During my early years of coaching kids football (soccer) teams, I realised that the players who began the game as a substitute needed to be as engaged in the match as the players who were playing.
For this reason I came up with some activities to engage the substitutes in the game which worked well, and so I decided to share these methods in this blog post.
5 things a coach can do during a game to maintain the focus of young children who are sat on the bench are:
- Player analysis
- Let them be the coach
- Give them responsibilities
- Have the subs take note on what is happening in the game
- Continually ask them questions about the game
So now you have a general idea of what you could do to get your substitutes involved and interested in the game, the rest of this blog post will give a clear explanation of the tasks and how to implement them during the game.
Player analysis
A really good way of keeping your subs focused on the game is to give them an assignment, such as watching one specific player during the game, like a human player cam!
This can be a great way to introduce your players to another aspect of football, game analysis. To do this, you need to create a general player analysis form that can be given to the players.
I would suggest having sheets on a clipboard so that they can easily be passed around without getting lost or blown away.
Make sure you have explained what is on the sheet and how they should fill it in before the game starts or at training. At the end of the game, you could even ask them to write a short analysis (at home) of how their selected players performed by using the data collected. If you had a few minutes before the start of the next training session they could give their personal feedback to the team or to the coach (if they did not feel confident speaking in front of their teammates).
Let them be the coach
Another way to keep your subs involved in the game is to let them become the coach. Now let’s be clear, I am not talking about letting them shout orders from the sideline to the players actively playing on the pitch. However, what you could do is have the players take it in turns to tell you what they think of the game as it is going on. Information such as:
- What is the team doing well at?
- What is the team not doing well at?
- What aspects of the game can we improve?
- Is there anything you (the player) would change and why?
This can really get the subs actively involved in the game, even though they are not out on the pitch playing.
Do not be scared of making some of the changes that the players suggest. This will create even more engagement as they will want to see if their suggestion actually works or not. This idea will really highlight the coaches who put more emphasis on learning than winning.
Give them responsibilities
Giving the players specific jobs before and during the game is a good way of teaching the players responsibility. It is important that you explain to the players beforehand that these jobs are not punishments for being on the bench but are actually important duties that help the whole team on matchday. These could include:
- Collecting equipment after the warm-up
- Making sure water bottles are filled
- Warm-up the keeper correctly (important for coaches working on their own)
- Taking turns at collecting balls during the game
This is about more than just doing a simple job but is instead about learning what it means to be a team member and doing things that, while not directly involves playing, can make a difference to the team in the way of preparation.
Have the subs take notes on what is happening in the game
This is great for the subs to do while not playing and can also be used as a learning tool. You can explain that these notes may be used for the half-time team talk which will make the players feel as though they are contributing to the game or at least helping the coach. There are many ways that you can use this:
- Take notes on possible tactics or plays of the opposition
- Identify danger players from the rival team
- Possible changes that might help
This task will get the players thinking about the game in a more tactical and strategic way. This is invaluable for youth players who are still learning about the tactical side of football and will hopefully give them food for thought when they get their chance to play in the current game or going forward into other matches they play in.
Continually ask them questions about the game
As the game is being played it might be a good idea to continually ask the subs questions in relation to what is happening on the pitch at the time. This will keep the players focused on the game since they know that they might be asked a question at any time and so they need to keep their focus on the game and not get distracted.
An additional benefit is that it might unwittingly cause them to reflect on teammates’ mistakes and help them do better when they are playing.
Questions could include:
- Why did he/she lose the ball?
- What other passing options did he/she have?
- How could that situation have been avoided?
- What would you (the player) have done in the same situation?
Not just about giving players a task
Whilst I have listed a few examples of ways to keep the players on the bench engaged in the game, I would like to stress that it is not as simple as just telling the players, go do this, now fill in this form. If these ideas are going to work then there ought to be…
- Good communication
- Good coach-athlete relationship
These two elements play a key role in the effort to maintain the focus of a player who is a substitute for the game.
So let me clarify the above.
Good communication
Communication is paramount in our goal for engaged substitutes. At the end of the day, if a player does not understand, clearly, what they are supposed to be doing or is unable to comprehend the relevance of the task then they are unlikely to have the motivation to participate fully.
The effort to keep them engaged will be pointless and potentially harmful.
To avoid this, make sure that you explain the task clearly! If you do not have time before the beginning of the game then create a quick video, with a demonstration, and send it to the WhatsApp group if possible.
Good coach-athlete relationship
Does the substitute feel valued?
When a player is named as a sub, it is only human nature that part of them may feel a sense of disappointment or frustration. They may also have a feeling of being undervalued, especially children.
So a coach must make sure that the answer to the previous question is YES!
This is where the coach-athlete relationship comes in. Having a good rapport and making the player feel valued by the coach, regardless of whether they are starting or on the bench, is hugely important.
This positive coach-athlete relationship, along with good communication, will give so much motivation to a young player to want to, not only be involved in the activities but also the desire to do them well.
Player benefits
If a coach implements these practices then the players will benefit greatly by:
- Learning how to watch the game in a different way, in a more tactical manner
- Learning communication skills, in the way that they explain what they are observing (both verbally and in written form)
- Becoming more self-confident in expressing their thoughts and opinions.
In Summary
All these activities do not have to be done all at the same time, but instead delegate one of the activities at a time to each player.
This could be done either by choosing the same activity for all the players and delegating one at a time, before changing, or you can rotate the activities throughout the game so that everyone is participating in a different task at the same time before rotating the assignments after a set amount of time.
All of these tasks are designed to get the players actively thinking about the game as well as watching what is happening on the pitch.
The blog post has covered some examples of how to keep subs involved in the game when they are not physically playing.
It has also demonstrated the benefits of applying these practices that a player may gain.
I hope the blog post gave you some ideas of what you can do in the future with any players who need a bit of help to focus on the game.