Maybe you have experienced the following: After preparing a great soccer pre-game speech your team is doing exactly nothing you talked about during the pre-game speech. During half-time you are doing a speech again. All players are quite and you think they know what you expect from them the second half. The second half starts and they still aren’t doing anything you asked them to do. After the game you are thinking about the speeches and the responds of your players. What you are actually asking yourself: Why didn’t I reach them?
With the following 10 tips you can make your pregame speech stick. These tips are not about the soccer tactics, but about the organisation of your pre-game speech. . If you want to know more about what you should tell your player’s in the pre-game speech, you can read an other article I ‘ll publish later this month.
1. Prepare your pre-game speech.
This sounds pretty obvious, but it still is the most important tip I can give you. Prepare your pre-game speech. If you know what you want to tell your player, you probably can. I you have to think about what you want to tell them, standing in front of them will not work. I always use flip over papers (also see tip number 5). By using these papers I force myself to think about what I want to say before I’m standing in front of my team.
2. Don’t make your pregame speech everlasting.
If you want the things you are telling your players in the pre-game speech to stick, you have to make sure your speech is not too long. An average person can stay focused for about 15 minutes. For small children this will be even less. So how much time you can take depends on your player, but in general I advice to make sure the pre-game speech is not longer than 10 minutes. For u10 team and younger you might want to think about not giving a pre-game speech. Only use tip number 10 for these ages.
3. Keep the attention of your players.
After making sure you don’t make your pregame speech too long, you still have to keep the attention of your players. You can do this with some easy tricks. Do the speech in a quite location. If you choose for the dressing room, make sure they don’t change their clothes while you are talking. Of course the players aren’t allowed to use iPod or their mobile phone. Sometimes ask a player who he/she did that point on practice. This will help you keeping their attention.
4. Be as concrete as you can.
When you talk about a certain task in the field, always use the names of the players. For example: “Joe, when our goalie is having the ball I want you to go wide.” Try to be as clear as possible. Leave no room for second thoughts. For the most important task you tell them exactly what you want them to do.
5. Help your player’s imagination.
A picture is worth a thousand words. You must have heart this adage before in your life. With your pregame speech this also counts off course. So try to visualize want you want your players to do. There are a lot of possibilities to do so. You could use a whiteboard, a clipboard, flip over papers and even video from a practice or other game. When your players see what you mean it will be so much easier for them to do this on the field.
6. Repetition makes your players remember.
The tasks you give your players that are really important should you repeat a couple of times. You can do this easily by summarizing at the end of each part of your speech. When you finished your speech about attacking, summarize the most important tasks. Because you are telling them it again it’s more likely they see it as something important and will try doing the task in the field. You can also ask the player to give a summary of the covered point in the pregame speech.
7. Don’t tell your players something new.
Your players benefit from a good structure. So doing your speech in the same way every time. Always first start with defence and than offence. Don’t confuse them with new stuff in your pre-game speech. Only do your pregame speech about thing they already know. New tasks or tactical ideas should be explained in practice first.
8. Right motivation to do well.
Some coaches are their whole pre-game speech talking about things not going well and about strengths of the opponent. In my opinion this is not very motivating for your players. You do have to tell them they are doing things great and that you have confidence in them. Tell them you are one team, the coach and the player. You’re in it together.
9. Let your players ask questions.
Is anything clear should always be a very important question at the end of your speech. If thing aren’t clear you can explain them again. It is really important that everybody is having the same thoughts about how to play soccer. Always give your players the possibility to speak about their thoughts of the game. Maybe they have some additional points you didn’t cover in your speech. But don’t make it a discussion. You are the coach and you are making the decisions.
10. Wish your players a lot of fun in the game
This is not a real tip to make the pregame speech stick, but I think it’s very important. Every player is playing soccer because they love the game. If they don’t like to play soccer anymore, they probably won’t. So the most important thing to have is fun. Without fun they will not be able to perform. Maybe it sounds silly, but their coach wishing them a lot of fun takes away some of the game pressure. It remembers them why they play soccer. It makes them feel good, so they start the game with a good feeling. Let’s hope they end the game with the same feeling!
How do you do your pre-game speech? I would really like to know more about that. Please comment and tell me more about your way of doing the pre-game speech.
