The Youth Football Guide – No. 17: Getting Emotional

Welcome to the seventeenth installment of a small series of serialisations of my book “A Guide to Surviving Youth Football” If you like what you see and want to read more please do go and purchase a copy of the book by going to amazon.

Getting Emotional

As a coach you are going to get emotional, it’s the nature of the job. We’re all human and it is hard not to get caught up in the emotion of youth football as a coach. The one thing as coaches we have to remember is that we are supposed to be setting an example so you have to try and keep your emotions in check at all times.

There is no feeling like when your team wins and I think that a lot of coaches are in the business because of this feeling. As a coach you will feel so happy to see your players achieving and to see them happy about their accomplishments. As a coach you just need to make sure that the result of a weekend fixture doesn’t affect your mood for the rest of the week. You can’t let what is happening with the team overwhelm you life outside of football. Coaching is something you do as a volunteer; as part of your life, not as your whole life.

When your team loses it is hard not to be upset, angry, or annoyed on the inside, but it is important that you don’t show this on the outside as your players will usually be disappointed enough without you adding to it. Never take your frustrations out on your team as it will only make things worse. Shouting at a team after a defeat isn’t going to help morale or turn them into a winning team. Then again, don’t take the disappointment of losing in to your life outside of football and let it affect your day-to-day life. Always try and find the positives and think of proactive ways of dealing with a loss, learning from it, and making your players better players.

At training it is very hard not to get wound up by your players when they are messing about and pushing you to your limit. It is very important that you don’t react to them. Most of the time they will be trying to get a reaction out of you and if you give it to them they win. At training you can’t let the behaviour of a few affect how you treat the whole of the team. In training you have very little time so you can’t waste any by getting stressed or annoyed.

www.theyouthfootballguide.com

(Image coutesy of Ali Brohi)

About the author

adamsibley has written 18 articles for Soccer On The Brain

After qualifying as a referee Adam qualified as a football coach and got involved coaching boys teams for Liskeard Junior Football Club. After some successful seasons with the boys he then started work as part of a team pioneering girls football in the town. He now coaches three girls teams at Under 12, Under 14 and Under 15 level. Last season the Under 12s were crowned county champions and the Under 14s won the Cornwall FA Fair Play Award. He is also a Child Welfare Officer. He works in the media industry so this is his other passion and through this he has launched his own book on youth football called "A Guide to Surviving Youth Football"