He stops trying when he can’t play as striker…

Had a good chat with a parent-coach the other week.

He asked our advice – what would we do if a player stops trying when he’s not the striker?

This coach tries to do the right things i.e. change up the positions of his players to help their development and also make it fair.

But one boy simply stops trying if he isn’t playing as striker as, like most youngsters, he wants to score all the goals.

So, what would we do?

First thing to say is some people think we are all for the ‘individual’.

It’s true we believe football coaching should be about developing individual players but that should be done whilst emphasising the importance of playing as a team.

This can be common in young players.

They want to score goals because that’s what they see as the most exciting thing.

On TV they see the wild celebrations and all the glory going to the goal scorer.

This is a chance for some learning for the player and a coaching opportunity for the coach (coaching is more than just teaching them football).

First thing we’d do is communicate to the child and their parents the reason why we mix positions – it actually makes them better at football AND it is part of being on a team.

We want the player to know but also the parent because they may not understand the benefits – we need them onboard with helping their child learn.

We’d explain there are loads of professional players who need to change position to help their team and loads of them played different positions as children (maybe try to use an example of a player they really like).

Next, we’d look at challenge-reward.

In training & games we’d set some challenges for the player i.e. can you make 5 tackles when you play defence?

This way they feel they have succeeded even if they aren’t the one scoring goals.

For the reward we’d maybe add something into training or use the Player of the Match award to reward the player for the things we’re trying to instil.

This would be for things away from goal scoring so they feel a sense of achievement when playing in other positions.

It’s not a straight forward thing but it’s about being persistent.

Any coaches out there experienced similar things? What would your advice be?