They Do, But Are They Really Learning?

Having watched many youth soccer games over the last decade (I'm an official as well, and for many years was on a pitch no less than 6 days a week), I have heard the saying that players "look lost out there" or "their style of play is very robotic". We then ask the questions of "why do they look lost out there?" or "why are they playing like robots?" and below I am going to explain my thoughts on why I believe this happens very often and what can be done at an early age of development to help stop this problem.

Many times when coaches run a training session, they explain the drill, do a demonstration, correct (or yell a lot of the times) something that is being done wrong, and then watch the players go through the motions of the drill properly. This may seem good if the players can complete a drill properly, but coaches (especially at the younger ages u8-u13) often forget what I believe to be the most important step when teaching children to play the game, and that is finding out if the players truly understand what they are being taught.

As a coach of a girls u9 player pool this is a step that I refuse not to overlook at any of our training sessions. The way this can be done is by asking players open ended questions (other than just do you understand? or do you have any questions?) Questions that need to be asked are "why is this important?" "when in a game would we use this?" or "if this happens (a change in the play as things rarely work out exactly according to plan) what do we need to do?". Questions like these give you as a coach a better understanding if the players are actually grasping what you are teaching them, or if they are simply just going through the motions of what they are being shown. As I mentioned briefly earlier, there are the coaches who like to yell or tell a player how to correct something they are doing wrong in a drill. Although correction is needed, I believe that the best way for this to be done is not by telling them what they should do, but instead asking what the player or team believes they should do to correct what they're doing, and then as a coach you should elaborate on what they say.

As a coach this approach has many benefits in the development of young players, along with the development of the coach. Some of these benefits are:

• Helps you understand if the players are grasping the concept of what is being taught
• Makes them aware of when to apply such skills or tactics in a game
• When they hear information coming from a peer they sometimes can better relate to what is being said
• As a coach working with younger kids there are moments where we use advanced terminology (I'm guilty of this sometimes, but luckily my assistant coach is able to remind me that the girls are 9), but there is a player or two who understands what you are teaching and can break down what you are teaching into the most simplistic terms that wouldn't ever cross your mind
• It challenges the players to think deeper about the game

At the end of each training session it is important to ask the players a few questions and they are:

• What was today's topic? (hopefully you tell them at the start of training)
• What are some important things about the topic?
• Why/when do we use such skill/tactic?

If these steps are followed it will give you a much better gauge on whether the players you are training are simply just going through the motions, or if they are actually understanding what they are doing. If they truly understand what they're doing then it will help them that much more in their development.