Calling All New Soccer Coaches, Volunteer, and Parent Coaches
Maybe your daughter or son started playing soccer, and their club needs coaches for U6 and U8. Awesome, you said yes!
Or you are volunteering at your local club and have never coached soccer.
Now what?
You could spend each weekend Googling:
- “soccer drills”
- “u6 soccer drills”
If your team’s kids are a bit older:
- “U8 soccer drills”
- “Youth soccer drills”
You’ll probably find some good information. You might have found us that way, too.
But… How do you know what is good and what is not? Youtube has great soccer drill videos, but again do they really help the young players that you are coaching? Plus, wouldn’t you rather be spending that time with your family, and friends or playing yourself? That lawn also isn’t going to mow itself!
We Can Be Your One Stop for U6 and U8 Soccer Drills for the Whole Season!
We have licensed coaches with deep experience and they are here to help you.
- Todd Hoffard – He has been more than 20 years coaching soccer in both the men’s and women’s games at the youth, collegiate, and professional levels. Including the US Girls Youth National Teams, Real Salt Lake (MLS), NY Red Bulls) MLS, as well as the youth camp and clinic company ONE on ONE Soccer.
*Learn more about our team on our About Us page.
We’ve Created the Handbook for Coaching U6-U8 Soccer Teams
It seems appropriate that a company called Soccer Handbook should create a U6-U8 Coaching Handbook, right? We think so! Here’s the low down on what you’ll get.
The Handbook – What You Get
This handbook/guide is meant to help both the new or less-experienced coach, the volunteer, or the parent with a full-time job that goes straight to practice after work. Or anyone that needs a ready-made, tried, and tested guide to coaching soccer at the U6-U8 age group.
It can be used however you want, but it is a comprehensive guide to an 8-week U6-U8 program. It gives a coach the tools, knowledge, and understanding of the basics of coaching this age group, plus lesson plans in developmentally chronological order.
The guide can be used within an organization to help the club with their coaching development and ensure they provide the coaches with education and help alongside their guidance.
Essentially, you can take what you want from the guide. It’s not exhaustive but comprehensive, especially with the principles of play, formations, and coaching basics.
The Practice Sessions
You can just use the diagrams and run with the session, I know a volunteer coach doesn’t have a great deal of time. But there’s also the ‘how’ and ‘why’, which, if you have time, are worth a look, to get an idea of the thinking behind the session.
This may also help you understand and relate the importance of the drills to the players. Your comments don’t need to be a lecture, just simple things like, “This will help us score more goals.”, “This will make playing more fun.” Or, in Sir Alex Ferguson’s words, “The two most important words in football (soccer) are ‘well done’.”
We hope you find this guide helpful and time-saving, as it was created to be. We believe it will also help bring you the joy of coaching youth players as they start their love affair with the beautiful game.
Fun, Respect & Integrity, Confidence, Teamwork, Courage, Competitiveness, Hard work, and Positivity
These philosophies are ingrained in our coaches and our organization, and this goes into every drill and exercises we create.
Good coaching is such a powerful gift and essential in being a positive figure in a young person’s life. It can help nurture and form a young person with skills they will take with them throughout their life, but in the wrong way, poor coaching can negatively affect a child.
This is why it shouldn’t be taken lightly. The young mind and the parent see everything you do. Therefore every minute you’re coaching, or teaching is vitally important and takes dedication. That’s not to say it’s challenging, fun, and rewarding.
At the U6-U8 level, we believe it’s very much about individual growth, developing character, and getting them to fall in love with the game. Soccer is the vehicle for their development.
