As a soccer training coach, you are responsible for many things. Your team members should understand the basic rules of soccer, they should know and understand all the positions in soccer, they must know how to perform many techniques, and they must develop personally in skills, and be able to hold their own on the field. However, there is one main responsibility that is often forgotten when it comes to effectively coaching during soccer training sessions. This is the responsibility of promoting sportsmanship as a soccer training coach.
Sportsmanship is very simple to understand. It means to display a high sense of pride in the game play, the rules, the ethics, and the fun in a game. As a soccer training coach, it is imperative that you lay the basic foundation for good sportsmanship during soccer training. As a matter of fact, this should come before all those fancy dribbling techniques, kicking positions, heading methods, and other aspects of soccer training.
The first way that you can promote sportsmanship as a soccer training coach is to teach your team that having fun comes before everything else. While winning is an important aspect of a sports team, it is not a very rewarding experience if the team did not have fun winning. Many times, the team that wins only does so for the coach of the team and not for themselves if they did not have fun doing it. Unfortunately, there are many teams out there that only play for their coach. It is your responsibility to ensure that your team is not doing this. If they are, you should put a stop to it immediately and let them know to just play a good, fun game and only win for themselves.
When promoting sportsmanship during soccer training, it is important that you shift the focus from “competition” to “cooperation”. While a little bit of competition is good for the soul, it is not good to solely focus on this aspect during soccer training. Cooperation is a great way to develop team unity and show the importance of being fair. Additionally, it displays to the members of the team that everyone has a special place in the team and that one position is not better or worse than another position. By instilling this value in your team, you will experience more success during soccer training.
When promoting sportsmanship during soccer training, it is imperative that you coach and encourage each individual that you are responsible for. Many coaches have a tendency to display favoritism to various members on a team. You should be fair and unbiased in all of your interactions during soccer training. Not only will this motivate your team, but you will be better at training and developing each person on the team to ensure that they perform their best.
It is always important to understand that promoting good sportsmanship during soccer training is the most important job that you have as a coach. If you fail to remember this, you may find your team in disarray. You may also experience many failures. It is more important to strengthen an entire team at its foundation then to try to get a wall to move out of the way.