It is a wonder I have survived as a soccer coach.

The very first soccer team I coached was a group of U6 boys known as The Raptors who went undefeated in their recreational league.   

My training in soccer consisted of a brief lecture given by the local high school coach and a few handouts explaining basic rules and restarts. We were given 4 practices before a season of 10 games began and were told it would be a good idea to hold a pizza party at the end of the season to pass out trophies.

I used the four practices to teach kickoffs, throw-ins, goal kicks and corner kicks. 

On the first game day, I put the players in a 1-3-3-2 formation for no other reason than that is what the high school coach recommended. We proceeded to thrash the opponents and a budding career as a soccer coach began. 

What a train wreck.






I likely under coached that season and over coached for many seasons after that trying to recapture the magic of that first undefeated season. I was one of those coaches shouting instructions to my players throughout the game all the while wishing I had a joystick to control their movements as I shook my head in frustration. I am honestly not sure if I believed I was helping these youngsters become better soccer players or if I was interested in winning games to validate that first undefeated season. I recognize now that I was exactly the type of coach I would in future years not allow my own children to play for.

I tried to minimize risks players would be exposed to in order to maximize our chances to win games.  As absurd as it is, there are lots and lots of parents that place great importance on the ability of their childs team to defeat another team of youngsters and I was one of them. It was the self-recognition that I needed to improve as a coach in order to continue winning that eventually saved me. The wake up call came via a team we had routinely handled easily beating us badly and there being nothing I could do in-game to stem the tide.

About the same time my son was trying out for club teams and much to my dismay I was passed over as coach for these teams. It was suggested by a few people that I take a coaching course. I investigated coaching courses, but eventually settled on serving as an assistant coach for my son's eventual club team. I observed enough to pique my interest in learning more about the game and how to coach it. I still wasn't sold on the idea of taking a coaching course, but I did begin to observe our local high school's practices. As a result of hanging around and taking notes of these practices I was eventually invited to attend their summer camp featuring Graham Ramsay as the instructor.

From the beginning, Graham fascinated me. First, he had an English accent and therefore I was sure he must know about soccer. And he had all these wondrous exercises, drills and games that he had the high school team play during his sessions. I took copious notes and diagramed each exercise, drill and game employed. I noted the points of emphasis Graham made thinking this was great stuff that would transform our team of rising 6th graders back into the powerhouse they once were.

It was a bit like giving an ordinary person a stick of dynamite, a fuse and a match believing they would figure out how to blow the stump from the ground from that point forward. I had been given some tools but did not fully appreciate or understand their use or potential. Thankfully, God has blessed me with an inquisitive and analytical mind. It took awhile but I began piecing technique and tactics together within these exercises and games and as I did so a much clearer understanding of the game and how to coach it began to come into focus.

I broke down and began taking coaching courses although I almost immediately became disenchanted with both the NSCAA and USSF "curriculums" as I discovered their offerings were not teaching courses but testing modules designed to ascertain what you already knew about coaching. My response was to obtain the manuals for the coaching courses and reverse engineer them to learn what I was supposed to teach and how I was supposed to teach it. Then I would go take the course / test, pass and move on to the next level.

Somewhere along the way my background in playing and coaching basketball began to have an impact on my soccer coaching. I recalled what a joy playing pick up games was due to being able to play freely and improvise as we saw fit. It was on the playground that I tried the unconventional and found my confidence as both a shooter and a defender. It was there that I learned what I could and could not do on the court. The playground was where I learned to make decisions in the game of basketball.  Melding these playground skills with a framework of systems in organized basketball eventually brought out  some very good play in me individually and as a contributor to a team.

At this point I began turning the corner as a soccer coach for in recognizing over-emphasis on winning was a detriment to developing technically and tactically proficient players I also realized the key to winning was placing the on-the-field decision-making process in the hands of the players playing the game. You see, if players are not allowed to make mistakes and take chances when they are exploring the game - if they are constantly being told what to do, when to do it and how to do it - how will they ever develop the soccer instincts they will need to make the split-second decisions that are the heart and soul of the game?

