So You Want To Be A Youth Soccer Coach

So, you think you have what it takes to become a youth soccer coach. Well in this article, you can determine if you are correct or not. Not just anyone can become a youth soccer coach, it takes someone with knowledge of the game, someone who is fair, someone who is honest, someone who works hard, and someone who associates well with kids. If this sounds like you, you may be just the person for the job. Dedication is also necessary to becoming a youth soccer coach and it takes a lot of dedication on your part to ensure your players are ready for the great game of soccer.

While there are many different aspects of soccer such as positions, skills, scrimmages, drills, and practices, one of the first areas, which you must learn as a new coach, are the basic rules of soccer. First, learn the layout of the field. The halfway line and the center circle divides each side and this is where kick-off takes place, at the top of each quarter or half and after a goal has been scored. Each side consists of a goal, goal box, goal line, penalty box, two corner arcs, sidelines, and a penalty box arc.

As a youth soccer coach, you must learn and teach your young players the rules as they apply to them and the game of soccer. We already covered what a kick-off is, however, you should let your players know that once the center kicks the ball, he or she may not touch the ball again until another player has. Next up is the throw-in, this occurs when the ball has passed over the sideline. The non-offending team has the chance to throw the ball in to his or hers team members. The feet must always be in place, never moving, and the ball must be thrown with both hands, over the head.

A corner or goal kick occurs when the ball has crossed the endline. The goal kick is warranted when the opposing team has kicked the ball across the endline without a score. If the team with the ball, kicks it over their own endline, the opposing teams gets what is called a corner kick. This takes place in the corner of a field and depending on the age of the players, the team must stay back so many feet from the point of the kick.

A penalty kick occurs when an opposing player performs a foul within their penalty box. An example of this foul may be using hands or tripping a player. The opposing team gets the opportunity to kick from the penalty line, with only the goalkeeper in the area.

A free kick takes place when the opposing team has fouled a member outside of their penalty box. The free kick will take place from the point in which the foul occurred.

These are just a few of the many rules when it comes to youth soccer, it is important that as a coach you review and learn all rules in order to prepare your team for a game. Becoming a youth soccer coach is a coveted position that will provide you with many rewarding opportunities as you shape the lives of your team.

You can enjoy more of Martin Myers articles at Home and Family and also My Precious Family.

3 Effective Soccer Passing Drills

Soccer passing drills are an important component of a soccer training session. There are various games and techniques that can effectively help improve the passing skills of your players.

Teaching The Fundamental Of Passing

In order to teach the players the basic passing, you can start with splitting the team into pairs. Each pair must have a ball. Now, you have to evaluate their passing skills by having them pass and trap the ball. After your evaluation of their skills, you can go for the touch control passing lessons.

Circle Games

Most of the circle games are effective enough to optimize the passing skills of the soccer players. For example, one simple way is to place two players in the middle of the circle and both of them have to intercept passes attempted by the players on the outside. When one of the players inside the circle successfully intercepts a pass made by a player on the outside, that outside-standing player will replace his position with the one in the middle who intercepted his pass.

Practicing Passing With Three Soccer Balls

In this method, three soccer balls and two teams with equal number is required. When the coach says, ?Go?, all the players have to try to steal as many ball as possible. When the coach says, ?STOP?, the game gets a pause and the team with the possession of two or three balls wins.

This is a simple method, but in order to get positive outcomes of the same, this process must be repeated several times. Since, there are three balls and two teams, in order to keep possession of two or more balls is not an easy cake for any team and the team that wins surely have players with better passing skills. This game teaches various aspects associated with passing of the ball, such as:

? Players are able to decide their position that where they should run when they do not have the ball so that they could get the possession of the same.

? They learn to make instant decisions regarding passing and dribbling the ball

? They also have to make instant decision which player of the team they want to pass the ball.

Overall, soccer is all about practice, practice, and practice. Whichever method you use to practice soccer passing drills, make sure that you practice the same several times in order to sharpen your passing skills.

Andre Botelho is a recognized authority on the subject of soccer passing drills. His web site, Youth Soccer Drills, provides a wealth of informative soccer articles, resources and tips for soccer coaches, parents and players.

Soccer Speed

Soccer is an explosive sport where your body needs to be running at 100% in order to get the most out of your performance. Before you even think about running speed workouts you must first devise a warm up plan that will help you prepare to compete at high speeds and intensities.

