In the last post we discussed “fail and fail often.” The message was to learn from what’s working. In a nutshell, modify and adjust sessions according to what’s working. Forget about learning from your mistakes for one moment.

If you’re a coach and someone greets you with, “how are you?” or “how’s your team?”

How would you answer?

Can’t win a game and the players lack motivation and discipline. Every month I’m losing a player to another club.

Overall the team is okay but Jack can be a handful. He seems to be unsettling the whole team with his wild antics.

The team has won the majority of games but the parents can be intimidating and very abusive at times.

Next time you’re questioned about the team, highlight the positives and concentrate on the stuff that works. The story you tell, told or foresee comes from you, the coach, not from your team.

What story do you tell?

What story have you told?

What story do you foresee?

What story do you tell yourself ABOUT YOURSELF?

Wise grandparents tell stories of the good ol days. Politicians sell their lies. Drug companies sell a cure and marketers sell a product. We even sell our service to our boss for chump change.

What about you? Do you have something to sell as a coach?

Are you coaching Love Based Soccer? Do you have a mantra that reminds you how good you are? Or do you have something that reminds you that you’re a struggling coach and destined for failure.

When you think, plan, schedule or organize a session, what are you selling? Are you feeding your EGO or coaching from the heart?

You’ve learnt through experience that repetition works, that love motivates and that training will inspire. Everybody knows the power of the mind and the effects of being positive. The world is full of stories, amazing stories from players that had a dream and BELIEVED.

Before you implement any changes, before you try and motivate, inspire and develop your players, I challenge you to do the same.

“May the winds of destiny blow you to the stars”

Your potential players are so busy dealing with life that they haven’t got a spare second for you. They have just bought the latest computer game and all the talk at training is about level 5 and trying to save the princess.

What’s your answer to the above?

Like anything in life, soccer is a transaction. The young child donates his time and attention to you. In return, you must train them, teach them and give them an experience/session that’s worthwhile.

When you, the coach, understand this, you start to develop empathy. You know empathy don’t you? Passion, sympathy, love and all the other good stuff. You start to understand your player’s emotions.

You learn to ask yourself with every drill and exercise, is this fun? Interesting? Am I developing these players? Is this challenging?

Am I fighting the status quo?

Love Based Soccer warns you not to fall in love with your own coaching methods just because it’s your own shit method. Never assume your coaching methods are fun or challenging. Ask your players and get the required feedback.

Look at every drill, session or exercise through the eyes of a young, impatient (possibly spoilt) child.

So the question remains, “how do you coach Love Based Soccer?”

10 Steps to Coaching Love Based Soccer

• Gratitude- Thank everybody for his or her attendance. Thank the parents for transporting their children to the session. Thank your players for attending.

• Punctuality- You must always be the first one to training. Parents rely on you while they rush off to some peace and quiet.

• Being prepared is a gift of love. Plan your training sessions in advance and have the drills mapped out in your head ready for action.

• Learn all the players’ names. Identify each player by his or her name and never yell out oi. A child loves to hear their own name, so don’t delay.

• Know who you’re talking to. Research your players, parents and obtain their objectives and goals.

• Respect- Actively respect your team, associated parents and supporters. Should go without saying, but just in case!

• Dress to kill coach. Make sure you look sharp, smart and clean. Coaching kids soccer requires clean boots, tracksuit (brand not important) and a big smile.

• Faith is an important component of Love Based Soccer. Believe that the parents and players are supporting you. Every single parent that watches you and listens to you wants you to be awesome and amazing. They also want a great experience for their children. No one likes to see you fail or bomb out. They really want you to succeed; after all, you’re coaching their kids.

• Energy, never admit to fatigue or anger. The kids always come first, no matter what!

• Always smile and wear your heart on your sleeve. Be approachable and always remember to have fun.

Love Based Soccer ensures when you coach your players, it inspires 2 sentiments. Love and respect for what they may become.

“May the winds of destiny blow you to the stars.”

While watching a video on YouTube I couldn’t help admire a young kid playing his electric guitar. He has definitely plucked those strings more than once. What followed after the video was a little advertisement selling, you guessed it, how to play guitar. Very clever if you ask me and with over 2 million views at a conversion of 1%, the owner of this video should be earning a fair crust.

Do you know how to play guitar?

I’ve dreamt of being the front man on the axe but never got around to learning. To make matters worse, I can’t even sing and don’t have long hair.

The fascinating thing is this, if I picked up the guitar and got some lessons, I could probably jamm out a few of my favorite songs.

I don’t know how to play guitar because I haven’t attempted to learn. I haven’t read books or sought out an old wrinkled rock star that suffers from memory loss. Books and a rock god would be a great teacher in this case, don’t you think?

