"Tips, Themes & Things" Coaching Essays

We all know that there is more to coaching than just running great practices. So, to help you develop your own strategies for successful soccer, SoccerROM posts an in-depth essay on a new topic each month. These articles are provided by the SoccerROM staff and a number of other prominent coaches from around the US and the world, and will discuss everything from technical teaching points to team tactics.

We invite you to read this month's featured article, and then subscribe to get access to the rest of SoccerROM's "Tips, Themes & Things" archives!

Planning for Success

by Robert Parr

If you fail to plan, then plan to fail!

To succeed as a coach, you must enter each training session prepared to address the needs of your team. Once you've identified your team's developmental requirements (through match analysis and observation at previous practices), you should build a formal practice plan to guide you through your next training session.

Without such a plan, you limit your productivity and effectiveness considerably. Sessions conducted "on-the-fly" tend to stray from the most important topics, and generally waste valuable time with inefficient or poorly-organized activities. In the worst case, you may find yourself unable to think of an appropriate exercise at a critical moment during your practice, and your disorganization and lack of preparation will become evident to all your players. If your players doubt your level of commitment, they aren't likely to give their full effort, either!

Conversely, a well-crafted plan will provide many benefits. Importantly, the process of creating your plan allows you to review and refine your methods as you consider multiple ways to achieve your goals. Not all approaches will work equally well for your players, so start with a broad menu. Keep the activities and ideas that you think fit the best and are most economical, and reject the rest (or save them for another day).

Practice plans need to be written down, and you should prepare them before you leave for the field. Although it certainly helps to have a plan in your head before you take the field, you will forget key coaching points or lose track of your progressions if you don't commit these ideas to paper. Advance planning also helps you maintain variety in your training throughout the season. Again, making your practice up as you go will lead you to repeat the same activities across sessions far more than you should.

A well-crafted practice plan will have the following elements:

• On overall objective for the session, including specific coaching points
• A logical practice progression
• Equipment and set-up requirements noted for each activity
• Timing noted for each activity
• Pre-planned break points
• Several alternative activities that allow you to quickly adjust your session if necessary

As you begin your planning, write down your specific objectives for the session. For example, you might want to focus on passing technique, or individual defending, or combination play. Your objective statement should lead to a handful of specific teaching points that you intend to make during your practice. Referring to the previous sample topics, your coaching points might include comments like "keep your ankle locked when striking the ball", "take an angle when pressing the dribbler", or "look for opportunities to make overlapping runs".

"Progression" implies several things. First, you can progress within an activity by adding a variation or changing the restrictions on that activity. These types of progressions generally require little or no reorganization of equipment, and allow you to increase the complexity of your session without losing much time in the transition.

Secondly, you can progress through stages in your session. These stages will start with a warm-up, then move to individual activities, then small-sided (or match-related) activities, then large-group (or match-condition) activities, and finally conclude with a cool-down.

Third, you can progress through your session using increasing degrees of orientation. For example, you might begin an activity without any orientation (such as dribbling in open space), then move to a single orientation (1v1 to a cone), then add two degrees of orientation (defending one end line and attacking another).

Finally, you can also refine orientation by adding (or removing) goals. For instance, in a game of 4v4, you might have one team defend two small-sided goals while attacking two other small-sided goals. As the players demonstrate success in this game, you can move to a game of 4v4 to two full-sized goals, which progresses the activity to something more closely related to the full-sided game.

As you work through your progression options, you should consider the equipment needs and other set-up requirements for each exercise on your draft plan. Whenever possible, keep activities together that allow you to minimize your transition time so that you make the most of your limited training time. For example, if you have two small-sided games on your plan that are played in a grid, you may be able to avoid re-organizing your cones if you progress from one of these activities into the other.

Once you've compiled your list of activities and organized them into a logical progression, you should then add timing notations and break points to them. For example, you might allow just 5 minutes for your first warm-up activity, then 8 minutes for your next exercise, and 15 minutes for your third activity before taking a brief water break. Be sure to allow time to transition between activities, and add up all your timing notations to ensure that your practice will fit reasonably within your schedule practice time.

Of course, not every plan will work as expected. You will have practices when you need to deviate from your initial plan, so it can be helpful to include a few "alternative" or "optional" activities on your plan. For example, your plan may require a minimum of 16 players for an activity, but you find yourself shorthanded due to last-minute injuries or illnesses. Similarly, you may observe that the activities you initially selected aren't achieving your desired objectives, and need to adjust your activities to address a different priority. By allowing for situations like these in advance, you can keep your session on-track despite a few unplanned obstacles.

More than just about anything else you do, adhering to a formal practice planning process will lead to successful and informative practices for your players. SoccerROM was founded on this principle, which is why the SoccerROM Practice Planning Application remains the easiest and most comprehensive online tool available for this purpose. With SoccerROM, building a practice plan is a simple task that takes very little time to complete, as well as a process that generates significant benefits in the long run!

About the Author The co-creator of SoccerROM, Robert Parr holds a USSF 'A' license and a USSF National Youth Coaching license. He is currently the Director of Coaching and WPSL Head Coach for the Puerto Rico Capitals FC, the first international franchise to compete in the Women's Premier Soccer League. From 2003-2008, he was the Head Women's Soccer Coach at Georgia College & State University and also coached for the Georgia State Soccer Association Olympic Development Program. From 1995-2002, Robert was the Director of Training for the American Soccer Club "Eagles" youth program in Austin, Texas. He also served as the South Texas Men's State Team Coach from 1996-1998, and a South Texas YSA State Staff Coach for both the Olympic Development Program (1991-1999) and the Coaching Education Program (1991-2002). From 1989 until 1995, Robert was the Head Coach of the University of Texas Men's Soccer Team, where he led the program to a National Collegiate Club Championship in 1990, three other National Tournament appearances, and an overall record of 80-25-16. You can reach Robert at robert@soccerrom.com.