5 Things You Must Do

To Become A Top
Youth Football Coach!

Kurtis Pottinger
 How to Become a Top Youth Football
Coach: For Parents and Coaches

Introduction
Every weekend throughout the football calendar, thousands of junior level
teams play against one another. At most football clubs you will nd either a
well-intentioned parent, who has decided to take over their child’s local
team or an aspiring football coach who has always wanted to get into
coaching and decided to start with a junior side.

Despite their being no shortage of volunteer coaches and thousands of

youth teams playing on a regular basis, we are not producing enough skillful
and tactically sound players in the United Kingdom.
Why are we not producing players like Gascoigne, Scholes and Hoddle?
players who are capable of running with the ball across defenders or
spotting those passes that split defences? Why are smaller nations (in terms
of population) like Holland and Spain produce a large number of players
that tend to be more skillful and tactically sound then our English players?

In this e-book, I will address how a novice football coach can help produce
better football players and also outline what they must do to take them
from beginner to an expert youth coach.

How to Become a Top Youth Football Coach: For Parents and Coaches
 How to Become a Top Youth Football
Coach: For Parents and Coaches
Coaching philosophy
“Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play it simple” Johan Cruyff.
Without the right coaching philosophy you will be limited to how far you can
go as a football coach. In the beginning of a child’s playing career their
football development should be more important than winning.
This should be the main aim of every coach that works with players at youth
level, instead of focusing on winning they should encourage them to take
more risks and accept the fact that their players are likely to make mistakes
and lose some games playing this way.

One of the greatest basketball player’s Michael Jordan said “I’ve failed over
and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed” in order to
succeed in anything you have to accept failure and learn from it, that is how
we progress and become better players.

Without the right coaching philosophy you will be limited to how far you can
go as a football coach. In the beginning of a child’s playing career their
football development should be more important than winning. This should
be the main aim of every coach that works with players at youth level,
instead of focusing on winning they should encourage them to take more
risks and accept the fact that their players are likely to make mistakes and
lose some games playing this way.

How to Become a Top Youth Football Coach: For Parents and Coaches
 How to Become a Top Youth Football
Coach: For Parents and Coaches

Winning isn't Everything!

One of the greatest basketball player’s Michael Jordan said “I’ve failed over
and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed” in order to
succeed in anything you have to accept failure and learn from it, that is how
we progress and become better players.

Allow me to make this clear I am not telling you to totally forget about
winning the game. I am stating that you should concentrate on providing the
tools they need, that will allow them to play the game more e ectively in the
future. A top football coach understands that every game they play is an
opportunity to showcase what has been taught in previous coaching
sessions.

How to Become a Top Youth Football Coach: For Parents and Coaches
 How to Become a Top Youth Football
Coach: For Parents and Coaches

The problem with creating a win at all cost mentality is that you encourage
your players to only use certain skills and tactical moves which are
considered important to win the game, such as playing long balls regularly.
Encouraging your players to play this way may bring rewards in the short
term but you also hinder the development of your players in the long run.

Creating The Enviroment

Young players need to feel that it is ok to make mistakes when they train
and play in matches. In order for the players to feel at ease, the football
coach must refrain from criticizing them when they happen to make
mistakes. Instead of just criticizing, you need to help the young player nd
the solution to the problem. This doesn’t mean doing it for them, but
creating realistic situations in your training that help the young players
realise what went wrong.
This form of training is far more e ective than taking the command
approach in coaching. Football coaches should try to be ‘great facilitators
not great dictators’ when working with young players, this will help
encourage their creativity producing natural players not ‘little robots’ who
rely on everything you say. Here are some tips for creating the right
environment:
Try to avoid criticizing, give praise whenever possible.
Always use game based learning, to stimulate creativity.
Use Q&A; involve them in the learning process.
Use humour and other methods to help engage you players.
The player’s development is the most important thing.
Make sure the sessions are fun and meaningful.

How to Become a Top Youth Football Coach: For Parents and Coaches
 How to Become a Top Youth Football
Coach: For Parents and Coaches

Get Qualified!
You also need to be quali ed to a certain standard if you have ambitions of
progressing up the coaching ladder and maybe become an academy coach.
Every country has their own quali cations structure, in the UK to be
considered for a paid coaching position in the community you should have
at least your FA level 2 certi cate. This can be completed in 6 months and
requires you being assessed on one coaching session plus completing a
portfolio.

