r/SoccerCoachResources

I play football and something's always bugged me: pros get every sprint, pass and touch tracked, but the rest of us have no real idea how good we actually are. So I've been sketching a standardized football combine — one circuit (sprint, reaction, passing, dribbling, shooting, jump…), sensors score you, and you walk away with a FIFA-style card, 0–99 per attribute, benchmarked against real pro data. Basically HYROX, but for football skill. Genuinely not selling anything — three honest questions: (1) would you actually do it? (2) would you pay, and how much? (3) what would make it feel legit instead of a gimmick? Brutal takes welcome.

While watching the Canada v Morocco game today, I noticed the Canadian coach basically just standing there not really being involved in the game. On the one hand there was nothing he could do at that point but on the other hand you never know what can happen and I feel like a coach should never give up on his team.

I see the same behavior from my kids travel team coach. They had a total loss season and this guy just sits there often basically waiting for the clock to run out. The other coach is actively involved in the game and I don’t mean in a screaming way.

My kids team does not play well and it hasn’t improved. The coach left at the end of the season so there will be a different coach next season. Watching the World Cup game through, it seemed like Canada did not play well and then I saw the coaches demeanor and my mind instantly remembered the same from my kids coach.

Wondering if anyone else had seen similar behavior with similar results and what could be gleaned about the coach from this. I don’t mean that the coach is bad but is there something missing between the coach and the team that is resulting in poor play and if so what could it be?

Saludos,

APFC is offering a 40 per cent discount. Can anybody recommend any of their courses? Thanks!

Feel like i'm going to need to spend more time this upcoming season teaching the team how to beat the low block.

Anyone else picking up on any trends in the world cup that we should expect to see more of next season after coaches get more exposure to the strategies they are seeing watching the WC.

Hello everyone,

I’m a new HS coach who’s played all his life. I’ve been able to get a good understanding of the players and noticed we have a lot of new players mixed with a couple veterans (played all their life) and experienced players (played all of HS). Many of them are juniors or below with 2 seniors.

We have a 3 headed dragon one being a 6ft cb for his club and is our best all around player. One being sort of our 6ft work horse. Decent passing, speed, strength, shot. He’s amazing at being open or being an option. And 3rd our freshman who’s technically the best on the team. Nice touch, pass, dribbling he’s just physically still getting there. He’s around 5’7, mid pace, gets pushed off the ball a lot.

I have a bunch of new players who are getting better but have 3 that have taken leaps in the short amount of time. Extremely coachable, aggressive, 100%effort. One is a bit shorter but easily has seen the most improvement. Another really has taken strides in passing, attacking the open space, and getting past a defender. The last one has progressed the most in actual football skills like passing, receiving, and communication but hasn’t connected the dots so to say or doesn’t have the right decision making.

This comes to my question (sorry for the long rant), I want to train them on their reactions and decision making so when a game comes or when we scrimmage they keep the ball moving and keep possession. We’ve been spending a lot of our time really getting the basics down but I want them to know what to do with the ball. What to do before they receive and what to do after receiving. How do I train them to make better decisions when they have the ball? We spend time working on being an option to the person with the ball but would love to get more info! I think drops aren’t used enough at HS level and would love to change that but have noticed they want to only move forward.

We have different levels of experience all across the team how should I train them with this in mind? Also I live in PWI where american football and basketball are our pride and joy meaning we don’t really have that culture (Main goal is to build a culture). That being said we have probably 15ish players max. During summer, practices and weights aren’t mandatory and have noticed many players just won’t show up. My biggest obstacle has been attendance. I have a small following that show up everyday. A lot of the kids work and the others just don’t show up. I have around 8-9 players that show up regularly and 4-6 players that show up everyday.

If you could build the perfect app for coaching youth rec soccer what features would you want. Is it best for team organization, lineups, practice management, game management, or a combination. I am thinking of building an up to help me in the way I coach. But I am wondering about ideas others may have. Because right now I use 3 different apps to manage my team and I really want it all in one.

I coach a 12U boys rec team​ and I'm really struggling to figure out how to prepare for the fall. This will only be my third or fourth season coaching, and assistant coaching at that.

I mostly leave the tactics up to the head coach, but since we are a rec club, we have a huge skills gap. Some kids have been playing for years and some are completely new to the sport.

I really want to focus on individual skill development and bringing the weaker / newer players up to speed as soon as possible without boring the older players. I just don't know how to help some players learn how to dribble and pass while I need others to improve their vision of the game, hold shape, or be braver / more aggressive etc.

Is there anyone else struggling with this? I feel like this would be less of a problem when coaching club soccer because everyone wwnt through tryouts and has a certain minimum competency, but I'm having a hard time figure out how to design a practice for everyone that will be challenging and engaging at the same time. And of course we need some fun thrown in there because if the practice only feels like work kids will just get bored and quit...

