Planning soccer training right

A soccer coach has many other tasks outside of his soccer-related ones if he wants to have confidence in his team. He is a role model, a teacher, a psychiatrist and sometimes a doctor and motivator. This list is not exhaustive; if it were, it would be too long. At the same time, a soccer coach should be one thing above all: a soccer coach!

This heavy burden often leaves the coach with too little time left for one important task: to make sure his practices can offer his players a good education in soccer. All coaches go about this in different ways: there are some who plan out an entire season's training sessions ahead of time. Then, there are those who are always planning the following session, and those who are never prepared and just go from their experience.We can't forget those trainers with previous experience. Sometimes they plan more, sometimes less, and are always surprised at how little time is left until the next practice.

So what's right? Soccer wouldn't be so complicated if there were one right answer to that. But one is definitely wrong: no planning for training at all, and creating the content from one's experience. Just in the past few years, soccer has evolved so rapidly that anyone who isn't constantly keeping themselves updated and continuing to study it, can't offer contemporarytraining in soccer. This is actually obvious to every soccer coach, but there is also a life outside of soccer. One's wife, children and career shouldn't be neglected, and if the coach has a family, sometimes the training planning can be sidelined too.

Coaches of children's teams can, of course, plan training sessions months ahead of time because they are pursuing very specific training goals. The training content cannot be influenced by achievements in games or results; so it is acceptable to have a training plan spanning over a long period of time. But a training goal can be pursued, even with a last-minute search for training content.

In recreational soccer the same applies: Training goals must be reached as individually tailored to each player as possible. A challenge for every dedicated soccer coach is eliminating the mistakes that are made in children's soccer due to results-oriented training.

In competitive and professional soccer it is completely different. Here, coaches often react to achievements in the most recent games, and often, training content is tailored to the next opponent. A professional coach surrounds himself with many other coaches who can focus on particular topics, or can offer individualized training.

But let's come back to the basic coach, the one who doesn't have a coaching staff at his side. In Europe, one of the biggest soccer training websites on the internet addresses these coaches. In the last few months, this website has gone international and is now online in the English language. The creators or Soccerpilot.com are already offering many soccer drills free of charge, shown through animations. At least a thousand will follow suit, along with a multitude of articles about tactics, social behavior and about the job of a soccer coach; an idea that has been online since 1998 and is continuously being updated after 13 years of experience.

Many of the soccer drills provided were unknown until now because the content is constantly expanding and adapting itself to contemporary soccer.

Using the animations, a coach can immediately understand the soccer drills; there is no tedious and time-consuming thought about lines, strokes and arrows. Training goals are easily met because entire drills are arranged in columns. So a last-minute training plan is possible anytime, and long-term training content is quickly put together as well.