An effective warm up must consist of a series of dynamic and active movements that start with low impact, low intensity exercises and progress naturally to high intensity, full speed exercises that simulate the intensity of the upcoming practice or competition.

As you know, in order for your soccer athletes to be ready to perform speed work or compete at high intensities, they must get warmed up properly.

We often find that there is some confusion as to what constitutes a proper warm up. For example, some coaches are still using static stretching to get athletes loose before practices and competitions. Unfortunately, this outdated method actually reduces speed and power.

Think about it: How often during a practice or soccer match does an athlete hold a stretch position as part of their sport? That is right, not very often. So if you are still using this method to get your athletes ready to compete, you are not getting the most out of their ability.

Instead, have your soccer players perform dynamic exercises that are similar to the types of movements they will be going through during practice and competitions. Keep athletes moving and gradually increase the intensity of their activity. That way you can get the blood flowing into the muscles through a natural progression.

Remember, a good warm up should take at least 20 to 25 minutes to complete. This will reduce the likelihood of injury by ensuring that they do not try to go too fast too soon. In addition, athletes will get the most out of their muscles because they followed a thought out progression of movements that went from low intensity jogging and skipping to high intensity speed development drills and exercises.

By the time they are done warming up, they will be lightly sweating, fired up and ready compete!

Another issue to note when doing any type of drills is to make sure that your athletes are performing the exercises correctly. You compete like you practice. If athletes are not performing the drills correctly they are going increase the likelihood of injury by adding unnecessary stress to joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons.

Drills are designed to be done a certain way for a specific reason. If your athletes are not technically sound during the warm up they will not be technically sound in games and competitions when it counts. The warm up is not a time for goofing off. It is the foundation of the day's activities and sets the tempo for all that is to follow it.

So now that you know what types of activities must be done and how to approach them, let us take a look at an actual dynamic warm up that top athletes and coaches use to get ready each day.

Before trying this out with your athletes, be sure to have them jog and/or skip for about 5 minutes.

Here is a sample warm up:

- High knee walk - x10 each leg

- Jog 50 yards

- Lateral lunge walk (both legs) x10 each leg

- Jog 50 yards

- Front leg swings - x10 each leg

- Jog 50 yards

- Lateral Leg Swings ? x 10 each leg

- Jog 50 yards

- Iron Cross ? x 10 each leg

- Jog 50 yards

- Scorpion ? x 10 each leg

- Jog 50 yards

- Backwards Run ? 2 x 30 yards

- 'A' Skip - 3x15 yards

- 'A' Run - 2x20 yards

- Fast Leg - 2x30 yards (each leg)

- Accelerations - 4 x 40 yards

By performing this type of warm up every day, your athletes will be loose, powerful and fast. Be sure that your soccer team is performing a dynamic warm up before each practice and game; otherwise the athletes you train are not competing to the best of their ability and the likelihood of sustaining an injury is increased.

When you compare the benefits that the dynamic warm up offers to the drawbacks of other warm up methods, you can expect an immediate improvement in the success of the athletes you work with. Learn more at: www.CompleteSpeedTraining.com

For a free Speed Training Report - Secrets to Developing Dominant Speed - go to http://www.CompleteSpeedTraining.com Coach Patrick Beith is the owner of Athletes' Acceleration Inc., your final resource for developing the fastest athletes.

Youth Soccer Drills

There are several things that the coaches need to keep in mind while giving lessons to the players during youth soccer drills:

Receiving The Ball

When it comes to youth soccer drills, there are several key teaching points in receiving the ball. These key points are as follows.

The coach must teach the players about how to get in the line of flight of the ball.

The players should learn to present the body part to the ball the right and the impressive way.

One of the most important things for the coaches is to teach the players that they must have their eyes on the ball at the moment of contact.

The coach should teach the players that they should Cushion the body part while receiving the ball, just as if they are as in catching an egg.

How To Strike A Ball

It is very sad to see that many coaches do not teach the players the correct way to strike a ball. The right way of striking the ball is something that can make the ball to go straight in the air with velocity.

It is the duty of the coaches to teach the players about this technique in a correct way. One of the best methods that the coaches can use to show this technique to the players is to show them NFL place kickers or MLS goalkeepers taking a goal kick.

However, these techniques can be listed as follows.

