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Many youth soccer coaches have coached multiple seasons and they feel comfortable with their knowledge about soccer and coaching. This comfort leads them to believe they know everything they need to know about coaching soccer and they become far too complacent simply “winging it” during practice.

If you are one of these coaches, you are doing your players a great disservice because the simple fact is, your players will not learn as much if you don’t plan practice beforehand. A plan will allow you to put together a list of topics you hope to teach your team and cover as much ground as possible during the season.

The thing I love about coaches is that they love to be immersed in drills, workouts, notes, and offenses. Coaches are hungry for a new defensive scheme or that special play they can win a big game with. I contend that more is not better, especially when it comes to the amount of information we gather. If I told you that you could become a highly efficient coach by next year, would you be intrigued?

Depending on the competitiveness of your league, the objectives of your gameday plan will vary. Some coaches may be “coaching to win,” while others are simply trying to make sure each player gets an equal amount of playing time.

Regardless of your situation, I have a few pieces of coaching advice that any volunteer youth soccer coach can benefit from.

Your general practice plan, that is the broader objectives of what you are trying to do at practice, should be rooted in developing the kids on your team into better individual and team players. You make them better individually by improving their ball skills mostly. Work on trapping, dribbling and passing and your players should become more comfortable with the ball.

Like most sports, the winning team in basketball is determined by how many points your team scores. A high school game is only 32 minutes long, putting pressure on each possession to be efficient and productive. This article looks at three aspects of offense; shot distribution, selection and location.

If there are 60 possessions in a high school game (45 due to turnovers and free throws) and you shoot 45% from the field, your team will average about 21 made baskets a game. I would guess that your team could generate about 6 open lay-ups. If you fast break and press, probably a couple more. That leaves about 15 baskets your team still has to make.

1. Baseline Measurements

No training program should be designed without first determining proper training zones and intensities. The more specific the better. Raise your eyebrow when a training program simply instructs you to go at “race pace”, or “long easy effort”. Instead, each recommended intensity needs to include quantitative values. This means that your cycling hill interval workout should not just be “6-8 long hill repeats”, but should also prescribe power or heart rate training zones; such as “6-8 hill intervals of 4 minutes at an average of 300 watts”, or “6-8 hill intervals of 4 minutes at a heart rate of 154-165″. In order for a training program to prescribe such intensities, it is necessary for you to take baseline measurements.