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Training Sessions For Everyone!!! |
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BrilliantSoccerCoaching provides ready-to-go training sessions for all levels of player and all age groups. Simply choose the sessions you want and download them. It's that easy!
BrilliantSoccerCoaching offers a multitude of coaching books and CD-ROMs designed around specific soccer topics. Each book offers a FREE preview of it's contents, so you can be sure you are buying the coaching information you desire.
BrilliantSoccerCoaching was created and designed by Costa Nicolaou, who brings over 35 years of experience in professional soccer as a player and coach. Costa's coaching credentials include: |
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Finally a complete soccer coaching resource at your fongertips!!! |
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Email Us: cnicolaou@sbcglobal.net |
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w South African Full Badge Coaching License w United States Soccer Federation National A License w United States Soccer Federation National Youth Coaching License |
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Available Sessions |
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Seasonal Training A seasonal soccer training program enables you, the soccer coach, to plan ahead for what you and your team hope to accomplish during the season. It helps you to stay on course and monitor your soccer team’s progress, enabling you to make adjustments to your training program throughout your soccer season.
Your seasonal football training program should cover your team’s pre-season preparation, on-going seasonal play and the post-season’s training sessions for your team. It should allow you to assess your players’ progress individually, in specific groups and as a team. An effective seasonal soccer training program should cover the pre-season physical conditioning progression, scrimmages and friendly games as part of your build up to peak performance; “in-season” training sessions to maintain your team’s progress throughout league and competition play; and, last but not least, your post-seasonal adjustments and corrections which lead into the next football season. Brilliant Soccer Coaching shows how to set up all three phases of the seasonal soccer training plan and offers tips and suggestions on how to monitor the training program so that your team stays on track, as well as when and how to “tweak” it, to get the best results.
Ball Control & Dribbling To do this, you need a good first touch. Touch, ball control, ball handling skills, dribbling skills; whatever you label them, all fall into the same category: mastering the soccer ball! Teaching children to become comfortable with the football at their feet is one of the biggest challenges in soccer coaching today. The better your soccer player handles the ball, the more time and space they will have to play in. Opponents are cautious around footballers with excellent ball skills; they are equally quick to pounce on the player who struggles with the soccer ball at their feet.
Brilliant Soccer Coaching offers numerous suggestions on a host of different ball control and ball skills training activities you can introduce into your soccer training sessions that will improve your players’ ball handling skills, while still keeping your training sessions fun! Kids like to have the football as much as possible during training and in soccer games. You can put that attitude to very good use to improve the skill level of all your soccer players, with a little help from us!
Passing They say a good passing team will always beat a good dribbling team! At Brilliant Soccer Coaching we think both are a good bet, but we know that without good, accurate passing, your soccer team cannot survive! Whatever style of play you prefer as a soccer coach, good passing pulls it all together. Short passing combinations, switching the field of play with one good long ball, direct play or slow methodical short passing build-up, all rely on several ingredients: accuracy, correct choice of pass and weight of the pass.
Brilliant Soccer Coaching offers a wide variety of soccer training activities and drills you can implement to improve your team’s passing abilities. We address all aspects of passing, including the inside and outside of the foot pass, driving and chipping soccer balls, using unpredictable touches – like the front of the foot and toe poke – headers and using other parts of the body to knock balls down. We provide games designed to increase soccer players’ awareness to recognize and make early and decisive passes.
Shooting If you don't shoot, you don't score, right!? Wrong! You can shoot all day long, but if you don't hit the target, you won't score!! The game of soccer or football is all about scoring goals against your opponents and not letting them score on you! Putting the ball in the back of the net is what soccer is all about, but it is not as easy as it sounds! It takes much practice on the technique of shooting balls on goal, as well as developing the instinct to finish every half chance that comes a striker’s way. Being able to use both feet, using the inside and outside of each foot, shooting for power, bending balls, flicks, toe pokes, volleys and half volleys, as well as heading to score, all contribute to a good striker’s arsenal. But, they must also possess the mentality to get into tough areas in the penalty box where they might score.
Brilliant Soccer Coaching recognizes the importance of shooting accurately and good technique as being the cornerstone for a striker’s success, but we also recognize that bravery, industry and a bit of luck, all contribute too. We offer shooting exercises and soccer training activities aimed at increasing the striker’s ability and awareness in both areas.
Goalkeeping “Mad dogs and Englishmen!” is how goalkeepers have been described down the years! Definitely a specialist position requiring special soccer skills and training, it is also a very difficult position to play. Agility, flexibility, courage, all come to mind! Yet, all over the world, great goalkeepers spring up on a regular basis. Technical, as well as tactical goalkeeper training, get much more attention now days than they did back in the days when the above statement was common place.
Goalkeepers are taught secrets of good shot stopping, angling their goal, handling low and high balls, crosses, distribution, dealing with set pieces and playing balls with their feet, to mention but a few topics. They are encouraged to control their defenders in front of them, start attacks once they regain possession and generally, keep all shots on them from going in!!
Defending Good defense is the cornerstone of a successful team, yet most kids want to be goal scorers and playmakers! Defense is an ugly word to them! The way the game of soccer has evolved, all players are forced to play defense regardless of where they are positioned on the field. All players must understand how to react to win the ball back immediately their team loses possession. Principles of pressure, support, balance, depth and concentration, must be instilled in each young player. Thus, they learn that defense is a part of the game and for them to become complete footballers, they must be able to play both sides of the ball.
