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?
