How to Evaluate Your Kids' Soccer Team as a Coach

Evaluate the team at every practice session. A good coach is continually analyzing and fine-tuning.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Try to find the answers when you evaluate - what went well and what wasn't so good. Often a good coach doesn't make big changes. It might be organizational, it might be content, but evaluation is important.
2. Use all of your resources in your evaluations - players, assistants, parents and so on.
3. Assess how things are going for both you and your team about halfway through the season. Analyzing how the season is going is a good way to evaluate what you're doing right as a coach and what you might need to work on.
4. Get input from your players. This is one of the best ways to assess your season. Listen to your players. Children are perceptive and may be able to give you good guidance.
5. Gather your players and ask them the following questions: Are you having fun? Are you learning something? Are you applying what you're learning to the game?
6. Give the team some appropriate challenges. These should be concrete goals to work toward. Get the players excited and motivated.
7. Get input from the parents. Parents all have feelings about what's going on. This gives everyone the chance to communicate and to air his or her feelings.
8. Keep playing time as fair as possible. Always try to put a balanced team on the field, with your strongest players up the middle and your weaker ones on wide areas.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep your composure during all phases of a game so that your players will, too.
• Make sure players keep their commitment to come to practice. Emphasize to them that this is a promise they made when they joined the team.
• Soccer is a physically demanding sport that could result in serious injury. We recommend that you seek the proper equipment and training before undertaking this activity.