Every training session should be seen as an opportunity to improve the players at your club.
Whether your coaches are looking to implement a new playing system, work on set pieces, or encourage better distribution of the ball, each session should have a clear focus and takeaway.
But with so much planning involved behind the scenes and so many demands on their time, it can be all too easy for coaches to waste training sessions by focusing on the wrong areas.
The most reliable way to guard against wasted sessions is to develop a detailed, watertight soccer coaching curriculum across each age group. This way, it’s immediately clear what a certain group of players should be working on at any given point in the season.
We’ve already given you a detailed introduction to soccer coaching curriculums. Now, we’ll talk through the process of creating a curriculum for your age-level teams.
What are the purpose, benefits and objectives of a soccer curriculum for players?
First off, it’s worth reminding ourselves why you’re doing this in the first place.
A soccer curriculum should be formulated before the start of a season, with the aim of helping the players at your club meet clearly defined development goals.
For instance, you might wish to focus on improving your team's ability to play through the thirds. Relevant drills – concentrating on areas such as possession, passing and movement – would be held throughout the season, with regular reviews undertaken to identify progress at team and individual level.
But while two coaching curriculums may share the same end goals, their approaches to meeting these goals may differ substantially in line with a wide range of factors – everything from the experience of coaching staff, to the age level and skill of players, and the type of facilities available to the club. The curriculum will provide a roadmap for meeting your ultimate objectives while taking into account the specific challenges of a given team or age group.
How to create a soccer coaching curriculum using The Coaching Manual software
While the benefits should be apparent, the idea of building a training plan spanning an entire season can seem intimidating. How can you be sure you’re focusing on the right areas? What proportion of time should be spent on each type of training session? How will you find the time to bring it all together in the first place?
Fortunately, building a soccer curriculum couldn’t be easier with The Soccer Manual.
Rather than devoting hours – or even days – to developing your curriculum, our intelligent software can create a whole season’s worth of drills and exercises in a matter of minutes. Here’s how it works in seven simple steps:
- Choose your team - Because we understand that backroom staff are often involved in multiple teams, the first step in our season planning process is to name the team whose curriculum you’re planning.
- Choose your player age group - Player needs vary significantly from one age group to another. Telling us the age range of the players you’re working with helps us to create a bespoke plan that’s relevant to your team.
- Select the start and finish dates for your curriculum - Simple – just tell us when you want the season plan to start and end, and we’ll create a curriculum that meets your needs.
- Tell us the days and times of your training sessions - Give us the days and times on which you train – up to three sessions per week – so that we can fit the sessions you need into a timetable that fits your routine.
- Give us your regular matchday - Again, matchdays can vary from one team to the next. Tell us the days on which your fixtures take place and we’ll ensure your players get the right balance of skills-based training and game preparation.
- Wait for up to four minutes - Bear with us! It’ll take up to four minutes – that’s just 240 seconds – for our algorithm to build you a season-long training plan. Make yourself a coffee, grab a snack, and wait to view your curriculum.
- View your season plan with our interactive calendar - Congratulations – by answering a few simple questions, you’ve built a training curriculum that covers a full season! Use our interactive calendar to browse the sessions scheduled for each date.
Keeping your curriculum aligned with new goals and challenges
Of course, even the best-laid plans will become outdated at some point.
Any number of factors may necessitate changes to your season curriculum. Perhaps you’ve lost a key member of the coaching team. Perhaps several new players have joined your squad. Perhaps, having carried out performance reviews, you’ve discovered that players are well behind or (hopefully) ahead of schedule, requiring objectives to be updated.
Whatever the case, your soccer curriculum should be treated as an agile, flexible plan that can be amended in line with the changing needs of your players.
However, you shouldn’t change for change’s sake. Our software understands how to build a curriculum that’s appropriate for each age group and will help you achieve your goals.
Don’t be tempted to make wholesale amendments off the back of two or three shock defeats or victories. When it comes to helping your players develop, consistency of approach is vital. When you do iterate, concentrate on highly specific changes targeting one or two key areas of your curriculum, rather than tearing up the rulebook and starting from scratch.