Stop Accepting Poor Training For Your Child

If your child is still dribbling around cones for hours on end at their training sessions it is time to start asking questions…

The internet has been great for football coaching.

Within 15 mins any coach in the world can have a full session planned of, what look like, amazing drills.

They will have cones everywhere and instruct the players to ‘run here, then do this and then do that etc etc’.

Essentially, the child is told what to do, when to do it and how to do it.

Can you see how this could stifle their creative side?

There is no variance, no problems to solve by themselves.

It is all a bit robotic and it prevents them them from unlocking their individuality.

The players we love watching are those who excite us.

They do things off the cuff based on what is happening around them.

With how training is going these days we will see less and less of these players.

Training needs to closely resemble the game.

Street football is all but dead in the UK. Societal changes and the rise of technology mean less and less kids are playing on the streets.

The streets were a hotbed for creativity – no rules, no adults and loads of obstacles to deal with.

As coaches we need to get the ‘street feel’ into sessions in order to promote this creativity and that means having activities that closely resemble the game itself.

Some coaches think they need to have fancy activities that impress those who are watching.

They think academies have all these secret drills that no-one knows about.

The truth?

The best coaches keep it simple and design their activities so that players learn the game, constantly problem-solve and are forced to make quick decisions.

The hard part?

Making them fun for ANY age group and ensuring they develop each player from a technical and tactical point of view.

Stop dribbling around cones with no purpose, stop having 64 kids in a line waiting for a shot at goal and start thinking of drills that bring out that individuality.

If there are any coaches out there who want advice on this we are always here for a chat and will happily send over some ideas for you.