Coaching youth soccer

When my boys were toddlers, I volunteered to coach their soccer teams. I’ve always enjoyed coaching youth sports, however most of my experience had been coaching basketball to elementary school kids up to middle school. As a full disclaimer, I’ve never played competitive soccer at any level so when it came time to prepare my first soccer practice for a group of 3-4 year old’s, I needed to draw from my experiences in other sports.

I discovered very early when coaching, the most effective practices involved keeping instructions simple and the children moving. For the soccer practices, I always preferred to use drills and games that maximized the number of touches the children have with a soccer ball and avoid having them stand in lines.

There is a lot of information out there, some you need to pay for while others offer tips for free. I’ve created a coaching section on this site to help any parents get started in coaching soccer.