Advice for moving from coaching youth soccer to coaching adults

Players at senior level are also likely to tell you if they agree or disagree with your points. This will ultimately develop you as a person and coach.

I have, through my own personal experiences, developed two rules for overcoming challenges. These are:

1. Be open and honest: All players will see through it if you pretend to be otherwise.

2. High ball rolling time: Senior players I coach come to training straight from work. They want to be playing, and learning through play - as indeed do players in the youth age groups.

A support network is also crucial when transitioning from youth to senior football. 

Most coaches in the younger age bands, at grassroots level particularly, will only have one or two members of staff, usually to help sort the many things beyond the players on the field.

Reflecting on my own personal experiences of the transition to the adult game, having a network of staff around you can be beneficial - not only to you but the players as well.

Even if you don’t have a support network made up of coaches, you can still create one. It may come in the form of senior players within the playing staff, supporters or even family members.

Below are some of my positive experiences of having a support network, both inside and outside a club...

1. Allows you to focus on your role: if you are not spreading yourself too thin, you can concentrate on your job. You are a coach, so focus on training.

"Players at senior level are likely to tell you if they agree or disagree with your points..."

2. Adds experience around you: I am 22 but I have good experience to lean on.

3. Allows you to talk to people in your field: In my case, I speak to coaches who transitioned across into senior football at a young age, gather their thoughts, share, reflect and reset.

4. Allows you to get player feedback: Your players are included in your support network. Ask them their thoughts.

The art of coaching younger players is often labelled “the creation of the experience and environment", which is right. I must add, alongside that, the ability to develop footballers along the way.

It is similar when coaching senior players. Yes, there may be slight tweaks, but the core fundamentals remain in place - be energetic, know what the players want and what they need, but also give them something they don’t already know. 

The ability to change your coaching ’hat’, as you switch between age groups or go from youth to senior soccer, is a skill and something I try to do regularly, as I coach different age bands during my working week. 

I understand this may be hard for some, but let’s say you are an U16s coach - could you find the odd hour to coach the U7s? What would you take away? What would the players have learned?

 Anyone who does this, please DM me on Twitter as it would be great to hear your experiences. You can follow Charlie on Twitter: @bewscharlie