Coaching Input needed.

I have watched a lot of recreational and competitive soccer and I have seen some great coaches.  There are some coaches who seem to have it all together.  Their teams seem to move in unison always in the right position.  If their teams need any adjustment it comes from an almost inaudible word as the coach never gets up from his or her seated position.  I have also seen some really bad coaches.  I have seen some coaches so bad that they have run off girls with tons of untapped potential because they made the experience of playing soccer so horrible.

When I began playing soccer in 1977 our coaches were dads who had never played soccer and in many instance had never even seen an organized game before they agreed to coach.  I do not remember much about those practices.  I do know that they do not resemble practices of today's teams.  As far as I knew, clowns were the only people that juggled.  There is a good chance that the current crop of coaches have actually played soccer sometime in their life.  If they are like me, their coaches were not great and thus there is not a great foundation to build on for their coaching career.

I understand that probably 95% of soccer coaches are volunteer coaches.  I fall into that category.  Me and my peeps did not go to school to learn the pros and cons of various soccer formations.  We wanted our kids to be active and most soccer associations require their teams to have coaches.  I figured that my 8 years of rec soccer qualified me to be a great coach. WRONG!  I realized really quickly that my knowledge of soccer was not going to be enough to get us past maybe the first practice.  I needed some help.  I dove head first into the internet to find some ideas for practice.  There are a lot of sites that use diagrams and in depth description to explain soccer drills.  Most require a doctorate to recreate in an actual practice.  I began to find a few videos of soccer drills.  The videos were great because I could now see what the drills were supposed to look like.  I could also see if it was age appropriate for my team.

One of the reasons for creating this site was to create a forum where coaches of primarily girls teams could pool our collective knowledge to try and become better coaches.  I would love any input or suggestions that you have.  If you see any of the videos that I post that you like or dislike please let me know.  If you have any videos that you would suggest, please let me know and I will put them up.  As a group we can sift through the good and the bad to come up with some great coaching resources.  I look forward to our discussions and your suggestions.