with explanations and demonstrations. A lot of coaches take the large part of drill time and don't give the players a chance.
11. The coach shouldn't be sweating and be tired, the players must be.

GOOD SOCCER DRILL DESIGN

Soccer drills must fit the theme of your entire practice session and integrate from beginning to end of practice.

1. Start with setting an objective for your soccer practice session
2. Pick themes for the drills to fit the objective. For example, if your theme is passing, incorporate passing drills into the warm-up, technical, fitness, tactical and scrimmage parts of your session.
3. Sequence the drills so that they connect as in point (2) above.
4. Plan for equipment needed to run the soccer drill, such as cones and number of balls required. (Tip: the ideal mix for cones is 11 of colour A, 8 of colour B and six of colour C)
5. Plan for breaking players into small groups based on positions and how they will interact on the field. Example is right defender, right midfielder and right forward, or defenders as a group, etc.
6. Visualize the drill with your players in it.
7. Have the soccer drill written on a piece of paper with notes for coaching points, progression, groupings of players.