Pre-Season Build Up

Welcome to the second installement 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.

Here is a small section of my chapter on one of the most crucial times of the season – Pre-Season:

Pre-Season Build Up

The pre-season is the most important time for any team. If you are keeping the same team from last season it is your first chance to assess where they are at with their fitness and skills since the Spring / Summer break from football.

The date you set for the start of pre-season is very important as you need to give your players a big enough break from football but you need to get them back early enough to make sure you hit the ground running at the beginning of the season. If you are continuing with a team it is important to set and announce the date that pre-season will start before your players go on their post-season break so everyone is aware of it.

As a coach you have to be aware that your players will go away with their families over the summer break but you can’t wait for everyone to get back from holiday to start training. With this in mind you have to set a date knowing that you will be missing some of your players on some weeks but as long as you can get the majority of the team together on a weekly basis you can get some work done.

Regardless of whether it’s a new team you are starting, or a team you are carrying on with, pre-season is a time to look at what you are missing and if you need to bring in any extra players. It’s the time where you assess where you are weak and where you need to improve.

Fitness should be the major focus of your pre-season training. Some of your players won’t have done too much sport over the holidays, they may have been doing a lot of TV watching and playing on computer games. It is important that by the time the first game comes around they are fit enough to last a full game so training sessions over the first few weeks will consist of a lot of running and conditioning work.

Before you start pre-season you should have a plan of what you want to cover each week and know what level you want your players to be at by the time the first game comes around. This season you may want to test out new tactics, new formations, or players in new positions. This is your time to do this as if you want players to play in different positions for you during the rest of the season they need to be comfortable playing in them.

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