If you happen to have ambitions to further progress your knowledge and

coaching career then taking the FA youth modules at some point will be a
must. The FA youth modules are aimed at further developing the coach’s
knowledge when providing age-appropriate coaching sessions. There are
three modules that you can take to complete the FA youth award. If you
happen to have ambitions of coaching at a professional academy you will be
expected to at least have the FA youth module 3 along with the UEFA B
Licence, before someone is likely to take a look at you.
The best coaching course I have personally taken is Practice Play by
Premier Skills. Practice Play is designed to produce innovative coaches
that will in turn produce outstanding players. The course has a focus on
recreating the elements of ‘street football’ that will progress to advanced full
game understanding. What set’s Practice Play apart from other coaching
courses I have taken, is how each session is a gradual progression of what
was previously taught. Each practice has an element of Realism throughout,
that keeps each player fully engaged and accelerates the learning process.

How to Become a Top Youth Football Coach: For Parents and Coaches
 How to Become a Top Youth Football
Coach: For Parents and Coaches
To nd more information on the Practice Play courses click here. I am
currently a Premier Skills licence holder for the West Midlands, UK area, if
you would like to hold or attend a Practice Play course then Click here.

Watch Good Coaches!

As mentioned earlier, just taking quali cations will not make you a great
coach. I highly recommend that you watch top coaches whenever possible,
and learn what you can from them. Watching good coaches allows you to
access the knowledge and techniques of how to provide high quality
coaching.

I personally learnt more watching other good coaches then I ever did on
most of my coaching courses. Luckily for us, we now live in an age where we
can access information from the comfort of our homes. Websites such as
YouTube and many other social sharing sites allow coaches to watch and
communicate with others, creating many opportunities to be mentored by
some of the great instructors.

How to Become a Top Youth Football Coach: For Parents and Coaches
 How To Become A Top Youth Football
Coach: For Parents And Coaches
Great Leaders Are Readers!
Another way to learn from others is to read great content. A lot of the top
coaches around the world now have books or write regular articles, so
nding great content isn’t hard to nd you just need to know where to look.
Below I will include some of the books that have helped me on my coaching
journey.
Teambuilding: The Road to Success by Rinus Michels
Football for the Brave by John Cartwright
The Modern Soccer Coach 2014: A Four Dimensional Approach by Gary
Curneen
Coaching Soccer: The O cial Coaching Book of the Dutch Soccer
Association by Bert van Lingen.

How to Become a Top Youth Football Coach: For Parents and Coaches
 Planning Great Football Sessions.

Why do we encourage our players to play it simple? Why do we encourage

our players to the pass the ball, when the better option would be to run with
the ball into the gaps or go across the defender? Our young soccer players
need to be encouraged to stay with the ball and conjoin with their
teammates when it’s necessary, not at every opportunity.
It all begins with the environment we create within our coaching sessions.
You should create an environment where the coach and the game are
teachers, and the players are forced to become ‘Thinkers’ not mini robots.
Here are some suggestions that I use whenever I prepare a football training
session.

Style Of Play
A coach cannot put together a meaningful and progressive coaching session
without having in mind how they want to play the game.

Planning Great Football Sessions

 Planning Great Football Sessions.

If you were to look at all the great teams in the world such as Barcelona,
Bayern Munich, Ajax etc. what you will notice is that they all have a clear
style of play which every coach and player at the club adheres too. You
cannot coach a young player unless you have a clear vision of how you want
them to play when they are an adult.
Having a clear style of play is not about having the right formation. If your
football players have a clear understanding of how you want them to play,
the formation of your side will be more of a guide for the players but not the
most important aspect they should think about.

I remember reading an article that involved current Oxford united manager

Michael Appleton who spoke about his experience’s when he went to
Denmark to work with some coaches. He asked the coaches what
formations do they use and their response was “We don`t have a formation,
we have a playing style!”. He also said “You only really set up in a formation
when the keeper or the centre back has the ball, the rest of the game there
is lots of overloading and rotation going on – having a style of play is more
important than an actual formation.” To take a look at this article you can
click here.
Recommended reading for developing your style of play/game style, Rinus
Michel’s Teambuilding: the road to success and John Cartwright’s Football for
the brave.
The above are highly recommended as essential reads for beginner and
advanced coaches.

Planning Great Football Sessions.

 Planning Great Football Sessions.
The Session Plan
A football session plan should also be gradually progressive throughout. A
typical session should contain the following 3 phases:
The introduction phase: In this phase the coach should be introducing
the skills that are necessary to make the session work.
The central phase: This phase tends to include some form of opposition
or a conditioned aspect that forces the players to make a number of
game related decisions.
The end game: The end game is an opportunity for the coach to assess
what was learnt previously in the session. The end game should not be
used as a ‘treat’ for the players, as it further embeds what the players
have learnt.
Each phase of the session plan should not be neglected, and should all
contain an element of realism throughout. You are wasting precious time if
your session is heavily reliant on drill based learning, which consists of the
following.
Dribbling in and out of cones in straight lines. (You don’t do this in a
game, so why teach it in your session).
Lining up your players in cues, when performing a certain skill.
Continually instructing your players to perform certain actions.
When a particular phase doesn’t resemble ‘real football’.

