Youth Soccer Coaching - Positioning Your Players

By Andre Botelho (SoccerDrillsTips.com)

Youth soccer coaching can be designed in such a way as to place your players on the field in positions where they succeed. You will be anxious, as a coach, to constantly look for ways in which you can make your players better.

You will look for different ideas and free soccer training drills to make your training sessions more effective so that you can bring out the best in your players. The maximum effort needs to be made to ensure players who need improvement are helped to become better so that they can coordinate and blend with the team smoothly (this also applies when coaching high school soccer).

• Understanding Positions And The Responsibilities That Go With It

Each player should be able to appreciate the various player positions on the soccer field and understand what it entails. We often see games where there are some players who seem to cover for another player even though the other player is present, with the intention of being of assistance.

This is one of the worst things to happen and more so if these players have been coached to do so, because it essentially means that these less capable players are not being allowed to improve, making it a situation where the team also becomes weaker.

Imagine one player trying to perform on behalf of two – the result could only be mediocre playing. Not only do this player’s capabilities get suppressed, it puts pressure on him.

• Scrimmages

Your duty as a coach involves positioning your players according to their abilities in such a way as to make them do their job. One good way to do this is to include scrimmage sessions in your training where another player won’t help them.

Also, it can encourage them to make the appropriate move when they see the ball arriving, which will make them more confident and improve. If they don’t, they will realize the importance of doing their part in the game.

You will often find that many players who have the ability and know how to play soccer well, will be too nervous to step forward. Scrimmages can help them get over this, making them more self-assured when they take part in a match.

Make sure, during youth soccer coaching, that you run scrimmages with players of more or less equal capabilities. During soccer training, this will avoid the chance of the players feeling inadequate. Help these players to be successful at what they are supposed to do by placing them right. They will reward you by improving.

Andre Botelho
SoccerDrillsTips.com