Great Soccer Drills : The Baffled Parent's Guide

This book has proved a valuable resource for getting our U10 soccer team going. It provides numerous drills that are at once fun for the kids (8 & 9 year olds still play mostly for fun), and also effective at building skills. Used in conjunction with The Baffled Parent's Guide to Coaching Youth Soccer, it can provide a basic set of plans for any level of soccer play up to about U16.

I am a USSF National "D" license coach who also recently took the USYSA National Youth License Course. This book is an excellent resource and mirrored many of the things that were taught in the course. Don't let the title fool you; it is about teaching soccer through games and fun activities. I used it to supplement my training sessions at the U-9 competitve level here in Florida for my team and we had great success. I would recommend this book to anyone, including rec and competitive coaches for U-12 and below, especially. We are working on getting every coach in our club one of these books as well.

I'm an "A" Licensed coach who recently took the USSF National Youth License. This book was recommended by them. The course was excellent and this book, written by the same people who wrote the curriculum for the NYL, is a mirror-image. I found this such a great resource, I purchased one for every coach in my club.

While reading, Great Soccer Drills : The Baffled Parent's Guide by Thomas Fleck, I partiticipated as an assistant Soccer Coach on my son's team. I was familiar with his coach from a prior experience and knew this particular coach was difficult to communicate with. Shortly after beginning the practice season I was able to use Mr. Flecks book to identify some troubling aspects of our bi-weekly soccer practices. Our youth soccer league had endorsed the sort of "small sided" games illustrated in the book, however the teams coach would insist on using complicated drills for an older age group. The result was a group of young boys overwhelmed by the complicated drills who would then be subjected to repeated "stomach crunches" for not listening or following the drills. By reading the book, I was able to see that this situation bordered on abuse and I withdrew my child from that particular practice and team situation. My whole family is greatful for the thoughtful and "child centered" approach to coaching youth soccer presented in this very informative guide.

This book is just what you need if you know nothing about soccer and are going to be coaching young children. I coach 7 & 8 year olds, the drills are easy to understand and execute.