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 Teach
Principles, Not Aspects
By: ISC Coach Travis Clements
June 8th 2011
As
a coach and trainer, there are only so many hours in a day, and only so
many hours we have with our kids to teach them how to play
soccer. If we want to maximize our time and get the most out
of
the sessions we have, those sessions need to be age appropriate and
centered around universal concepts, which I will call “Principles” of
the game.
When we see the professional game on a Saturday, what
are we impressed with? As adults, we are naturally drawn to
the
tactics of the game, the formation used, attacking patterns, spacing
and spectacular feats of skill and athleticism. We also have
an
appreciation of team chemistry, the melding of complimentary players
and the unity of the squad. It’s a fallacy to project these
aspects of the professional game into youth soccer if we hope to
develop players into what we see and admire on the weekend.
If we
spend our time on these aspects of the game, our players will never get
there. Why? They will never develop the foundation
of skill
and understanding of the game needed to play it at a high level.
Unfortunately
the novice coach, as well as the coach who’s focused on immediate team
success, invariably chooses to spend their time addressing “aspects” of
the game. Aspects of the game are concepts or features of
play
that are not always true. The most common of these aspects is
positional play. Information taught to a player to help them
play
a certain position, like Goalkeeper or Wing, is not very useful if they
aren’t playing that position. Youth players need the
efficiency
of being trained principles that are *always* useful, saving
specialized topics for when the basics are mastered. Common
examples of narrow, inefficient training topics include the popular
“Through ball.” At youth levels it is more
accurately
described as a “kick into space” because the players lack the technique
and tactical understanding to make it otherwise. Some choose
to
spend all their time with set plays, restarts, and creating patterns of
play in the mold of typical “American” sports.
These
methods don’t advance the development of players in a positive or
efficient way. Some are worse than teaching nothing at
all!
Consider on defense, teaching players to kick the ball out of bounds to
be “safe.” It conditions players to not read the game, to not
trust their ability on the ball and confirms a lack of faith in them
from coaches, parents, and teammates alike! They are denied
the
chance to execute technical skills under pressure. Those
players
become mindless robots, predictable and unable to think quickly or
solve problems on the fly. They lack creativity, imagination
and
flair. How ironic that those traits so
valued at the
elite level are being systematically trained out of our players in
youth soccer!
It’s easy to stand at a distance and be
critical, point fingers and detail shortcomings. What is the
solution? If we are holding the kids back by spending so much
time teaching aspects of the game, what do we do to fix it?
 In
youth soccer the players must first be taught the founding principles
of play. This takes years. Shortcuts taken during
this
stage of training will haunt the players for the rest of their playing
career. Just like we teach addition and subtraction before
taking
on multiplication and division, (let alone fractions and variables!) we
need to lay a foundation of basics before expanding and
specializing. Technical skill is universal to the game and is
only acquired, refined and mastered through constant contact with the
ball. If we want our players to have ball skills and to be
comfortable and calm on the ball, we must teach possession and
dribbling before we teach passing. Good decision-making is a
universal skill that is only acquired, refined and mastered by players
when they are placed in situations that require it. They must
be
allowed to play without fear of failure, a master of their own
environment, where the competition of the game and their internal
motivation to win drives them to find ways to achieve
success. A
player who is expected to listen and obey during play is not learning
to make decisions or solve problems.
Teaching players to play in
positions is not necessarily bad. The correct teaching of
positional play needs to begin at its most basic elements, its
principles, with every player exposed to every position. It
begins with attacking and defending individually, and then expands to
include a teammate, then eventually teammates. It’s not about
Forwards, Midfielders and Defenders. Good positional play is
derived through players addressing questions posed by the game, not in
relation to a painted line or an area on the field. Players
need
to be trained in ways that help them recognize space, pressure and
support, regardless of their assigned position. Don’t teach
them
to play a position; teach them to play soccer!
 Time
spent standing in lines or practicing set plays from restarts is time
forever lost that could have been spent with a ball at the players feet
in small-sided games that inherently teach the kids how to
play.
Why practice crossing the ball, or corner kicks, when most of the
players lack the technical ability to have success finishing those
plays? That type of training is so stagnant, short-sighted
and
inefficient! Lost touches translate into undeveloped
technical
skill. The absence of playing while training denies players’
time
spent making decisions on and off the ball. Soccer is a
dynamic,
fluid game, so it stands to reason that it is best taught utilizing
activities and games that replicate the game environment, focused on
the topic for that session. A well-devised small-sided game
in
practice will inherently teach the players correct principles of how to
play in a full-sided game.
Short term successes don’t justify
the cost of lost opportunity. We must have the maturity to
set
aside our egos and adult competitiveness to benefit the kids.
The
topics needing attention by our youth are seemingly endless:
Dribbling, Passing, Moves, Movement, Receiving, Juggling, Support,
First Touch, Communication, Winning 50/50 balls, Striking the ball,
Heading, Balance and Agility…
Teaching soccer through
the principles of the game is a slower, deeper approach that requires
patience and a long-term perspective of player development.
The
principles are taught best by the game itself, with guidance from the
coach or trainer. It requires commitment and humility to have
the
patience to allow the game to grow from within the kids through their
own experience. It demands that coaches remain a student of
the
game as well as of the craft of coaching. Kids need to
develop in
a system that is firmly committed to the individual's progress, NOT
expected to learn to play a system and sacrifice themselves and their
development for the sake of the team.
Travis L. Clements
USSF D,Y
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