The five pillars of an effective pre-season

Getting players used to the game again

During the off-season, it is likely that some of your players will have played soccer casually, whether that’s practising their first touch in their back garden, having a kickabout in the park with their friends or even attending an off-season camp or event.

Some may do this more regularly than others, who may not have touched a soccer ball during their time off.

You will therefore have players coming into pre-season training at different levels – some will be a bit rustier than others in terms of touch and technique.

As a coach, you need to allow all players, no matter what soccer experiences they have had during the off-season, a chance to get used to playing in your environment again.

"Pre-season is a time to gauge how players may be feeling about the season ahead..."

That means lots of touches on the ball and lots of chances to simply play the game.

Sorting out logistics

We all know that there are numerous bits of organisation and administration that go into running a soccer club or team.

Hopefully this doesn’t all fall on your shoulders as the coach and you have a team of helpers around you. In addition, you may well have started some of the organisation work towards the end of the previous season.

Pre-season is a time for continuing that work or starting some bits afresh – whether that is sorting things like pitches, kit, equipment, player registrations or finances. 

Getting on top of these things will make sure that everything is as organised as it can be so that when the season starts it is as stress-free as possible.

Ensuring everyone is on the same page for the season ahead

Pre-season usually transitions straight into the new regular season – there is no break between the two.
Therefore, everyone involved with your club or team needs to be ready for what is to come and aware of their role in it all. 

The key part of this is everyone understanding what your club or team is about – its principles, beliefs and ways of working.

This needs to be clear to players, coaches, parents, and anyone else involved, and everyone needs to commit to buying into it.

Then, everyone needs to understand their role within this – what are they required to do over the course of the season? Where and when are they expected to be? How are they required to behave?

Set your foundation out as early as possible in pre-season. This will give you something to build on and refer back to as the season goes on. 

takeaways: potential pre-season pitfalls!

Whether it is from observing what can happen in the elite game, or drawing on our experiences of it as children – there are a lot of pre-conceptions of what pre-season is about.

These can often lead coaches to fall into the following pre-season pitfalls.

’Fitness, fitness, fitness!’

Most youngsters who play soccer tend not to become unfit during the off-season. They will often take part in other sports and games and stay generally fit and active. 

The pre-season period is the time they re-connect with the game and re-condition their bodies, getting their muscles and neural pathways used to playing and moving in a soccer way again. It is not about running laps, doing hurdles or completing the beep test.

The type of soccer fitness that you want to develop will be built up naturally over time if you do the appropriate soccer practices and sessions

Also, it is important to consider what impact you can actually have on someone’s fitness in just one or two hours per week.

A player’s fitness is often largely out of your control and the responsibility of the player themselves.

’We must be ready!’

It is really easy to fall into the trap of putting everything on that first competitive game back – believing that everyone must be ‘ready to go’ to put in a top performance and get some points. 

The truth is, no-one is ever really ‘ready to go’. Much like pre-season is a build-up, you have to build into a new season, too.

Success in those first few games is about making sure everyone gets a chance to play, to enjoy the game and to get used to it again.

’It’s all about the tactics!’

We might think that pre-season is a time for us to go into tactical genius mode, coming up with our preferred formation and in-possession and out-of-possession strategies and then sharing this with our players.

In fact, none of that should be the focus. It is about getting players used to playing again. Any focus on tactics will likely just overload them unnecessarily.

The principle here is the same as it should be throughout the season – how much tactical information you share and coach is relative to the age and experience of your players, and the environment they are playing in.