Setting up soccer exercises and training sessions can be a headache for even the most experienced soccer coach, so if you're just starting out it can be a nightmare. However, successful youth soccer coaching is 90% common sense, so if you follow this basic advice, you'll get along just fine.

Your players are kids and they're playing recreational soccer - for fun! At the same time, though, they're growing and learning. This means that values like competition and commitment have to be tempered by care and cooperation. The old saying 'Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn' will go a long way in helping you to build and coach a team.

Many coaches spend a great deal of their time playing full-size practice games, but this is a bad idea. Some kids will only touch a ball once or twice during a 30 minute 'big field' practice game.

So set up small cone goals - about 4 feet wide - and keep the teams small. Encourage the 'keep away' format and kids will get hundreds of touches in a short period of time.

In your drills and skills practice, stick to the basics. Work on what is performed the most in a soccer match. Every practice should include time for dribbling, passing, receiving, defending, and basic movement. 

Remember what I said before about fun? The kids are no longer at school and lecturing is not what youth soccer coaching is about.

What's more if you set 'homework', 95% of players won't do it. Asking a 10 year old to juggle for 30 minutes every day is a waste of time.

But you must have your practice planned out.  As soon as you hit the field, set out cones for dribbling practice, passing and receiving, etc. Get the entire team moving at the same time. Then set up your next drills and teaching sessions while they warm up.  Encourage team leaders to help with set up and guidance.

You're a soccer guidance coach not a soccer director, so don’t try and control every aspect of the game.  Allow players to make their decisions, right or wrong, and encourage creativity. Encourage other players to help their teammates on the field.

Rather than telling the defense to push up, ask the keeper, 'Why are your defenders sitting back so much? Talk to them and ask them to push up.'

Young kids need to be shown approval so be a coach that recognizes players trying new skills or that performed a skill learned in practice.

You want to keep your players as involved as possible, so don’t let players stand in “fixed positions”.  Having defenders sit in front of the goal the entire game is not what soccer is about.

Encourage them to always 'push up' when the ball leaves their goal zone.  They are now offensive players ready to help the forwards and midfielders.  The same applies to forwards and midfielders. Have them recover quickly and help out in defense.

Rotate players to different positions.  This will help them develop an array of skills, so give them the chance to play different positions even if they are not great at them.

Finally, it's a good idea to give your coaching sessions a structure - a beginning, a middle and an end. I like to use the first third of the training session for warm up drills and soccer exercises focused on individual technique, such as dribbling, passing, receiving, moves etc. In the middle, section, I work on new technical skills, movement related sessions, and tactics. And I always reserve the last third for small-sided games. 3v3 , 4v4 style games.

So keep it fun, make sure the kids are involved a lot and plan your training sessions with a loose structure and you'll not only build a great team but you'll learn to a soccer coach.

Whatever kind of soccer exercises your working on, the fitness of your players is the key to success. By simply participating in training, players' fitness will improve but aside from ball skills and tactics, it's well-worth paying special attention to activities designed to improve soccer fitness from each of the following three angles.

Endurance

If you want to improve endurance or stamina, you need to work on aerobic exercises that strengthen the cardiovascular system by increasing the heart rate, speeding up breathing and raising body temperature. The most obvious aerobic activity is jogging, which fits naturally in any soccer training programme. However, players should also be encouraged to do other stamina-increasing sports, such as swimming, cycling, horseriding or even yoga.

Another characteristic of soccer is that it involves anaerobic activity, which is when energy is expended in short bursts. Fast acceleration and sprinting speed is definitely required of a soccer player, and can be practiced through short sprint activities or by simply incorporating sprint-trot sections into a team jog.

Strength

Anaerobic soccer exercises also help to develop strength and can be worked on in the gym or in circuit training. As soccer is an inevitably physical sport, the stronger your players are, the less likely they are to get hurt.

Consequently, it’s important to work on upper body strength along with specific exercises that focus on the leg strength needed to kick a ball effectively. Working out with weights and step exercises, for example, will both improve stamina and develop strength.

Flexibility

Finally, flexibility is important for a soccer player not only in order to beat the opponent but also because one of the best ways to avoid injury is to get out of the way before any damage is done. Consequently, soccer exercises that involve stretching, moving to music or are inspired by yoga should also be part of any integrated training schedule.

The other main use of flexibility exercises are as a warm-up as they gently prepare muscles for the heavy load that a competitive game puts on the legs in particular.

Whilst not suggesting that ball skills and tactics or attitude and motivation are unimportant, it's clear that a fit player is likely to be both highly-motivated and capable of playing above his or her skill level.