Pursuing wins by programming young players to "Clear it!..... Kick it out!..... Pass it..... Shoot it!" can generate short term results but at the cost of wins in the future.  Think of it in this way, if you want a group of U8's to win the big game tomorrow, you will address them differently than you would were they U18's, correct?  However, shouldn't the U8 game be preparation for the future U18 game? Isn't the U8 game a development tool?

"Kick it out!"  is screamed from the sideline as the opponents approach the goal. Dutifully the young player kicks the ball out. Youth players are trusting of their parents and coaches. They generally do as told, especially when the adults tone of voice conveys it is imperative to do so. I suggest coaches and parents should trust young players to solve the problems they encounter on the field of play. What's the worst that could happen, allow a goal and maybe lose the game?

A lot of parents and coaches are living through their children when it comes to youth sports. They dread the very thought of their child losing to the neighbor's team or the prospect of losing to their own childhood rival who is now coach of the rival team. It is as if a child winning a U10 soccer match will somehow validate their parenting skills?

If allowed to solve the problem of opponents penetrating near the goal with the ball on their own, there is a fairly good chance they will do so successfully. If they fail to do so, they will have learned a lesson - the solution they chose did not work this time, so they either have to execute better or find a different solution next time. Either way, the player has just added knowledge to their game, what we call game intelligence or Soccer IQ, that they will use to their benefit when next they face a similar situation. We should want them to find their own solutons in the game on the soccer pitch.

In de-emphasizing winning I am not suggesting we should remove young players from competitive environments. If you were to set up two goals and roll a ball out for a group of kids at a park, a soccer game would likely ensue. Those kids would play to win. We are naturally competitive. The de-emphasis of winning is for the coaches and parents sake, not the childrens. There will still be a winner and a loser barring a draw. What is being suggested is to allow the children to make the decisions that will decide the outcome, It is their game afterall. They are the ones playing.

Adult emphasis on winning youth soccer matches usually results in physically advanced players being placed in certain strategic positions. A big strong player placed in the back to "use his leg" to play the ball forward to the speedy kid up front. The physically advanced kids rely on their athleticism instead of developing soccer skills while everyone else is denied opportunities to develop the soccer skills they need to compete against the physically advanced players. And make no mistake that it is adult emphasis on winning - the kids are not making out lineups, deciding starting assignments or playing time, are they? Maybe they shoud be though.

If a coach is not obsessed with winning they will be more likely to expose young players to a variety of roles and positions. Playing a single position does little to develop an overall understanding of the game. Nor does it prepare players to adapt to new positions when they change teams or advance to higher levels of play. Taking short cuts in player development might result in wins when the players are U10 but what becomes of them when they are high school players?

The real secret to coaching soccer, and something both the NSCAA and USSF courses would do well to emphasize, is to provide an environment that allows players to bring their own personalities to the game.  We need to establish a learning and playing environment that encourages youngsters to be creative and expressive in their on field decision-making.  We should provide technical skills and a tactical framework, then allow players to investigate, explore and find solutions on their own to the problems the game presents to them. Unless, or until, this happens I fear the US will continue producing rather robotic clones of players with pre-scripted decision making processes largely devoid of the capcity for the individual brilliance and creativity we so admire in foriegn players.

I don't have all the answers on this subject. I do believe it should begin with educating parents and youth coaches on the long term detriment of emphasizing winning at the sacrifice of overall development.  To convince adults to give up ownership of their children's game for the benefit of their children seems so simple and logically sound, yet we know in practice this is not so. It has been a long evolutional process for me as a soccer coach. I became a student of the game. I have a long list of coaching diplomas and licenses, an expansive library of books and videos and still regularly attend coaching clinics and symposiums in addition to practicing my trade. I have become a better coach over the years and believe I am producing better players in both the short and long term as a result, but there is still so much to learn.