In my expereince, most coaches that I've come across began coaching their teams with the intention of always being consistent, in the main encouraging their players by being motivated and positive in their feedback.

However, for many coaches of our age this is not how we were coached. We experienced a strict autocratic (command based) coaching, where negative discipline including blame, ridicule and punishment were common place. Our coaches made all the decisions and I can't remember being allowed any input into how the team was run.

At the end of games, I remember players getting singled out for humiliation by going over mistakes they made during the game, players performed in a "pressure cooker" environment fearful of making a mistake in case you took the rap in the post match analysis. Everyone felt insecure, which is one way the coach kept control.

However, this style of coaching stifles creativity and doesn't lend itself to building a harmonious team.

But this is a method that many coaches today fall back on because they remember it working when they were playing and this method of coaching can produce immediate results in the short term.

However, this type of coaching is very destructive.

Within this coaching style, players are denied the ability to be creative, denied the ability to express themselves, denied the learning experiences that soccer can teach, self esteem and belief is squashed and while individual players might just get on with it because they love playing soccer so much that they'll endure it.

A major factor in why players drop out of youth soccer is because of how they are managed.

There is another way...

I have a personal belief in prevention than cure. If you coach your players with praise, fairness, consistency, encouragement and respect you will gain far more in the long term from your team and your coaching experience should be a happy one. This type of coaching prevents discipline issues from arising in the first place, rather than reacting to situations when they do.

Coaches that employ a techniques that keep their players fully engaged, motivated and positive can reap benefits. In this series of articles we are going to explain the key building blocks for managing your team on this basis. The steps described are pretty straight forward and aren't rocket science.

In this first part we are going to disucss...

Developing a team culture is not an easy task and its one that only the coach can do. This cannot be passed off to anyone else.

You must have heard the saying about "turning a team around!" When a coach talks in these terms what they are really talking about is they need to change the team culture. But how is this done?

Team culture development is not something that is done once and then put on the shelf job done. Every time you have contact with your team, players, parents you have the opportunity to shape the team culture. Every practice session, every tournament, every competitive game the action that you take can have a positive or negative effect on team culture.

But does your team culture need a change?

Here are some signs that are displayed when a team is in crisis...

• The team isn't playing well, isn't playing how it used to or it is punching well below its weight
• There are conflicts between players
• Communication is uncomfortable, in a couple of ways, between you, players and parents/guardians
• Discontent reigns, there is apathy and lethargy amongst players
• Little response from players to requests
• Assistants aren't fully engaged or seem dissatisfied
• Players are confused about playing styles, strategies, positions, tactics

Changing the team culture is not something that can be changed overnight. To use a marine term, its like changing the course of a supertanker rather than that of a speedboat. Team culture development is a long term and continous process.

To give you another perspective, let's take the England football team for example. In this years World Cup they had a squad of individual players who collectively should have won the World Cup. There is no patriotism in that comment, just that virtually all the squad were on top of their game at club level, had the relevant age and experience in the team and should have been unbeatable.

However, when such all star teams are assembled quickly there is little time to really develop a team culture. This is not an excuse for the Eriksson era but this could be one reason why the hugely talented individuals did not express and play as well as they were expected to.

If your team are showing some of the above signs, simply stating what you don't want is not enough to sort any problems out. For example, if players are not getting on and there is back biting in the team, simply stating "The back biting has got to stop and you will all get on with each other." is not the magic wand that will change everything.

You need to start to work on team culture and improving the discipline within the team.

Thats your tip for this week, Good luck in this weekends games...

Best wishes

Neil