Thinking ahead to problems that you can solve during the first week of the New Year is an important part of your preparation for the next phase of your season.
Read the advice below while you are preparing for your New Year’s Eve party! Why not invite your players for a get together while they are still on school holidays so they can have a kickaround with the ball while you talk to the parents about your plans for the coming season.
There are plenty of things to think about that you will have to face once the season kicks off again.
Here are some ideas for those tricky problems both on and off the field that you will face in the coming year:
Have the parents of your players been causing you grief in the first part of the season? Check out my advice in Dealing with critical parents. Criticism from parents is often a tool to defend their children and to defend themselves in the face of other parents with higher achieving kids – it’s not an attack on you as such but it can be hard to ignore.
Once you’ve dealt with the parents you need to think about whether your players are achieving their potential. Read my advice in Challenge your players to use their creativity. Giving players problems to solve during training is a great way to get them to do it in matches.
One of the problems you will have faced this season is how to deal with the players on the subs bench.If you have the same ones on the bench every game they will fall behind and the team will find it hard to be at their best when injuries or holidays mean players are absent. How to handle the subs will help you out.
The way you have been addressing your players could be key to how they respond to you. Having started working with a new team over past couple of weeks I have had to remind myself of some best practice that often gets lost when you’ve been coaching a team for a long time. A good time to reassess the way I talk to my players gives you the low down on the way ahead in the New Year.
in Coaching Classroom, Email newsletters
It is a very difficult time to be coaching our players around the world. So to help you I have created the Coaching Classroom where you can download lessons to give to your players online. Here I have focused on Compactness and Penetration MORE
in Blog, Team Management
Where I coach in the UK the youth game has been put on hold – we cannot train and we cannot play matches. How long that will last for is not entirely clear but it does mean that I am putting my coaching on hold. MORE
in Ball Control and Footwork, Email newsletters
I was out walking on the local golf course where I live this week and in the distance I saw a child running from what seemed miles away at top speed. As the child got closer I realised that it was someone dribbling a ball. Of course on the fairways it was like being at Wembley on a well cared for football pitch! It was great to see a child enjoying dribbling a ball, chipping over the bunkers and swerving around the patches of heather that catch out an unwary golfer. MORE
in Email newsletters, Tips and advice
At the United Soccer Coaches Digital Convention yesterday I was in the presentation by Dan Abrahams on performance of your team with well being in mind. He explored three environmental approaches and combines them to help you establish a healthy and safe coaching environment for players of all ages and levels. MORE
in Email newsletters, Psychology
I'm usually high up in the sky on my way to the United Soccer Coaches convention in America at this time of the year – last year I was at the convention in Baltimore and there was loads of coaching education on offer. Yet it is still exciting to be entering the United Soccer Coaches Digital Convention 2021 on my computer in the home office. MORE
in Ball Control and Footwork, Email newsletters
Turning with the ball has always been a skill that draws names from the great players through the ages – think of the Cruff turn or Zidane spin turn. It used to make me wonder how players like Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, Zinedine Zidane or Johan Cruyff could turn their opponents inside out, game after game – I now know it needs practice and from a young age. MORE