Planning Great Football Sessions.

 Planning Great Football Sessions.

Progressive Planning
A top football coach understands the importance of gradually progressing
sessions throughout the season. A coach should never produce random
coaching sessions, which are in uenced by previous and forthcoming
football matches.

The coach should always produce session plans that will help them achieve
their end goal, which is their style of play.

Each session should be a progression of what was previously taught, only

then you will see better results from your coaching sessions. I recommend
that a coach should stay on the same topic for at least 3-4 sessions, and if
they feel that their players are not ready to move on then they continue
until the players are ready. Here is an example of four progressed sessions
for 5-7 year olds:

Topic: Staying with the ball

Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4
Dribbling the ball Recap last session. Dribbling Recap last session. Dribbling Recap previous session. Dribbling
with both feet. whilst using tricks. whilst using turns. whilst screening the ball.

If you stay clear from those situations and consider the tips I have
mentioned earlier, then you are on your way to producing engaging and
realistic football sessions.

Planning Great Football sessions..

 5 Important Things To help Run A
Successful Junior Football Team.
St Georges was built to help develop our ‘future game’ but I am yet to be
convinced that this facility will dramatically improve our young players. Now I
do think that St Georges is an excellent facility that will bene t anyone who
decides to use it, but I believe that it would cost our FA a lot less to focus on
improving the standards of coaching across grassroots level. Focusing on
getting more coaches the right education and providing better support for
our junior football teams, would be better use of the Football Associations
funds.

Create A Club Culture!

"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself"
— Henry Ford

Your players and coaches should develop an understanding that at this club
winning isn’t the most important thing, winning with a certain style is more
important. The development of players is the most important thing, and
every player and coach needs to understand these club values.
The main aim is to produce skilful, creative and innovative players in order
for this to happen you will need coaches who are innovative enough to
produce those players.

Recruit The Right Coaches!

With grassroots football being mostly voluntary it is di cult to get the right
people on board, but not impossible. When recruiting other’s to help run
your teams make it clear from the beginning what your club is about. Doing
this will make them decide whether they can achieve your aims and if your
club is right for them.

5 Important Things To Help To Run A Successful Junior Football Team..

 5 Important Things To Help Run A
Successful Junior Football Team.
To ensure everyone is on the same page the club can produce their own
development plan which will show everyone at the club what is expected. To
give you an example of a development plan here is the Ajax youth
academy plan. Use this only as a guide and try to make your plan suit your
own philosophy.

Encourage Them To Learn!

All members of the football club should be encouraged to improve their
coaching. whether it’s on a coach education course, reading books or
watching other professional coaches all sta should be improving their
coaching knowledge on a regular basis.
If your club has a certain playing style or identity then you will need to
educate your coaches on how to implement this style of play. This may
require some in house coach education from some of the more senior
members at your junior football club or putting them on a certain course
that promotes the playing style you wish to implement.
Even the best coaches in the world are committed to their own personal
development despite being seen as the experts. If you and the other
coaching sta at your club are committed to improving your coaching
methods then you will always be ahead of coaches who aren’t.

5 Important Things To Help Run A Successful Junior Football Team.

 5 Important Things To Help Run A
Successful Junior Football Team.

Get The Parents On Board!

One of the most important things to establish at your football club from the
very beginning is to have parents on board with your vision. I think many
coaches underestimate the in uence parents can have on their team, and
should make every e ort to also ‘educate them’ as well. This will help
ensure they have a clear understanding of the clubs philosophy, values and
ethos.
Even though a lot of the time parents believe kids don’t take on board what
they say, children are heavily in uenced by their parents decisions. Having
the parents understand what you are trying to achieve will accelerate the
child’s learning and allow the child to develop without any hindrances.
What I have used in the past with parents is a ‘parent contract’ which I ask
them to read and sign before their child starts with my team. This way from
the beginning they have an idea of what I expect of them and their child and
if they don’t agree we can either discuss it or they can go somewhere else. It
is important that the communication with parents doesn’t end here as
things can be easily forgotten, so it is down to you to constantly update
them on what you are trying to achieve with their children.
As I stated before every member of your club needs to be on board with the
philosophy and ethos. Having your coaches understand this will not only
give them guidance in terms of their development but also ensure that every
player at your club will be on the same development plan. It is the club’s goal
to have their under 7s playing the same style of football as the under 16s,
having this continuity is very important in youth development.

