Soccer Coaching Tips: Elements of a Successful Practice Plan

Balancing the aspects of fun and work is a vital part of being successful in improving your team.

Any good coach knows that while it is important to get in work at soccer practice doing specific training exercises, your players must also maintain interest in the drills. The minute practice stops being fun, players stop learning, and they may even quit showing up completely.

Players like to scrimmage, but if you spent all of your practice time scrimmaging your team would not learn much. You can however, weave less entertaining but necessary drills in with other dynamic exercises that will focus your players learning, and keep their full attention.

Small-sided games, stipulated games and other drills that involve elements of scrimmagaging are a great way to let players play the game but guide their play to work on certain aspects of the game. Rules, for example limiting the number of passes before a shot can occur, or regulating the number of touches on the ball is a great way to keep the drill stimulating for players and valuable for improving their skills.

A good practice plan must also progress over the span of the season. You want to start your players with the fundamentals to make sure they are grounded, and then progress the drill set to new levels that relate to the old drills, but take players understanding further. Traps and to are easy to understand (not as easy to perform) where ball movement, or the offside trap is harder to understand.

Learning is fun, and players enjoy being challenged. A successful soccer plan would encompass each of these elements.