All you need to know about Play-Practice-Play in Youth Soccer

Youth soccer training is one of the hardest phases of soccer training in a soccer player’s life. It is the phase where performance is necessary but being a kid, it is not possible to get high-performing capabilities easily. As this is a difficult time for both the player as well as the coach, different people try different techniques for better training.

One technique that is getting highly popular in a small amount of time is Play-Practice-Play. It is a technique that enhances the performance and skills of every youth soccer player because of the play practice play session plans. So, here we will be discussing everything about what it is and how you can implement it too.

What is Play-Practice-Play?

Play-Practice-Play is a coaching technique that has been developed after proper research for youth soccer players. It is more of a player-centered training and coaching approach where players are kept motivated with gradual results.

The main idea is to gradually expose the youth soccer players to different match situations as well as match-like situations so that they learn both physical and psychological skills for a better soccer performance.

What makes it better?

There are lots of things that make the Play-Practice-Play approach better than the traditional youth soccer training.

Taking a look over the traditional youth soccer training you will only see that youth soccer players are standing in lines, and they do nothing but run in laps as well as practice drills.

While these things make them physically better in some areas, these are not efficient for their soccer performance by any means.

Moreover, this physical training did not improve the psychological training of youth soccer players who play a major role in the performance of the kids.

Different stages of Play-Practice-Play

Whether it is 11v11 play practice play or 7v7 play practice play there are always 3 different stages of this way of soccer coaching.

The reason for the success of this mode of chapping is that it is divided into 3 different stages:

• Play
• Practice
• Play

In this staged way of learning it is easier and simpler for kids to learn different skills as well as have a good grip on them.

Moreover, accomplishing each of the stages in the right way brings a boost of motivation and confidence for kids. So, here are the different stages of play practice and play coaching.

• Play

The first stage of this play practice play coaching methodology is the play stage. This is not highly related to high performance.

Instead, it is more related to making the kids comfortable with the environment while doing light exercises. So, the first thing that every coach must do to create an environment for kids where they feel fun and safe to learn.

While fun is an important factor, the more important factor is still learning so making small games and practice sessions a part of it is also important at the same time.

In this way, kids can develop an interest in the game as they are playing it and having fun. The coach needs to be careful as they are not too strict with the kids about what they need to do and what not.

• Practice

The second phase of play practice play coaching methodology is more leaned towards practice. In this phase, a coach must direct kids towards more learning activities instead of more fun activities.

In this way, youth soccer players can be exposed to more learning and development opportunities. That is exactly the goal of this phase of play practice play coaching.

While this phase is more leaned towards practice, kids must be exposed to activities that they can handle. However, at the same time, these activities must make the situation revealed to the real game.

In this way, not only the physical but the psychological skills of every kid will be polished. They will learn about solving problems in a better way as well as have fun.

This is the phase where it is very important to tell kids how to deal with success and failure and maintain a balance between these.

• Play

While some call the last phase of play practice play coaching play, some call it to play again. In this phase, kids are allowed to have fun while they polish the skills that they learned in the previous phase.

By creating situations just like the actual game or using different practice play examples coaches can make things fun for kids. This is also the phase where coaches must not interrupt kids.

However, while they are not interrupting kids, they must observe every player and try to have a small dialogue, if possible, that will motivate kids towards doing the right things.

In this way, kids can not only learn in a better way, but they can also express themselves in a better and more confident way.

The right way to apply Play Practice Play to Youth Soccer

While play practice play coaching seems to be an extensive thing, it is just a methodology that you can make a part of every coaching session that you hold.

Different US soccer practice play sessions even do this for better practice of their players. The right way to start with this methodology of coaching is by making kids familiar with the environment.

In this way, they will enjoy playing soccer. The next phase will involve telling kids how to do certain things and observing them.

In the last phase, kids must be told to freely enjoy playing while you create a real-like game situation. In this way, kids can showcase their learnings and skills that you can observe to tell the kids after training.

Final Words

While play practice play coaching is a new thing to many, people often ask does play-practice-play work or not. So, the answer is that it works exceptionally well, and its success is the reason why it has got so popular these days, especially in the youth soccer clubs. If you are also looking for the most efficient training results, then this is what you need to go for.