What happens when you ask a young player to participate in a soccer drill? If he feels overwhelmed he might blurt out,

“I can’t, I don’t know.”

Can you learn how to play soccer from a book?

This kid doesn’t require a book or a coach; he requires enough courage to overcome his fear of the drill. He requires the coach to encourage him and the peer support of his team.

The youngster doesn’t require instructions or any other technical advice for that matter. He needs to muster up enough courage to become motivated and to give it a crack.

So next time a youngster blurts out,

“I can’t, I don’t know how to.”

Don’t give them instructions, they ‘re not learning the guitar, give them support. Give them confidene, patience and a pat on the shoulder, give them Love Based Soccer.

“May the winds of destiny blow you to the stars.”

“You must train harder and run longer distances to improve your fitness”, he orders. “When I was your age I could run all day and i was the fittest player in my team”, he claims.

Your Soccer coach with all the best intentions decides to give you extra training to improve your fitness. He’s getting fed up with you holding up training and making the other players have to wait for you to finish the drills. With your ignorance and a handful of faith you accept. So you start putting in the extra hours training in hope that the problem diminishes.

“I can’t do it”, you scream. “I can’t run anymore because I can’t breath”, you cry.

“How much do you really want to play soccer?”your coach questions you. “This is the same training I did when I was a kid and it worked perfectly for me”, the coach argues while losing patience.

“I’m trying, I’m trying” you yell back with anger as your coach doesn’t believe you are trying.

“Well, what’s the matter with you? C’mon push” with a somewhat aggressive tone.

As you struggle to keep running everything becomes blurry. You collapse and cannot breathe. You are rushed to the nearest hospital by caring parents that had just witnessed the whole thing. Once at the hospital you are treated by the doctors and diagnosed with asthma.

What are the chances you’d go back to your coach with a problem? If your a betting man, not very good would be the favourite. You’ve lost all the confidence in your coach who doesn’t diagnose the problem before he offers you help. But how often do we diagnose problems before we offer solutions in our every day communication?

It’s human nature that we have a tendency to rush in and fix things as fast as possible. But we often fail to take the time needed to diagnose the problem. To really understand the problem that is right there in front of you. The best advice I can offer a soccer player,soccer coach or soccer parent is this,

Always seek first to understand the problem.

Right now, you’re reading what I’ve written. Reading and writing are a form of communication. Another form of communication is speaking and listening. Before I continue, I want to make one thing very clear, what’s the most important skill a soccer player could have? I can hear the answers, dribbling, shooting, passing and so on. The most important skill anybody could have is that of Communicating. Communication is the most important skill in life, not just soccer.

Everybody spends years at school learning how to read, write and how to speak. But what about listening? How many of you have been taught to listen? How many of you can honestly say that you listen? Listen to every word someone says and feel, understand and hurt with your fellow friend. Are you capable of this?

During the last years of my playing career, I got involved with some soccer clinics my club was holding. Kids would attend and all of them seemed happy and eager to learn. But more importantly they were all eager to have fun and listen. During the last clinic I ever did, a father approached me and complained,

I can’t understand my kid. He just won’t listen to me at all.

So I laughed and replied, “you don’t understand your son because he won’t listen to you?” My reaction to his question offended him greatly and an argument began. In the space of several minutes he ridiculed not only my playing ability but my character as well. The funny thing was that I was volunteering. I had given up my time to attend this clinic. I did not preach, I did not coach and I certainly did not try to influence any of the kids in any way. I simply attended to provide a platform for the kids to have fun. Most of these kids watched me play week in, week out and most of them listened and some even idolised. The kids were not the problem.

After I calmed the father down I simply said, “to understand anybody you have to listen”. Have you listened to your son? Do you know why he isn’t listening to you, he seems to be listening to me. After a long pause and a dumb look on his face, he explained,

But I do understand him, I know what he’s going through. I went through the same thing myself.

The conversation ended there and then. But I would like to continue this argument. The answer the father provided was a disgrace if you ask me. Why did he have the need to look into his own head and experience to find solutions for his child. Is today or any other day the same as it was 10-20 years ago? Is this the perfect case of the older I get, the better I was. Please, give me a break.

Everybody does it, we’re filled with our own values and standards. Everybody would love to write their own autobiography. Let me guess how it would read, I, I, I and then I and guess what, I ,I and so on. If your story has nothing of value to the reader, simply talking about your life is a waste of time except for your own little insecure ego.

The story I told at the start of this post was about a young 6 year old boy that loved to play soccer. He was young and played under 10′s because that was the youngest group that was available to him. He pushed and tried to impress the coach so he could play. He listened and obeyed because he believed in the coach. The coach blindly instructed and trained him which nearly led to his death. That little boy was me.