I’ve been playing and enjoying soccer most of my life, and have been coaching for the last 6 years. I had some wonderful coaches during my childhood that have helped me understand both how the game should be coached and how it should be played.

##Philosophy

When I took the class for my coaching certification, the teacher (A certified and qualified to coach international soccer teams under [FIFA](http://www.fifa.com) made a point about why other county’s soccer teams do so much better than ours. The kids grow up there **playing*’ soccer ‘*by themselves**. They aren’t coached, they don’t have referees, and they don’t have supervision from their parents (which is the same reason that our contry dominates basketball on the international stage). The children in this country are drastically overcoached at a very young age, to the point where they don’t achieve an instinctual understanding of the game.

He also talked about when it’s appropriate to start working the kids with an emphasis on the competition rather than the fun. He made a few important points:

• Young children play because their parents sign them up
• Young teenagers play because their friends do
• Older teenagers play because **they** want to

So don’t worry about winning and loosing until they’re in high school.

The job of the coach, therefore, is to help the children improve their ball handling skills and to **ensure that they have fun so that they want to continue to the next level.**

##Practices

Practices will be each Wednesday evening at 5:30pm. Please make sure to have your child bring a soccer ball, shin guards, and cleats to both practices and games. The league doesn’t give me enough balls for all the kids.

I tend to run practices in what may seem to be an undisciplined manner. Practices always start with a game that emphasises ball handling skills and warms the kids up. After a 10-15 minute warmup, we stretch for several minutes and move on to more games.

The games in the second part of the practice tend to emphasis awareness of other players and ball handling. I try to work in concepts about passing, accuracy, and awareness of what’s happening on the field.

After those games comes small team scrimages. Quite often, these will involve some strange rules changes to standard soccer (such as uneven teams, or more than one goal for each team, or more than two teams).

At this point, we might have a short game-simulation, and then finally another stretching sessionas a cool down. It’s just as important to stretch after practice as before.

##Game Time

During games, I coach very little. This is something that’s been stressed in all the classes I’ve taken. You coach during practice, and you **observe** during the game. Most of the time, the most important thing going on (in terms of coaching) is nowhere near the ball.

##Final Thoughts

I hope soccer will prove enjoyable by both the kids and parents this year. I’m looking forward to a great season full of fun soccer practices and matches.