In coaching high school soccer, the first and the foremost quality that the players need to have or develop is confidence if they wish to become complete players. When you declare that the players are under immense pressure, you as a coach are hinting to the fact that your players lack confidence to face a situation. This is simply because success is the outcome of being confident of achieving it.
Confidence is a choice and your players have to first choose to become confident. In the course of coaching youth soccer, this point can be made clear to them by describing the behavior of two parrots that sit on either shoulder.
One is a positive parrot that pushes the player to accept and conquer every challenge coming his way by repeating “You can do it.” The other is the negative parrot, constantly warning the player “You can’t do this.” And it’s their choice to select which player to pay attention to.
Also teach them to take full responsibility of the consequences that follow their choice. This choice may have to made every single day. Develop brilliant players in your team by constantly reminding them of their participation in past successes to boost their confidence levels.
Train the players of the fact that in soccer coaching that putting the blame on something or someone else is a mark of insecurity. Rather they should take responsibility and consider setbacks as a part of the learning curve, not a failure that could shake confidence.
Also, in coaching high school soccer, the players should learn by heart the phrase “I’ll get the next one” to keep them going whenever they lose any opportunity.
Automatically, the confidence for the next strike overshadows the distress of the miss.
One of the keys to managing a successful team is your ability to make quick judgments regarding a player’s ability to survive the demands of competition. While football coaching, it is relatively easier to judge physical readiness than judging mental readiness.
To facilitate this type of judgment, look for clear messages. The spoken and unspoken messages of the player should be taken into account to ensure his or her ability to succeed in the game.
Confidence comes from success. Self-belief, hard work done and the mental preparation to face tough situations, hold the key to success in soccer. In order to make the players emotionally power-packed, a phrase “If you are not preparing to win, you are preparing to fail”, is frequently used.
Confidence grows up with experience. To build a strong base of the much needed experience, the players must be trained to cope up with their mistakes, defeats and criticism and fears, calmly. It is the feeling that he or she has the knowledge, has been there before, and knows what to look forward to.
Make no mistake about it. While coaching high school soccer, building confidence is worked out on an everyday basis so, the players should echo upon the certain key steps to determine what works for them.
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Tags: Coaching high school soccer, coaching youth soccer, football coaching, soccer coaching