Soccer

Fundamental skills, offensive and defensive strategy, team offense and defense, conditioning and motivational techniques--every conceivable aspect of the game is discussed in this official coaching handbook from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. Never before has so much information by so many renowned soccer authorities been collected in one volume. The National Soccer Coaches Association of America wa formed in 1941 and its mission today is the same one set forth by its founding members in New York: to promote the sport of soccer in the United States, while at the same time providing an educational environment for individuals at all levels of the game to improve their coaching skills. It is their belief that better coaching will improve the play of the sport in this country. The NSCAA membership has grown to more than 11,000 coaches nationwide, male and female, from the youth level to the collegiate ranks.

The key to successful coaching is getting your players to make successful decisions on the field. Skills and Strategies for Coaching Soccer gives you the tools to do just that. You'll have access to 120 drills for teaching skills and techniques; more importantly, you'll know how to develop these skills in realistic game situations with beginning, intermediate, and advanced players.

Essential skills are presented, including collecting and controlling, passing, dribbling, kicking, heading, goalkeeping, and the throw in. But the unique feature of this book is for each skill presented, you'll find drills for players at different levels of development.

And no one knows the importance of skill development better than Alan Hargreaves--one of England's top soccer coaches. He has coached 5-year-olds to pros, using the same skills and techniques presented in this book.

With Skills and Strategies for Coaching Soccer, you'll learn the what, how, and why of soccer through:

- offensive moves and countering defensive moves,
- 120 drills for beginning, intermediate, and advanced players,
- coaching points for each drill,
- a fitness program for soccer,
- sample game situations and how to coach in those situations,
- 246 high-quality illustrations of field diagrams and skill execution, and
- methods of coaching that are appropriate for individuals or groups.

You'll also find information on how the modern systems of soccer play have evolved since 1870 as well as how to be effective with your pre-game, half-time, and post-game talks.

Skills and Strategies for Coaching Soccer is essential for:

- Beginning coaches - will receive a comprehensive introduction to soccer and soccer coaching.
- Team coaches - will have immediate access to new drills, new tactics, and fitness tests used with Olympic players, as well as advice on team management and systems of play.

This hands-on guide will also prove useful for:

- College and university students - will learn all the essentials of coaching soccer effectively.
- Teachers and lecturers - will gain a detailed reference source for new skills and drills to use when preparing their lessons.

Skills and Strategies for Coaching Soccer presents all of this information in a style that combines the concern for the dignity of the individual with a love for the manner in which the game is played. Alan Hargreaves believes in this coaching philosophy--a philosophy that through experience has proven to be effective in producing winning teams.

It's all part of the time-tested formula that makes Skills and Strategies for Coaching Soccer an indispensable guide for soccer coaches in any setting.

It is a comprehensive set of characteristics and attributes to be combined by an individual to perform the function of a soccer coach, as well as to an examiner to make a self or third party assessment. It is intended to be useful for multiple audiences and situations, namely: - Soccer coach self evaluation - Teachers, instructors and students (i.e. colleges level and accreditation courses) - Club directors and executives at a decision making level while selecting soccer coaches - Aspiring vocational examination, formal or speculative - Press - General public ----------------------------------- Preface by Prof. Dr. Júlio Garganta Faculty of Sports University of Porto

The A Coach's Guide to Successful Soccer Practices: Drills and Activities to Create Champions is comprised of eight chapters with over eighty drills covering basic skills, small completive games, and fitness activities. Also included are skill ideas for youngsters, warm-up activities, circuit training information, and more.

The drills and activities can benefit an experienced coach, an interested parent, or an assistant coach. The drills/activities:

• Are coded by the number of players needed—a concept omitted in most soccer books • Are great for players of all skill levels • Have diagrams that are clear, uncluttered, and explained in everyday language • Can be used inside or outside and require small areas • Are ideal for coaching young players • Includes ideas for teaching skill techniques • Are ideal for today's electronic devices. • Provides challenging and competitive soccer drills that make even novice coaches’ practices successful • Keep a players interested thus giving an additional benefit of freeing the coach for individual guidance and instruction

Suppose this happens to you.

"Mommy, Daddy, if you don't coach us, then we can't have a team." The words bring terror to a parent's heart.

You don't know anything about coaching soccer. Or you might think, “I played some soccer when I was a kid, but coaching—where do I start?”

Now instead of feeling frustrated, you have A Coach's Guide to Successful Soccer Practices: Drills and Activities to Create Champions, which can give you direction and guidance in coaching

Question: How much in love with a sport does a boy have to be when, at age 14, he asks his parents for permission to leave home and move to England on his own so he can join Reading FC to try to become a soccer professional—and warns that if they say no he will never forgive them? Answer: As much in love as the scared-stiff Bobby Lenarduzzi was when he left home and family to pursue the game that has become so much of his life.

Of course, Lenarduzzi had no way of knowing as he stepped into the Reading dressing room that he would one day become the face of soccer in BC; that he would win a North American Soccer League championship with the Vancouver Whitecaps, and rise through their coaching and management ranks to his current role as president and CEO as the team prepares to step up to Major League Soccer in 2011.

It's been a fascinating, moving, often hilarious journey, laced with characters like Willie Johnston, who once paused while taking a corner kick to accept a beer from a fan; Alan Hinton, who was less than fit but took free kicks so accurately that the Province reported "When Alan Hinton put a corner kick on your head, he'd give you your choice of eyebrows" and Brian Budd, who won the Superstars series competition so often they changed the rules to keep him out.

They all come alive in Bob Lenarduzzi, along with coaches, owners and the madcap adventures, triumphs and failures as Lenarduzzi and Jim Taylor weave the tale of the side, to quote a US TV commentator, "from the village of Vancouver."

This book focuses on teaching and implementing the 5-3-2 using a sweeper as the fundamental part of its defense. Included are a detailed coaching program and a sequence of exercises designed to develop in the players the necessary automatic movements.