Help me coach a JV soccer team

[Big Poppa Smurf]

Health and Fitness,

I recently got a job as a middle school teacher and have no clue what I'm doing. I was also offered a position as JV soccer coach and although I have no experience coaching and I'm not good at most of soccer (I was a decent goalie though), I figured I was already so far in over my head that it didn't really matter.

I know there are some very experienced soccer players, athletes in general, and coaches on these boards, so I come to you for help in coaching my team. I guess I'm looking for a couple of things - books or websites that help explain soccer strategy so I can get a better understanding of the game, good drills that stress development of fundamental soccer skills, sport specific conditioning exercises, and tips on giving great sports motivational speeches (obv. this last one is the most important).

Some ideas I've had so far: I want to make sure everyone gets into games (since it's JV and I don't care if we win; I'm looking at the JV team as a place to try and improve the basic skills and level of the program), and I want to try and do a lot of miniature game situations: lots of 6v6, 5v5, 3v3 kept inside the 18, etc. Other than this though, I'm kind of at a lost for what drills and exercises will be most important for helping the team develop solid basic soccer skills.

To make this more general interest, feel free to post clips of ridiculously awesome goals and plays:

Pele fools goalie

[maniacut]

That Pele goal is RIDICULOUS! heres a recent one from Ronaldinho I like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB8Yf2kB29g

[bellytimber]

It's kind of a tough situation, but hey, if essentially you're coaching the 7th & 8th grade B team, then I think you should obviously be focused less on tactics, and more on exposure, as in finding the best ways to expose them to all aspects of soccer while making it fun. It's way more important for them to be working on small-scale fundamentals (trapping, passing, simple runs, balancing left and right sidedness, basic types of kicks) than it is for them to be doing dumb drills of goofy stepovers and side-volleys. I would be having them do lots of keep away type games, lots of spacing stuff, that sort of thing. Good luck, because they are going probably just going to want have penalty kick contests all day long, at least when they're not sitting around staring directly at the sun and eating grass.

google "coaching soccer" you'll get ten trillion ideas for drills and games there.

and here are some good goals from the last time I saw a 2p2 good goals thread.

best of luck!

[shoxbb6]

At this level, one of the most important things is to develop on the ball skills. Drills like juggling, dribbling quickly around cones, learning the basic dribbling moves(pullback, scissor, etc) and learning how to trap the ball well would help that.

Doing lots of miniature game situations is good, but for the ones with smaller amounts of people, you should probably limit the amount of touches one player can consecutively have. Also, small monkey in the middle type games in a confined space (say 3v1 in a 5x5 box) are good for developing passing skills and good positioning.

[kidcolin]

[ QUOTE ]
I want to try and do a lot of miniature game situations: lots of 6v6, 5v5, 3v3 kept inside the 18, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a really good start for someone who doesn't know what he's doing. I've had some coaches who were exceptional soccer players who didn't do enough of this stuff.

Monkey in the middle is also good.

A skill drill I always liked and I'm sure everyone has done before: pair up in groups of two, each pair with a ball. The pair faces each other, about 5-6 feet apart. As a pair, you jog slowly back and forth between the sidelines doing different things with the ball on each trip. i.e., on the first trip, the guy jogging forward (A) passes to the guy jogging backwards (B), B just traps ball and leaves it for the approaching A. Alternate feet each time. Then do it with B passing back to A. Then do the same with volleys (A tosses the ball around knee height to B). Then do the same with headers (A tosses the ball over Bs head). Then trapping with the upper leg, then trapping with the chest, etc. It helps players develop a feel for the ball as well as working on close control.

My favorite conditioning drill: my coach called them East Germans. Jog the endline, all out sprint to the opposite corner flag. Repeat 5-10 times. West Germans were just within the half.

[Victor]

"A skill drill I always liked and I'm sure everyone has done before: pair up in groups of two, each pair with a ball. The pair faces each other, about 5-6 feet apart. As a pair, you jog slowly back and forth between the sidelines doing different things with the ball on each trip. i.e., on the first trip, the guy jogging forward (A) passes to the guy jogging backwards (B), B just traps ball and leaves it for the approaching A. Alternate feet each time. Then do it with B passing back to A. Then do the same with volleys (A tosses the ball around knee height to B). Then do the same with headers (A tosses the ball over Bs head). Then trapping with the upper leg, then trapping with the chest, etc. It helps players develop a feel for the ball as well as working on close control. "

ya this is awesome. we called it the brazilian.

also, look up coerver moves and do those for like 15 minutes at the start. simple cuts in 6-8 yards of space is great. tell them to focus on exploding when changing direction. cut with the inside, outside, scissor, pull back, behind the leg, etc. encourage the players to do those drills on their own. its simply the best way to develop skills and the kids who do it will easily excell in high school.

that should be like 30-45 minutes of warmup. then do short-sided scrimmage as you said before for the main part of practice.

another good warmup is 5v2 keep away. if you [censored] up you gotta be in the middle. encourage the 5 to keep a tight space and do 2 touch (and sometimes 1.) u need 2 pinneys for this drill. also, to encourage the def to work together, they rotate out regardless of who actually steals it.

also, have your kids bring 2 shirts to practice, dark and white to easily make teams.

another good drill, probably for the main part of practice is 3 team keep away. i think we called this the dutch drill. anyway, 3 teams of between 4 and 6 should work. use the whole field and maybe more. one team on d, and the other 2 play keep away. if i lose the ball, now my team is on d.

so, primarily focus on development of foot skills. the players will proly suck at the coerver and brazilian initially. i mean, balls will be flying all over the place. but this is a great stage in a development of athletecism for young ppl. they will quickly develop the skills if with repetician. if they get to high school and dont have it, they likely wont ever get it.

econdly, have the players focus on "what they are gonna do before they get the ball" which the keepaway should help with.

as a coach its your job to make sure the players arent standing around doing nothing. thats why i hate lineup drills and the like. mini scrimmages are great imo.

i kinda want to coach now.

[Thremp]

Just get the kids to pass the ball accurately to one another and you're kids will probably be much better than most kids moving into HS.

I agree with all the aforementioned drills. Being able to pass and trap the ball at this level is what really needs work.

[Erik.R]

Get the kids to use the full potential of the field (as in size of the field), when they are young train them not to be close together but spread over the field. And most important if there are long matches, teach them to let the ball do the work. This means they have to give passes to each other the advantage is that they will not be more tired then te opponent, this ofcourse means better preformance. But this those require reliable passes from your players so you should train on that as well.

[Big Poppa Smurf]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far everyone. I didn't make this clear in the OP but I'm actually coaching a high school JV team, does this change any suggestions? FWIW the program isn't that great and we don't cut anyone so there is usually a pretty big skill differential on the JV team.

[mattnxtc]

What kind of outside training are they getting? Any?

How long do you get with them each day?

How dedicated are they to soccer? If its an "anybody plays" situation then that can be an issue.