Practice Time Breakdown

Soccer season is quickly approaching, and it is time for youth soccer coaches to sit down and work out their practice plans. For the inexperienced or unknowledgeable coach, this task can be very difficult.

Training a team correctly involves practice designs that are informative and engaging for your players. If they are not entertained, they are not going to pay attention and this will obviously make it difficult for them to learn and improve. However, the drills must involve a skill element in order for players to improve their game, which can be repetitious and boring. The objective is finding the right mix for your team, which is dependant on the age group, competitiveness and other important factors.

Take the example of Coach Wing Init. He never plans practice beforehand, and instead spends the entire practice scrimmaging. While practice may be fun for the players, this is not going to get the players a high number of quality touches on the ball, and the uninterested players will surely not be heaviliy involved. These type of practice are not educational enough for players to learn and progress their game.

Compare this to Coach Bo Ring, who spends 95% of practice time doing boring stationary skills drills that do not inspire creativity, and do not give players a chance to learn by doing. Avoid the pitfalls of each and structure your soccer practices in a way that mixes both fun and work.

Educational skills drills, followed by high energy small sided game element drills give players a chance to work on what they have learned. If you focus players attention on improving during the game element what you have previously worked on in the skills drills, pretty soon they will do it without even thinking. Quality soccer practices are designed with the intention of evolving the play of your players, both individually and collectively.