How to give a Half-Time Team Talk to kids

[@daveyelian]

Great points Ben. Something I used to do with my team (u14) that was very successful was let them talk. I would start off by asking the team if there was anything they thought we needed to do differently. I would listen to their opinions and if it was a valid and good suggestion, I'd make the change. Sometimes it was having a faster player change places with a slower player or a taller player with a shorter player. If we were having trouble creating scoring opportunities, my strikers would suggest dropping back to a midfield or even a CDM position and let midfielders play up as strikers then we started shooting from distance instead of trying to get the ball in close to the goal. I had two rules for halftime talks - no blaming and no negative comments about players. Only positive comments were allowed. So instead of saying "Coach, Ben is too slow so take him out of the game." The boys would say "Coach, Ben is having to cover a striker that's faster than he is so maybe if Ben and John swapped sides, we could slow down some of those attacks coming down the right side." If a player ever said something negative about another player, he would not go back on the field the second half. Giving the boys some ownership and opportunities to help run the team helped turned some of those players into very good team captains and leaders as they grew older.

[@TheMarpalm]

Good discussion- one thing I try to do is to talk about one specific thing to improve on when we have the ball and one specific thing to improve when the other team has the ball. It drives me crazy when coaches go on and on about all the things they are doing wrong- long negative discussions ever seem to create much improvement. I also try to give some specific praise to one or more players who really stood out in the first half.

[@CatalanSoccer]

Love that! Breaking it down to in/out of possession simplifies things for kids really well.