Training Priorities (continued)

When dealing with limited time in terms of training of young players, you have to make some decisions regarding priorities.  The first decision should be what are the short and long term goals for the players and team.  If the goals are geared more toward winning as opposed to player and team development then one way to do this would be by working on getting the biggest, fastest players, kicking the ball far, having the big fast players run the ball down and hope for either a goal scoring opportunity from this or a corner kick or free kick.  Then the team would spend a lot of time on free kick and corner kick “plays” and would most likely be successful in the short term (in this case, success being determined by winning).  The problem is, at some point, teams will eventually come across another team that is bigger or faster and at this point, the team starts to lose because they haven’t worked on skill development or tactical understanding of the game.

If the goals are geared more toward team and player development it sometimes results in less wins in the short term but better players and better teams in the long run.  If a coach only has 3-6 hours a week for training the question that has to be asked is whether the players will get more (long term) out of learning how to play and think through technical and tactical training or will they be better off with learning how to score on dead ball situations and being told where to go and when to go there?

As players and teams get older, working on dead ball situations become more and more important but without first getting the technical and tactical foundation down, I believe it’s improper use of training time for young teams and players.

Any questions, comments or suggestions should be sent to Lawrence@finesoccer.com  or they can be posted on the FineSoccer Forum at http://finesoccer.net

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