Football coaching principles
The sports pages and sports magazines across the world always have one story about the same subject, it's there every day of the year. A coach in one of the divisions in your country should quit because he has lost the last few games.
Highly paid coaches come and go all the time because they cannot get the win demanded by the fans.
At grass roots level the pressure is still there. If I don't start the season with a win there are always mutterings among my players and their parents. Already comments like "not as good as last season" and "we're in the wrong league" are muttered on the sidelines.
And it's hard when you have been promoted in junior divisions because you haven't a clue how good the division is. I often hear of coaches who won every game in one season getting promoted and losing every game the next.
Is he any worse a coach than last season? No, it takes a lot of experience to learn how to handle going up a division. It's an exciting time. I remember taking my team into the top division at under 11s. It was quite a scary, exciting time for all of us. We drew the first game 1-1 and never looked back.
But there was a period around about January/February when we lost three games in a row. Muddy, wet pitches were our downfall. The parents were restless. The boys glum. But we stuck to our principles and a dry spell saw us win the next three and I was the best coach again.
So if you are having a poor spell and your team haven't won in ages, don't lose sleep over it. Your players need you. Keep reading Better Football Coaching, invest in a few of our manuals and while I can't actually guarantee you will win the league, I can guarantee your team will develop a group of technically proficient players able to play good, passing football.
If you keep playing the way you should, eventually results will change and you will turn your season around. And remember, players learn more by losing than they do by easy wins, make sure your team learn their lessons and work on them in training.
You're not alone!
If we all gave up because we didn't win the league every year there would be very few grass roots coaches left. The important thing is the players and how much enjoyment you give them from our wonderful sport. For example, the player who finally makes it into the team has reached a huge goal in his chosen sport. That is how you should judge your coaching, how well the weakest player has done over the course of a season.
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