If you ask me, everything has to be exciting, but especially remote soccer training. I recently worked with two young boys (2011's) who love soccer but haven't played as much because they don't really know 'what' to do, 'how' to do it, and were just missing the motivation from someone else. Here I'll outline my approach to working with them: I scheduled three zoom calls with them, two together and one individually. They were scheduled for 30 minutes MAX. Call one - I pulled clips from my Soccer Skill School on YouTube for them to see, and then replicate. Each time they were given time to play around and have fun with each skill, and the 'exciting challenge' each time was "show me what else can you do with that skill" Call two - Individual calls that lasted a few minutes and challenged the players with questions: 1 - What is your juggling record? What do you want it to be? 2 - Who is your favorite player? 3 - What is your favorite position to play? 4 - If you were playing your best, what would I see? The four questions then created their own homework: 1 - You now have a juggling target, they both wanted to get to 15. 2 - Favorite player - go to YouTube and find their best moments (A Messi highlight reel is never too far away) - then write down some words why you think he is so good. 3 - If the favorite player isn't in the same position then the same task applies for this as #2. 4 - How do you use that description? Excitement - watching YouTube! Call three - 1 - They both told me their target was 15, and over the course of the week they had increased to new records of 12 and 13 - so, their final and ongoing challenge was to get to 15 first. Then 20, then 25, then 50 and so on. 2 - The 'why' was fantastic. They watched De Bruyne, Messi, and Ronaldo and described them as: Using a lot of fakes. Passing a lot to teammates to assist, but also for wall passes. They were very fast. Often made the defender go the wrong way, for which I used the word 'deception'. 3 - They both like playing attacking roles so the players match themselves. 4 - That becomes your 'power' for training when no one is watching. The excitement - Use the 2nd and 3rd points to 'create' their own training 'drills' to play like their favorite player and to help themselves improve. This was then totally relevant to their playing space and what THEY WANTED TO DO. The image shows the interactive whiteboard we used to draw their playing spaces and some patterns for playing. I added the keywords they used from the players they watched to remind them of the key things that made the players great and then challenged them to add more competition. Their competition came in the form of time and touches.
Both training in their own space, with excitement and new motivation, because they are doing what they want to do and what they think will make them better soccer players. Try it, but it has to be exciting.
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