Generally this team practices twice a week for 90 minutes each with a game on the weekend and the kids are willing to show up that often and put in the work. I just want to make sure I'm using their time wisely.

I'm a 20 year old coach. I coach for a team already and I got my USSF D License. Although the USSF route is a little tempting since Iive in the US, I want to get UEFA licenses, but still live here. I know there's some intensive courses in Germany, but they are really expensive and my the team I coach for won't pay for me to get the license. What is a good UEFA program which will be cheaper than the DFB one, and will be an intensive program where I can live in the US and maybe just go for a week or two to get the UEFA C license and come back to live here?

Everyone talks about practices and games but what ends up eating the most time during the season? Parent communication, scheduling, attendance, paperwork, something else?

Does anyone out there combine age groups for their rec and club teams for practice ? We are a little town and - for some ages - have both rec and travel (my u 12 team plays lowest division for context). We have someone in charge who wants to try to make things more collaborative between both groups. While it sounds nice in theory, I have a hard time with this. Anyone have an experience like this ? Thanks.

How wonderful is the World Cup?!?!

The storylines, analyst coverage, fan coverage, cultural exchange, action, superstars…all the moments!

As a semi-rational US fan I feel mostly neutral and mainly able to enjoy every game. LOVED my family’s in-person experience for France v Iraq in the group stage.

Anyone else envy the quality of refereeing? Sure there’s been some controversial calls (or lack thereof), but already some hot games kept mostly under control.

Apart from USMNT winning a couple more, I really can’t ask for anything more than to just continue taking in the next nineteen days.

What a beautiful game!

Hi, I am looking to get into analysis. Any good ways to start? I have looked into some APFA courses, but haven’t done them yet. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Interested how everyone does their pre-season, we only have one training session a week and then likely a friendly for around 6-8 weeks! How do you plan it, what's your priorities?

Coaching rec U10s and every season I get parents who want more than "they're doing great." They want to know specifically what their kid is good at, where they're behind, how they compare to kids their age. I've started trying to give more structured feedback after sessions but it takes forever and I'm never sure what benchmarks to use. Curious how other coaches handle this, do you give written feedback? Verbal only? Or do you just deflect?

Curious what coaches think about it and if they use any of the sessions with their teams.

Hey all.

I want to know from you all, what are the little things that separates Club practices from rec team practices?

I'm looking to improve as a rec coach (going to 9v9 u11 boys in the fall), and currently have kids that keep signing up with me and enjoy it (100% return rate), and we are competitive. But I want to keep improving so I thought I'd ask specifically what club kids get that rec kids don't - and even more honed in, specifically what do they get at practices.

Club kids play more games and soccer in general. Their competition within practices and games is better because of a certain amount of selection bias happening. Also, I'm not an expert at all, so the level of coaching is better.

But I suppose that is what I'm getting at: what makes the coaching better, what makes club sessions better, what habits/ceremonies make game day better? What kind of games/practice activities have highest return, etc.

As above really, what do you keep track of in your notebook? Individual drills, session plans, or other bits of information?

I have 3 (I know right!), one has different drills for different scenarios, one has that week's session plans and the other is for tracking match information.

My query is to see if there is a better way? My method works for me, but I'm always looking to improve!

Hello everybody,

I wanted some input on scrimmages and coaches who only scrimmage.

I’ve been a coach for around 4 years at this point and I’ve coached all age groups (7v7, 9v9, 11v11). I was taught a to coach with a certain methodology and structure. The structure would follow a core theme for the session and have drills designed to focus on it. It would be the following:

1. Warm up
2. Intro drill that introduces the topic
3. Another drill focusing on it
4. Another drill with the same theme
5. Last 20 - 30 minutes open play and scrimmage amongst ourselves or against another team. We focus on applying m the core theme of the session.

The drills can be a mixture of SSG, tactical play, focus on playing certain areas of the pitch, dealing with direct play, etc…

I’ll extend some drills depending on how the team is reacting to it or cut drills out. My mentor taught me to refrain from open scrimmages against other teams too often because it means less touches on the ball per player.

I left coaching due to personal reasons for a little bit, but my club asked me to come back. They offered me a spot as an assistant to an 11v11 team and I accepted.

I’m having a problem with how often and how long the team scrimmages for. We train three times a week and full field scrimmage every single practice. We scrimmage for at least an hour or more every training session against the same team.

Due to field space, sometimes we have 3 or 4 teams on the field and that results in either 1 entire team waiting on the sideline or two entire teams waiting.

Whenever we scrimmage, a lot of the team complains about it.

I don’t know if it’s possible to over scrimmage. I also don’t know how to bring this up to the head coach and the coach of the other team we scrimmage against. Since the other coach is our director and he wants us scrimmage as often as possible.