"Tips, Themes & Things" Coaching Essays

We all know that there is more to coaching than just running great practices. So, to help you develop your own strategies for successful soccer, SoccerROM posts an in-depth essay on a new topic each month. These articles are provided by the SoccerROM staff and a number of other prominent coaches from around the US and the world, and will discuss everything from technical teaching points to team tactics.

We invite you to read this month's featured article, and then subscribe to get access to the rest of SoccerROM's "Tips, Themes & Things" archives!

Finding the Balance Between Games and Training

by Robert Parr

The standard curriculum of many youth soccer coaching courses advises that "the game is the best teacher". Although there is certainly some validity to this concept, coaches and league administrators often misunderstand the meaning behind this maxim. As a consequence, many youth soccer leagues and clubs have adopted policies that incorrectly emphasize game play at the expense of dedicated practice time. When we allow training and games to be scheduled out of balance, we create an environment that is not conducive to proper player development or player welfare.

To understand this point, we should first explore the intended meaning of this heuristic. There is a tendency among many novice coaches (especially those who don't have experience as soccer players) to conduct soccer practices in ways that aren't very effective, efficient, or even relevant to the demands of the game. Drawing upon experiences as players in other sports, these coaches turn to the "3 Ls" -- "lectures, lines, and laps" -- as the basic model for their practice sessions.

As a player-centric sport, soccer demands a unique blend of skills, decision-making ability, and physical fitness. The "3 Ls" do little to develop these abilities in a way that leads to success in games, so we prefer to have coaches rely on activities that more closely replicate the demands of the game in their training sessions. Thus, when we state that "the game is the best teacher", we are promoting the idea of using match-related activities in practices as much as possible to prepare players for success when playing their "real" games. In particular, we want our players to play a variety of small-sided and other conditioned games that will allow them to get many touches on the ball and face an assortment of tactical challenges in each practice.

Note, however, that we are not advocating that coaches replace practices with more games! If you take this concept to the extreme (and out of the proper context), you would conclude that teams should never practice, and should simply play a formal match every time players come together. This is clearly not what the best teams and players do, nor should it be our approach when working with young, developing players.

Since technical development is directly proportional to the number of touches a player gets on the ball, most of a player's learning will come from practices, not games. The average player will touch the ball for less than 2 minutes in a 90 minute match, so you have limited opportunity for skill development in games. Players generally will be risk-averse in matches, and thus rarely will attempt to try something new or difficult when a win or loss is on the line. Finally, you may have as many as half your players sitting on the bench at any point in time during a game, waiting for an opportunity to step on the field as a substitute. Although they may learn other lessons during this time, these players have no opportunity for technical growth while they are watching their teammates play.

Similarly, soccer coaches have limited opportunities to teach during games. We don't have "time outs" and can't stop the action to make coaching points, nor can players really understand and process instructions that are yelled out from the touchline 50-80 yards away. Practices are more economical for learning, as you can include all the players on your roster in each activity, you can use more than one ball (and more than two goals) at a time, and you can adjust the challenges presented by each activity to closely match the abilities of your players.

For these reasons, most experts agree that we need to increase our training-to-game ratios as players get older. As the game becomes increasingly complex and sophisticated, players need more training time to prepare adequately for the challenges they'll face in their games. Just as important, injury rates increase dramatically as players mature, and older players are 10-25 times more likely to suffer a significant injury in a game than in a practice. For any given level of play, injury rates also increase with fatigue, and decrease as skill levels improve. Thus, teams that play too many games in a short period of time (not allowing for proper recovery and technical growth between games) are very likely to find their rosters riddled with injured players as the season progresses.

For very young players (U6s), a 1:1 ratio of practices to games is fine, and may be achieved best by having each session start with 20 minutes of individual play with a ball followed by 20 minutes of small-sided game play. As players mature and gain greater self-awareness, they will naturally crave a more rapid developmental pace, which requires this ratio to increase to at least 2:1. Ideally, adolescent players will have 3 practices for every game they play, and more advanced players should expect a 4:1 or 5:1 ratio of practices to games over the course of a season.

Once we embrace these concepts, what are the implications for coaches and league administrators?

1. Clubs need to allocate resources for both practices and games. Recreational programs and parks departments generally assign fields for use by teams to play scheduled games, but frequently fail to set aside field space to be used by teams for training. When teams have to fend for themselves to find practice spaces and open time slots, the players inevitably suffer. Haphazard scheduling of practices makes it difficult for players and parents to plan, and thus attendance tends to decline. When teams are forced to train outside of club facilities, they do not develop the proper sense of connection with their club, and it makes it very difficult for the more experienced coaches in the club to assist or guide the training of these players. Clubs must ensure that practice time is given equal importance with game play, and provide teams with facility assignments for both uses at the start of each season.


2. Plan a schedule that allows you to play 30-40 games each year. If you coach an older youth team that practices 3 days/week over 10 months (43 weeks) of the year, you would expect to have between 125-130 practices total. To achieve a 4:1 ratio, you need to schedule 31-32 games across the year. Similarly, a U10 team that trains 2 days/week across 34 weeks/year would have approximately 68 total practices. To achieve the 2:1 ratio specified for this age group, you would need to play 34 games during the year.


3. League games need to be prioritized over tournaments. When a team plays a typical "three-game guaranteed" tournament in a weekend, players spend the majority of those minutes allowing fatigue to reinforce poor playing habits, and seldom are they able to sustain periods of play at optimum levels of performance. Further, coaches have no opportunity to address technical issues observed in one game before they send their players out on the field to continue making the same errors in the next match. Tournaments like this can provide a fun experience for players when they are an occasional part of the "soccer diet", but they can't be so frequent as to overwhelm the required training-to-game ratios.

Just as we give exams to determine how our students are progressing in school, we need to rely on our games to assess how well our players are progressing with their "soccer education". We wouldn't ask a student to take three exams in a row on the same topic without providing an opportunity for additional study; if we did, we certainly wouldn't expect to see any meaningful improvement in results from one exam to the next! Why should we approach education any differently when it takes place on the soccer field?

About the Author The co-creator of SoccerROM, Robert Parr holds a USSF 'A' license, NSCAA Premier Diploma, and a USSF National Youth Coaching license. He is currently the Director of Coaching for the Arkansas State Soccer Association. Previously, he served as the Director of Coaching and WPSL Head Coach for the Puerto Rico Capitals FC, the first international franchise to compete in the Women's Premier Soccer League. From 2003-2008, he was the Head Women's Soccer Coach at Georgia College & State University and also coached for the Georgia State Soccer Association Olympic Development Program. From 1995-2002, Robert was the Director of Training for the American Soccer Club "Eagles" youth program in Austin, Texas. He also served as the South Texas Men's State Team Coach from 1996-1998, and a South Texas YSA State Staff Coach for both the Olympic Development Program (1991-1999) and the Coaching Education Program (1991-2002). From 1989 until 1995, Robert was the Head Coach of the University of Texas Men's Soccer Team, where he led the program to a National Collegiate Club Championship in 1990, three other National Tournament appearances, and an overall record of 80-25-16. You can reach Robert at robert@soccerrom.com.