Core Elements Every Soccer Coach Needs To Consider When Planning A Soccer Training Session

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Below Are The Core Elements Every Soccer Coach Needs To Consider When Planning A Soccer Training Session Along With Explanations and Details

Session Fundamentals – Building Blocks

• Responsiveness and Adaptability
• Coaching Decisions and Prior Planning

TOPIC

• Needs to be scalable depending on the age group and skill level

• Factor in incremental difficulty increases to keep players challenged and engaged

• Appropriate and in keeping with development goals

STRUCTURE

Pick your topic and stay with it from beginning to end of the session.

Follow a structure that suits your coaching style.

A basic structure would be:

1. Warm up

2. Technique under no pressure

3. Technique under low pressure

4. Technique under real pressure

5. Conditioned Small Sided Game

CONSIDERATIONS

• Size of area available

• Number of players available

• Time available for session

• Equipment available

SESSION PLAN TYPE

PROACTIVE:

• Planning with a forward focused purpose

• Focusing on creating your own team’s style of play

• Implementation of a season plan

• Following the structure of a long term development plan

• Following the structure of a Short Term Development plan

• Training in preparation for the next game

REACTIVE:

• Planning based on what you have seen

• Last game result- highlighting a potential imbalance or weakness. (A series of late goals conceded may highlight a need to focus on conditioning for example)

• Analysis of your training session highlights a potential problem/correction

• Training on a particular topic may take longer to digest for players, adjustment of your LTDP to make sure the topic is learned may be necessary.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THE SESSION

ENGAGEMENT

• Age appropriate coaching points (a 10 year old is different emotionally, physically and cognitively to a 16 year old)

• Flexibility as a coach to see and adapt to what you see on the field:
– Increasing/decreasing the difficulty level according to the output from players

• Delivery of Coaching Points:
– Do you need to stop the whole session or can you pull one player aside to deliver a point and keep the session flowing?

• Allow for group discussion “why should X happen?” is far more thought provoking than “you must do this”.
It’s an ideal way to check for learning too.

• Adjusting the difficulty on an individual level, identifying players that need to be pushed and partnering them with a player to push them or adjusting the challenge to keep players engaged, similarly identifying players who need some extra help and reacting accordingly.

• Delivery of corrective points must be tailored to the individual- “The Sandwich Technique”.

Preparation for the things you can’t always control: Variables

NUMBER OF SOCCER PLAYERS

• 12 is the magic number

• Can your session work with fewer players if people don’t show up to practice?

• If you’re doing pair work are you able to deal with an odd number of players?

ALTERNATIVE SESSION PLAN
Important on a number of levels

• If you plan a session for 12 players and it won’t work properly with any more/less players, do you have a similar alternative to run?

• The session planned may not work as well in practice as it did in theory, are you able to make scalable adjustments to the session or do you have an alternative to use to keep the players active and engaged?

• To further cement the learning objectives you may wish to run an alternative session with similar learning outcomes to test player’s retention of information and problem solving skills, there’s 100’s of different ways to arrive at the same destination!

EQUIPMENT

• How much equipment does your session need?

• Who is responsible for bringing the equipment to sessions?

• Coach/Assistant Coach brings goals, players bring balls/water.

• Do you need spares?

• Can your session still work without equipment?

• Do you have an alternative session that would require less equipment?

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Video and Article By:
Coach Mark Higginbotham
Co-Owner of Coaches Training Room