5 important Things to Help Run A successful Junior football Team!

How To Engage Youth Football Player's!

Engaging youth football players can be a di cult task for many coaches. A
young players attention span can be very short, and if your sessions are not
providing enough stimulation you will find it very hard to keep them on task.
Top coaches know how to engage youth football players throughout their
sessions. This requires recognizing when they seem to be losing
concentration and using tactics to keep them on task. It also requires
preparation before your session begins, planning how you will keep your
players involved will bene t you and the players when you deliver the
session.
To engage youth football players, you have to think about more than just
encouraging your players. Good coaches think of what, when and how they
give encouragement, they also think of using di erent teaching styles for
each player on their team as each player learns in different ways.

How To Engage Youth Football Player's!

How To Engage Youth Football Player's!
Realism At All Times!
To engage youth football players your sessions need to keep all the players
involved throughout. This cannot be achieved if your sessions involve
children standing in lines waiting for their turn or a practice which is
controlled entirely by the coach.
Here I will share with you di erent approaches I have used, throughout my
football sessions.
Youth football players should at least have some ownership over what and
how they learn within the session. They should also train within realistic
situations throughout the session, from the warm up right until the small
sided game. You cant expect to keep each child engaged in the session if
they have to wait long periods of time before they get to touch the ball, each
player should be making decisions on when, where, why and how
throughout the session.
Each session should include a variety of games throughout, you want the
children to feel excited when they turn up to train. If the players don’t see
the importance of your coaching, then you will see less of their creativity and
they will eventually become dis-interested with the session.

" Only those who attempt what they cannot do, will grow "
— Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How To Engage Youth Football Player's!

How To Engage Youth Football Players!
Short, Concise Information.
When you give information to your players it needs to be less talking and
more demonstrating. Listening to someone talk is less engaging than
watching someone show what they want from the session, so try to keep
what you have to say to a minimum and show no longer then 30 seconds
long.
The kids learn best by playing the game with short chunks of information
fed into them gradually as they play. Try to let the session ow as much as
possible, you don't want to disturb their enthusiasm for the game.
Constantly stopping the session maybe getting your point across but you are
also causing disruptions to the session which will eventually become an
irritant.

Coaching Style
The coach has many di erent ways he/she can get their point across. There
are 3 main styles that coaches tend to use which are the following;
1. Command style - This is where the coach makes all the decisions with
little suggestions from the players.
2. Casual Style - This is when the coach takes a very laid back approach to
coaching, saying and showing nothing to their players throughout the
session.
3. Cooperative style - The coach who implements this style, tend to share
the decision-making progress with their players using frequent question
& answer methods.
Using a cooperative style of coaching helps the players take some ownership
of the session, thus encouraging further engagement from the players. It
also allows you to get your point across without having to bark information
constantly from the sidelines, instead you help players find the solution.

How To Engage Youth Football Player's!

How To Engage Youth Football Player's!
Motivating Your Players!
Engaging youth football players also requires the coach to give positive and
constructive feedback to their players. Even from a young age, players need
a positive push now and then to keep them on track.
It doesn't take a lot to keep a players spirits up, sometimes all it needs is a
little thumbs up from the coach or " well done " when they do a certain
technique in a game. As a football coach you are seen as the 'leader', and
everyone tends to enjoy praise from their coach.
Each style have their pros and cons, but the more successful coaches tend
to use a mixture of the last two with younger players. If you had to choose a
style to go with, you are more likely to produce better players with using
more of the cooperative style of coaching.
In my time as a coach I have found that using humor is a great asset. You
don't have to be a comedian to get a smile from your players, but making
the e ort to make your players laugh now and then breaks things up nicely
in the session. it also helps your players take in the detail you may be
sending across to them a lot easier, because it makes them want to listen
more.

Summary
I believe a young players mood can be determined from the start of the
session. When a player arrives and hears what they are going to do in the
session can motivate or demotivate them. This is why it is important you give
your planning some real thought, I choose to use game situation training
(Match related scenarios) over drills (Waiting in lines & constantly being what
to do). Young players get more excited when they are playing the game, so
we should be doing more to make sure that they learn whilst playing the
game.

How To Engage Youth football Player's!

 How to Engage Youth Football Player's!
" Only those who enjoy the game can be creative individuals "

Horst Wein.

Need To Create More Engaging

Soccer Sessions?!
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this will without question help.

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How to Engage Youth Football Players!