My 10U Soccer team has been formed, and we are less than a week away from the first practice of the season. The question that hits at the start of every season is do we spend our preseason practices on teaching tactics or techniques. I have tried both, and I have tried both, and I still don’t have the answer. I’ve seen other coaches win the season teaching one way, and others win teaching the other. So how do you know what to do to win.

The answer to this is you don’t until you get your first practice done. Lucky for me, out of the 14 players, 11 of them have played for me before, so I have an idea which way to go. Last season, I focused heavily on techniques. Specifically, I taught my team how to dribble for the shot. My entire team is really good at shooting on the move and dribbling. I have a couple of new kids that I do not know their skill level yet, but I at least know the majority of the team.

For those wondering tactics is teaching a team to move, attack, and defend in a certain pattern. Such as teaching the team to be in a triangle pattern on offense to pass between each other very similar to Phil Jackson’s Triangle Offense that MJ and Kobe ran. There are also different types of defensive pressure patterns you can teach a team.

Technique is a personal skill like ball handling, first touch, and shooting.

It is difficult to teach and install tactics for a team in a month, so many coaches focus on techniques, especially in recreational leagues. I have learned a lesson on this. You have to work on both. A team that focuses on techniques goes into game one, ready to dribble and shoot but loses because their goal kicks are bad, and they don’t know how to set up for a throw-in.

This year, I have changed my approach and have decided I will be doing both one day of technique training and one day of tactics training. Tactics training is hard to do if you do not have a set position group. Again, I am lucky to know who I have already, so I know who is going to most likely go where. So, week 1, I can break up players to different groups to work specific tactics. The defense doesn’t need to work throw-ins, and the offense doesn’t need to know how to move and shift based upon the direction the ball is coming. Also, the defense does not need to learn to kick off just the 4 involved in it.

This season, I will report on how well this style of coaching works. I hope to come back and say this is a well-oiled machine and the best team I have had. I hope this is the case, and at the very least, I promise I will give my all to train these kids not only as soccer players but also as teammates and neighbors. Because as Fred Roger’s used to say, won’t you be my neighbor. I think the reason he wanted everyone to be his neighbor was because Jesus said second only to Love God was to be kind to your neighbor. So if you view everyone as your neighbor, you must be kind to them. So we will make soccer stars and witnesses this season.