One of the things you need to learn when you begin to coach youth soccer is that failure is not only a fact of life, it is one of the best teachers around. One thing that defines many of the most successful people in history was that they learned to overcome failure before they ever tasted real success. As a youth soccer coach, if you create an environment where your players are afraid to fail, they will not learn to really succeed.
When you coach youth soccer you are working with young players that are still trying to figure out what works,and what does not work for them. You are also trying to teach a game that requires players to be able to think, and to react to different situations on the field as they happen. They have to make a quick decision about whether to pass the ball or try to dribble around a defending player. They need to decide whether whether to hit the player down field, or to make a crossing pass that will spread the defense.
Over time, you will be witness to a lot of bad decisions, but in and around those bad decisions, your players will start to make more and more good decisions, but that will only happen if they feel safe in making a decision at all. Your players need to know that whether they succeed or fail on the field, as long as they give their full effort they will not have to face the wrath of their coach.
To often I have been witness to players being punished in practice because of a decision that was made during a previous game. While those players may have learned what to do in that specific situation, the coach has also taught them to be afraid of making the wrong decision, and that will make them hesitate to make any decision at all.
Soccer is a game that can turn in an instant. A player that hesitates in making a decision with the ball will find themselves watching an opponent dribble away from them with the ball that was just taken away. That moment of hesitation that was caused because the player was afraid to act could ultimately cost your team the game.
As a coach you need to create an environment where players know that it is better to try, and fail, than to never try at all. They need to believe that even if the decision they make is the wrong decision, they will still be rewarded for their effort.
Failures will happen. It is a part of being human, and it is a part of learning soccer. When you coach youth soccer, you need to expect those failures to occur. Use them as teachable moments to discuss what went wrong, and what a better decision might have been. Do not use them as a reason to punish your players at practice. In the long run, all you will teach them is to decide not to play soccer.By Jim Smoot