The players must keep in mind that the ball should be out of their feet. The obvious reason is that they will not be able to kick the ball over distance if it is underneath them.

The player?s approach must be slightly from the side.

A long hop or driving step is the final step, which places the support foot alongside the ball. The coaches should teach the players that their support foot must point towards the target. What is more, head must be steady, and eyes must be on the ball. Further, the player?s left hand should point at the target.

Coaching youth soccer drills is an important task and it must be taught the correct way.

Andre Botelho is a recognized authority on the subject of youth soccer drills. His web site, Soccer Drills and Tips, provides a wealth of informative soccer articles, resources and tips for soccer coaches, parents and players.

English Soccer - England's Football League Division One Review

It would appear that Swindon Town have been keeping an eye on Football England recently, at least that's what I'm claiming anyway. Since I tipped them as most likely to stay up in the now ferocious relegation battle, they haven't put a foot wrong.

This was confirmed by another good win at home to Doncaster Rovers on Saturday.

The 2-1 victory, gives them three on the bounce on the row, and confidence seems to have been restored. Any struggling teams yet to visit the County Ground - beware.

Manager Iffy Onoura was well pleased with the latest result, and also seems optimistic of survival. Perhaps he's also in a good mood because the proposed television project featuring Big Ron has been booted into row z, early doors.

At the top, Southend reconfirmed their promotion credentials with a fine 2-0 away defeat of Yeovil, which keeps them top. Shaun Goater scored the second, and his goals could be vital in the remainder of the season.

Brentford too perhaps have been reading this column. Last week I voiced a concern that letting DJ Campbell disappear to Birmingham for a pittance could harm their promotion aspirations. Seems I'm wrong.

The Bees absolutely paggered Walsall 5-0, proving that they can score without the DJ (League one player of the month for Jan), and heaping misery on a forlorn Paul Merson. Brentford still look nicely poised, sitting 5th with games in hand. Walsall look to be in terminal decline, and Merson has hinted that he will quit if results don't improve.

Colchester continue to make us marvel at their impressive record this term. A comfortable 3-1 home win over Bradford City, after going 1-0 down racks up a club record of nine consecutive wins, and perhaps more impressively winning 19 out of 21.

Bradford went ahead through stocky veteran Dean Windass just before half time - the chunky striker is still a force to be reckoned with at this level. The game, now a tough test, was turned by the inspirational Richard Garcia who headed home twice early in the secone half. Garcia has now notched 6 in his last 4 games. A confident display was rounded off by Chris Iwelumo, also heading in just after the hour.

Colchester must now believe they can go up without the lottery of the play offs - they sit second, 1 point behind Southend, with a game in hand.

Also at the top, Barnsley have slipped in unnoticed in recent weeks, while others have floundered. A 2-0 victory over Bristol City at home this weekend lifts them into fourth spot. Much of this recent form can be attributed to striker Marc Richards, who bagged both goals, bringing his tally to 10 in the last 15 outings. His first was an exquisite finish after lobbing a defender on his approach.

Back at the bottom, a predictable dour affair between Rotherham & Hartlepool ended 0-0. Both these sides are in deep trouble and must turn the corner soon or bye bye. Hartlepool were under the instruction of Youth team coach Paul Stephenson for the first time after the much publicised turmoil at the club. Hopefully he can get them on track.

MK Dons look to be adrift without a paddle after going down 2-0 to Scunthorpe. Scunny will be glad of the points to keep them above water, thanks again to their prolific goal getter Billy Sharp. Another brace for Sharp put the game away after just 10 minutes.

As for the Dons - it looks like they are going. Will anybody miss them?

Blackpool continue to show great determination at home, and look to have what it takes to stay up. The Seasiders were very unlucky to take only the 1 point from their home meeting with Notts Forest.

A creditable 8,399 turned out for this 2-2 draw in which Blackpool were always in control, until the last minute equaliser by Forest's Julian Bennett.

Oldham Athletic tripped themselves up by going down 1-0 in an eminently winnable game at home to Port Vale. This leaves the Latics adrift by 7 points from the play off spots. Manager Ronnie Moore knows he has to improve quickly.

Finally, Chesterfield kept up their unbeaten run and their play off hopes with a late home equaliser against Gillingham. Chesterfiald lie in 7th, with the Gills out of trouble, for the moment.

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Norbert Wartle is Football correspondent for Football England. All content Copyright www.football-england.com © 2005-2006

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