“There are more coaches who break people than there are coaches who make footballers play better football.”

“Working hard is not good enough; you have to work hard but the right way” Alex Ludwig

The coach’s job is simply to help the players play better soccer. He accomplishes this by
accelerating the learning process. This requires him to coach the right thing and to do it
in an efficient manner. With the small amount of time that children spend at practice both
points are critical. Small sided games take both into account.

The section on reading the game will deal with how to settle on the right thing. Once the coach has isolated the problem he needs to design the correct game. When he combines it with the correct coaching the children have the best chance to learn. This correct coaching is called the color of the coach. It’s his stamp on the practice. It’s what brings the games to life.

With the correct game there will be many opportunities to solve the soccer problem. Its
how the coach approaches these moments that determine the outcome of the session. If he’s overbearing then the session is about him, he is at the center. If he’s invisible then the learning is by luck. It is just the right touch that keeps the practice being about the game and provides the best climate for learning.

Be careful of absolutes. “Never pass the ball across the goal.” The child asks “why?”
“Because they could intercept it and score a goal.” Is that always true? Certainly not. A
bad pass might be, but a good one won’t. Absolutes limit children’s thoughts and actions. Soccer encourages expression; its part of what makes the game enjoyable.

Absolutes can also become dogma. They educate through fear and fear takes the fun out of anything. It’s better to let children try something and fail and then help them to
understand the consequences. This can turn on the light bulb of understanding. Teaching is like lighting a torch, not filling a jug. Children have a natural level of curiosity which, should be encouraged.

An office manager knows that he’s successful when things run smoothly while he’s gone. He has created a system that doesn’t require constant supervision. A coach strives for the same thing. His aim is to make the children independent, able to solve problems without outside assistance. The problems and solutions for the children are all on the field. When they no longer need help from off of the field the coach has done his job.

A Coaching Model

Being a coach, like anything else, is a matter of “wearing a different hat.” It is not the
same thing as being a parent, a fan or a role model. The coach has responsibilities
beyond these. In order to fill them he will have his own views and they will be filtered
through his “coaching glasses,” a set of assumptions about the children, the game,
coaching and his role in the process.

The Children. They will either be active, i.e. curious, wanting to figure things out on
their own, possibly stubborn, willing to learn through trial and error, needing to find their own answers to problems. Or they will be passive, simply vessels that have to be filled with the correct answers to all of their problems. Willing to accept the adult views as correct and subordinate their own to it.

The Game. The vision of how the game should be played. Listen to the words that the
coach uses regularly, hustle, pressure, go, and kick it long and a picture will emerge of
what the coach values in the game. Is it a player’s game or the coach’s game? Is a
controlled buildup preferred to a quick counter attack? Will the team defend in the
opponents half or drop back into their own?

The Coach. The coach can teach by leading, giving instructions, controlling, being at
the center of the activity and always having the answer. Or he can guide by offering ideas in place of answers, encouragement for the players to try their own solutions, covert instead of overt direction.

Coaching. How do children learn best? By learning the parts and then applying them to
the whole? Or, by learning the whole and letting the parts take care of themselves? These questions are the focus of numerous books on childhood education and bring as much debate as how the game should be played.

Effective coaching is similar to being an effective doctor. First is the ability to diagnose
the ailment. Next is the ability to prescribe the correct treatment. Finally, how to modify
the treatment as the patient improves.

The important point in this model is that the different frames in the “coaching glasses”
should support one another. Passive kids won’t respond to a guiding coach. They’ll both
wait for the other to take initiative. In my vision: the kids are active, the coach guides,
the game are centered on the player’s and they learn best by playing the game itself.
“You can learn a brilliant book of coaching drills by heart, but the ability to act at
the right moment, to make an accurate analysis and to show how things should be
done, is much more important. That is the heart of the matter!” Alex Ludwig

Two Key Issues in Coaching: Organizing and Teaching

There are two ways coaches can affect players’ learning. The first is the type of training
exercise. The coach must be an organizer. If the coach can create a learning atmosphere simply by how he organizes training, he will have been very successful. For example, many European soccer coaches talk about re-creating “street soccer.” The idea here is to put the players in an environment similar to the one in which kids used to play in the streets. In this case, the medium is the message. If players do nothing but technique drills in training, they will not be able to make decisions in the games when to use those techniques. The game is a terrific teacher on its own.

The second way coaches can affect the learning of their players is the type of coaching in which they engage during training. The coach must also be a teacher. It is not enough to be an organizer. How does the coach act within a training exercise? What is his teaching style? Sometimes players need to “discover” how to do something through trial-and-error, other times they need exact instructions. Teaching style depends on the topic, the players, and the ways in which a coach is comfortable working.

Teaching or Learning

Is there a difference between teaching and learning? If there is, what is it and what does it mean to a soccer coach. “When does teaching stop, and learning start?” There is clearly a distinction between the two. Teaching refers to the teacher, learning to the student. Is learning possible without teaching? Consider the average elementary school physical education experience. In the PE classroom the teacher teaches. Lots of organized lines, drills, rules and lots of structure. Some learning does take place with everyone doing the same thing at the teacher’s discretion and pace. Contrast this with recess. No lines, drills, a minimum of rules and structure. Learning still takes place but now everyone’s at their own pace and pleasure. Which environment do the children prefer? Which is a better one to learn in?

Juergen Klinsmann called soccer “a self-learning game.” This implies that it cannot be
“taught.” Does this mean that the correct practice is “what ever they want?” Recess
everyday? Certainly not. This is certainly no way to build a team in the short period of
time that’s available. But by carefully constructing games the children can learn lessons
over a period of time and, even faster, when the correct coaching is added.

Alex Von Ludwig
Master Coach