SWORD SPORTS AGENCY'S 13 STEPS GUIDE TO STAGE YOUR OWN SOCCER (FOOTBALL) TRIALS
SWORD SPORTS AGENCY'S 13 STEP GUIDE TO STAGE YOUR OWN SOCCER TRIALS
If you need a fresh injection of
talent into your team, follow our helpful guide to hosting your own football
try-outs and run our special game aimed at getting best out of trial lists.
THE PERFECT SCHEDULE FOR YOUR
SOCCER TRIALS
Use this schedule for your soccer
trials but adapt the timings to suit your needs – sometimes you may need to run
longer or you may have seen enough after five minutes. Have a starting time but
remember that new players and parents may not find the training ground straight
away.
5 MINS Start off with players
warming up in twos and threes using simple passing games – this gives late
players a chance to join in.
2 MINS Get the players together
and give them an introduction to the sessions and how you are going to run
them.
5 MINS A simple session for
players in teams. Mix the triallists with your own players in even teams and
play a couple of 4v4s to get everyone into top gear.
5 MINS Stop for a drinks break,
allowing you to sort the players into teams.
20 MINS Get your helpers to run
the main session from the next page with you watching. You may need to set up
two or three of these depending on how many players turn up and how many
coaches are helping you. This is the time to walk around the session and watch
as many players as possible.
5 MINS Stop for another drinks
break and talk to the other coaches about the trial lists. Select the players
you want to see in a session run by yourself.
10 MINS Run a coaching session
yourself using the players you have shortlisted. Playing a simple 4v4 will work
best.
5 MINS Stop for another drinks
break. You will have some idea of the main players you are interested in, so
take this opportunity to talk to them individually.
3 MINS Get all the players
together and ask them what they thought of the sessions and give them a chance
to talk and to ask you questions
Make sure the details of any player you are interested have been collected
before they go.
01 MAKE SURE YOUR TEAM APPEALS
You need new players but to get
them you have to make sure your team is an appealing proposition. Players may
go to two or three trials before deciding who to join, so why should they
choose your team? Have a plan that shows your training syllabus, your training
and match day facilities, and some information about the other teams at your
club. Make sure it covers how you plan to approach the next season and what key
developments individual players will get from you. If you want the best
players, make sure they know you are the best team.
02 PUBLICISE YOUR TRIAL
Use local newspapers and
community websites to let potential players know about the trial, making sure
that the information you send out includes the venue, the date and the time of
your trial. It’s also very important to include your target age range – the
last thing you need is lots of children of wrong age group turning up for your
trial.
Also try to get members of your existing team to turn up so you can mix the trial
lists with your established players and see how they interact. It is important
for the balance of your team that the players can get along both on and off the
pitch.
03 BE PREPARED AND ORGANISED
Don’t waste time greeting players
as they arrive. You’ve got far too many other things to be doing, so make sure
you have helpers on hand to register the players and issue them with sticky
labels with their names on. If you let yourself get distracted by the
formalities, it can often leave you struggling to find the time to set up all
of your equipment for the trial – getting it started promptly is the best use
of your time. Any precious minutes lost at the start of the tryout will take
away valuable observation time – and that could mean missing out on a good
player.
04 LET PLAYERS KNOW WHO YOU ARE
At the beginning of the trial,
make sure all of the potential players and their parents know who you are. Wear
a name badge with your title on it – Joe Bloggs, Head Coach – and make sure you
say a few words, introducing yourself and the other coaches. This is the time
to tell trial lists about how the session will work and what you are looking
for once all the preliminaries are over and everyone is warmed up. Tell them
it’s not a case of players being good or bad but how they fit into your team.
As you are trying to recruit a few of the trial lists, it’s important that the
players understand what you want from them and that you establish a quick bond
with them before the session kicks off.
05 WEIGH UP THE PARENTS
To know what you can expect from
players, it’s worth taking the time to assess their parents. Imagine a player
who regularly turns up late for training or who needs picking up for matches.
He would become a nightmare for you, so talk to the parents about their
responsibilities and what you would expect from them. You cannot commit to a
player until you know what the parents are like. They can cause problems from
the touchline in many ways, such as demanding their son plays in attack. Taking
on problem parents can sometimes sabotage your plan for developing the team so
beware.
06 DON’T USE STATIC DRILLS
There is nothing worse than
surrounding your tryout players with parents with clipboards and stopwatches –
dribbling through cones for the fastest time is not a match skill! You can warm
up with some technical work with a ball, either as individuals or in twos and
threes. Set some challenges like keepie uppies or one-two passing
07 CHOOSE YOUR GAMES CAREFULLY
The best activities to run at a
trial are small-sided games. Choose two or three different games where everyone
gets a touch of the ball. Running the wrong kind of games will not help you to
make your selection, so use activities that will help you to see how your
trial lists communicate and how well they fit in with their potential
team-mates.
08 COACH A SIMPLE DRILL
You will be coaching some of
these players for the rest of the season, so why not coach a short training
exercise as part of one of your tryout sessions. It can tell you a lot about
what you can expect to see at training. What if the potential star player that
you have your eye on actually hates to train, doesn’t like to learn and prefers
to mess around? Wouldn’t it be better to find out now?
09 ALWAYS MAKE THE TRIAL FUN
You won’t get the best out of
trial lists if they feel they are under pressure to perform. You want them to
do their best and that means they should be relaxed, so make sure to smile.
Don’t use this session to point out mistakes – tell the players that mistakes
don’t matter and that they shouldn’t worry if they make them.
10 SET CHALLENGES FOR YOUR
11 DON’T SCARE OFF NEW PLAYERS
Don’t scare off your trial lists
by allowing any bad behavior from your existing team members. If your regulars
are messing around and openly showing you disrespect, the new players and
parents at your trial will be less than impressed. Trials are not places you
want to have to discipline your current players.
12 ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS
Have a list of questions ready
that you can ask – not just about the game but try to find out as much as you
can about the players who have come along. Show them you care about them and
they will give much more of themselves to the trials you are running. Asking
questions might also help you spot the players that would be a nightmare – the
ones who won’t get up early enough on the morning of a game or who will fail to
turn up to training.
13 DON’T MISS OUT ON A GOOD
PLAYER
It’s difficult for youth coaches
at grassroots level to be able to distinguish between players with slightly
different ability levels and, if the set up at the soccer trial is not getting
the best out of the triallists, it is far too easy to overlook gifted footballers
in favour of larger and faster players.
If you’re uncertain, rely on your gut instinct because that is usually right
but don’t rely on it alone. Talk to the other coaches who were at the trials
because they could highlight players you have missed. Listen and consider other
views but try not to be swayed by any negativity towards players you thought
were good. Listen but ultimately make the decisions your own.
Give marks out of 10 for these specific areas of play and score
each player out of 100 to see if they’ve got what it wakes…
- Good first touch
- Ease on the ball
- Good dribbling skills
- Confident to beat players 1v1
- Communication with team-mates
- Knows where and when to support
- Speed with and without the ball
- Good at closing down and tackling
- Speed in decision-making
- Can anticipate play and intercept
KINTU EDMUND
CEO
Sword Sports Agency International
+256700197060
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