As a professional Soccer Goals company, the team at Farpost Goals knows it’s important to consider a game from a referee’s perspective, coaches are permitted to provide tactical instructions to their players during the game. Unfortunately in many youth games the most common “tactical” instruction heard from coaches on the field by the players (and referee) is “Go, Go, Go” which doesn’t impart any knowledge, insight or direction for the players. As my Daughter commented about her previous coach, “Does she think I’m going to ‘Stop, Stop, Stop’ if she doesn’t yell ‘Go, Go, Go’ all the time?” Ref ..read more

INDEPENDENCE LEVEL They have no soccer background. They need others to learn from. You are their role model. You must teach them.  You must be PATIENT! PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT Bones are immature Rapid growth in large muscles. Growth in height is more pronounced than weight. Girls will be one year ahead in physical development. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT They need and want supervision of their activities. They do not compete but merely imitate competition. They exhibit sudden shifts in behavior from bad to good. Boys will fight and wrestle – demonstrating masculinity. They have a very difficult ..read more

By Ben Lyttleton It is no coincidence that Andrea Pirlo and Xavi looked so comfortable on the ball What made players such as Andrea Pirlo, Xavi and Frank Lampard so good? In an extract from his new book Edge: What Business Can Learn From Football, Ben Lyttleton details the secrets of their success… Dr Geir Jordet is a Norwegian professor of psychology who played football for lower-league side Strommen IF. He wrote his Master’s thesis and PhD on the role of vision, perception and anticipation in elite-level performance: in short, the areas of performance where psychology can directly affe ..read more

What makes good soccer goalie training? Good soccer goalie training should mimic what a soccer goalkeeper typically faces in a match. Good training can improve a soccer goalkeeper’s agility, ability to track the ball, positioning, coordination, jumping ability, confidence and reflexes. Important characteristics of a good soccer goalie. The skills and training of a soccer goalie are unique to that of other soccer positions. Becoming a better soccer goalie How do you become a better soccer goalie? The simple answer is to master the act of catching the ball. Just making sure the ball does not lan ..read more

You can evaluate your coaching effectiveness by the reaction of the kids to you and the game. Are they having fun? Are they enthusiastic? Do they go 100%? Do they have good sportsmanship? Do they have a positive attitude? Are they doing well in school? Do they play next year? My goals as a coach are to be a role model for the kids, to have them realize an education is important, to teach them a love of the game. I begin my coaching courses by asking the coaches what a coach is. Webster’s definition of a coach is “A. A large usually enclosed four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage having doors in th ..read more

Kids are nonverbal or, as they reach the high school level, minimally verbal. So, how much should I talk… during practices? Not much. I would venture to say that for U-12s no explanation should last more than 10 or 15 seconds. After that half the team is tuning you out unless you are dressed up like a rapper and have a musical accompaniment. Instructions and corrections should be visual and in slow enough motion so the athlete can see it clearly. I prefer the explanation: “Like this” and then I show them. For under 8’s, explanations are basically nonverbal. This past summer one of my partners ..read more

I really do not know how to begin this article.  I suppose I could begin with pithy statements about how demoralizing soccer scoring blowouts can be but I won’t (of course I just did).  What is more important is that you, the coach, know how to prevent a blowout with dignity.  In the list below I will present several techniques that have been and can be used to keep the score down.  While many are obvious some can backfire by having the players yell obvious instructions at each other (i.e. “don’t shoot”).  When we control the offense in such a manner to curtail scoring ..read more

This is a tough one…how do we prevent lopsided scoring and soccer goals without hurting either team? I have been on both sides. The first thing I would suggest is to make sure your team is playing in an appropriate league or tourney bracket level. That means the coach needs a good understanding and is honest about his team’s prospects. If the coach thinks his team is better than it is, lopsided scores will happen. If he just wants to win then he will sandbag in order to make himself look good. Both scenarios hurt the teams. How do you handle when your team is winning handily? This is a great t ..read more

Most of preventing lopsided soccer scores comes from good intentions and spur of the moment thinking.  But, better lessons are drawn from preparation. The same objectives from training should be used in games. There is nothing worse than overt mercy.  The kids bragging after the game are overheard by the losing team that “we could only score with headers” or “we could only shoot after we juggled”.   Watching a clear opportunity be wasted with a precondition is nothing short of ridicule.  Besides, the benchwarmers want the same opportunity as the starters who rang up th ..read more

I have an experiment for you. Take children of different ages who are engaged in an activity they enjoy. It doesn’t have to be scoring soccer goals! inform them that when the activity is over (about 20 minutes later) they must clean up their room or go out and bring in the mail or do something they probably would not ordinarily want to do; then see if they do it: How many 6,7,8 or 9 year olds will do it?  NONE! How many older pre teens will do it?  Perhaps a few more. How many teens will do it?  Even a few more. And as you get older consistently more and more will do it. Brain g ..read more