When it comes to coaching high school soccer, of all the things that influence a player’s performance on field is the conduct and attitude of the coach. A coach should prepare a course that stresses the development of a positive winning attitude with a view to have a mentally tough team.
The coach plays an influential and a key authority figure in the player’s career. The body language, attitude, and expressions of the coach can shape, reinforce, or damage the players self esteem and confidence.
With respect to coaching youth soccer, mental toughness is all about meeting challenges with a positive outlook. Thus, in both practice and competition, the coach should be the starting point.
The coach will find that a disciplined post-match routine is helpful in ensuring that he or she does not get either too high or too low. An experienced coach will apply ideas, chronicle, and descriptions, videos, etc to shape the collective approach of the team and prepare them to be mentally tough in their game.
In football coaching, the coach must show the ability to deal handle emotional setbacks regardless of personal feelings in order to build a mentally strong team.
Only when the coach shows a firm belief in the team’s capability to accomplish in spite of the problems, the team will have an outline for developing the same mind-set and feel motivated.
Coping with failures and mistakes in coaching high school soccer is another area of responsibility for the coach. One of the keys to a player’s motivation and the wish to work towards correcting mistakes is the coach’s response to failure. The coach has two choices.
One of the choices can be employing the failure as a prospect to provide advice and guiding the players towards their improvement. Convince them to recommit themselves to the endeavor with renewed enthusiasm.
Second, use failure as evidence of the player’s inadequacy and proof that they cannot meet expectations. Players will get de-motivated because of this emotional overreaction.
One way that players become mentally tough is by accepting responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and actions and rejecting all possible excuses. While soccer coaching, the coaches can help the players by questioning and listening them rather than always telling the players of their mistakes. They should be encouraged to talk about what they could have done better.
We call it self-reference. The coach can encourage the players by encouraging the players to self reference. Rather than delivering a definition of the situation to the players, the coach can ask the player of his or her view point on the situation. Take an example: “How do you feel you played?” or “Why do you feel you behaved that way?”
This way the players must think through and account for his or her reactions which are a vital part of the learning process.
So go ahead and apply these methods in coaching high school soccer that you’ve just learnt.
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Andre Botelho is the author of “The Expert Youth Soccer Coaching Guide” and he’s a recognized expert in the subject of youth soccer coaching. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make coaching sessions fun in less than 29 days! Download your free pdf guide at: Kids Soccer Drills.
Tags: Coaching high school soccer, coaching youth soccer, football coaching, soccer coaching