Brilliant Soccer Coaching recognizes the need to challenge young players to “do it right” with soccer activities and games designed to bring out their best defensive efforts. Small sided games make the best trial grounds for defense and our exercises provide kids the opportunity to have fun within the learning process.
Tactics Tactics are like old socks; they get changed all the time!! At least, we hope so! Probably the most talked about topic in soccer because of its variety, football tactics have evolved into an ever changing subject. Every soccer coach has a favorite tactical formation; a particular way they want their soccer team to play; a particular style they coach to. There are several ways to play one specific football formation. Soccer coaches use different players in different ways within similar systems…and on it goes! Get coaches around a table over a few beers and in no time there are enough bottles available to diagram the most intricate tactical situations!! Many coaches have found the formation that best fits their soccer team; some football coaches lament they don’t have the players to play a favorite system; still others cannot decide which system fits best with their team!
Brilliant Soccer Coaching examines each tactical soccer system, debating its merits and shortcomings. We look at styles of play and comment on their strong and weak points. We cite examples of systems that have worked well for specific football teams and point out why they have. We critique the systems currently used by the world’s top club and National teams and discuss the types of soccer players that allow different systems to succeed.
Player Development What do you mean “player development? We’re winning; they must be developing!” This topic has conjured up much discussion. Everyone agrees with the fact that we need to help young football players develop their skills. Better skilled youth become better skilled adults and soccer professionals later on. What constitutes football development though? Is it the issue of foregoing results to focus instead on your soccer players getting slowly but progressively better; or is it the premise that if you put the best football players together on a team that is superior to all its opposition, they will improve because of the competition from within? Or is it the competition around them? Soccer coaches are under pressure to win; by nature of their competitiveness, players try to win each time they play football. Is there too much emphasis on winning versus developing in soccer today? How does a coach who works at development over winning, keep the better soccer players on the team? Should youth soccer have league standings and results-based competition at U-12 and under, or is the competition good for them?
Brilliant Soccer Coaching has been in the forefront of this soccer discussion for eternity! We have opinions to offer on the subject, accompanied by facts and statistics gleaned from research on football coaching organizations and academies around the world. We provide material dealing with the conflicting opinions as well as soccer coaching material designed to marry the two together to get the best of both worlds.
Team Development Rome wasn’t built in a day and you won’t put a good soccer team together in one season! Developing the football team is a long and arduous task. Bringing the right elements together to make it tick takes a few soccer seasons. Harnessing your players’ collective football abilities and throwing them together so that they compliment each other takes a fair bit of analysis and a clear picture of who you are collectively, and what is feasible to achieve as a soccer team. All the while, you are under pressure to win football games!
Brilliant Soccer Coaching has information that we feel will help solve your problem. Soccer drills geared towards involving the entire football team in training sessions, as well as tactical suggestions and ideas that allow you to involve your soccer players in making decisions and take responsibility for their progress. Also, ideas for you as the coach, on how to educate the soccer parents on your aspirations and win them over!
Small Sided Games The best thing since sliced bread! Small sided games are an awesome tool in the coaching arsenal of any football coach, regardless of the age or ability level of the soccer players they coach. Every aspect of the game of soccer can be covered with the use of small sided games as a teaching tool. Different areas of the field can be duplicated to better illustrate tactical situations to young players. They also allow kids many more touches on the ball, require better first touch because of the smaller size of the field and encourage players to think and make soccer decisions faster.
Brilliant Soccer Coaching promotes football coaching through small sided games and offers many, many games soccer coaches can use to create conditions similar to those their players face on game day. These soccer games allow kids to be closer to the football action and facilitate greater participation and experimentation. Because kids have the soccer ball more in these games, their confidence and ability improves. We will show you lots of small sided soccer games you can use to challenge your players to improve every aspect of their football skills!
Fitness If you’re not fit, you can’t play this game! As the game of soccer or football has evolved, it has become faster, more physical and much more fluid than ever before. To stay with these trends, the modern soccer player has changed. Today they are fitter, stronger and more agile. Football clubs are applying sophisticated training methods in order to stay abreast of this trend and in doing so, are engaging experts in specific fields of physical conditioning. You, the recreational, amateur or youth soccer coach, may not have the resources available to follow this trend. But, you too, have an obligation to get your football players in the best possible shape to effectively play this game. Where do you go to obtain this football fitness information? How can you implement it into your limited training time without it being at the expense of another soccer coaching topic within the game?
Brilliant Soccer Coaching helps you to figure out how, where, why, and in what increments, you can introduce soccer fitness training methods so as to maintain a status quo. We offer exercises and training methods specific to football and advise where and how to introduce them to your training sessions.
Psychology It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog! The mental side of soccer is as important as any other. Wonderfully skilled or tactically astute soccer teams; teams that are in great physical shape too, can be made to look very ordinary if they don’t possess the mental toughness needed to compete in soccer competition now days. Without a strong mentality toward the game of football, players struggle to reach their potential. Hostile crowds, away games, poor fields and weather conditions can take soccer players out of their comfort zone and seriously reduce their effectiveness. Mental strength helps to restore this shift in advantage and enables footballers to make a difference.
Brilliant Soccer Coaching addresses the importance of mental toughness as it relates to football. We provide examples of physical and mental exercises a soccer coach can put their players through, which will help “toughen them up” in trying circumstances. We examine the football coach’s role in understanding their players; what makes them tick, what spurs them on or what switches them off and we offer suggestions to help bring out their best mentality in adverse situations. |
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Coming Soon!!! |