Players will not become experts in the many skills that are needed in football if they only practice in the limited time we have at training sessions. It takes around 10,000 hours of practice to reach the top level in almost all sports and other skill-based activities. If they want to make real progress they will need to commit time to further practice on their own or with a friend or relative.

We can help them make better use of this time by providing them with goals to work towards. Goals will help to motivate players to work harder to make improvement and provide them with evidence of their progress thus leading to greater confidence. Anybody who has attended a coaching course recently, whether football specific or coaching in general, will almost certainly have been reminded of the importance of setting targets for your players.

"Understanding the goal setting process and being able to set goals effectively are possibly the most important of the mental skills of a coach." - Alan Maynard FACA "Insight" Magazine Winter 2002.

There are a number of factors which help to make goals more useful.

These can be remembered by the acronym - S.M.A.R.T.

Specific
"I want to win the FA cup one day" is an exciting goal but it is unlikely to promote any particular action by our players. Goals should address a particular area that we want to improve. "I want to get better at the Cruyff turn" is a better starting point for a goal.

Measurable
This is not always easy to achieve but whenever possible we want to be able to put a number on it. It should not be doubtful whether or not a player has actually made progress. Try to provide evidence to the player that they have succeeded by finding a way to measure it.

Agreed
There is more chance of players working to achieve their goals if they are involved in setting them. Don’t impose a goal on a player that they are not interested in reaching. Find out what they would specifically like to improve on and help them to formulate a goal on that skill.

Realistic
A well planned goal will help improve motivation, if it is far too difficult though it will simply reinforce feelings of failure. Set the level of the goal to make sure

Time Phased
Unless we put a specific target time on achieving the goal the players will not be motivated to put the work in and get practicing. Set a realistic target of a few weeks at the most and then move them on to their next goal.

Setting goals for players is certainly the right thing to do in theory, but in practice trying to sort it out during a training session is not easy. A few resources are provided at the bottom of this page to make the task more manageable. They are in pdf format for easy printing.

Firstly there is a target diagram which we can use to quickly profile our players. Resources such as The FA Soccer Star Challenge and the FA/Tesco Skills Programme (see links on coaching home page) are excellent when we have the time to set them up. The method being suggested here for regular use relies on some very simple criteria that can be completed quickly based on the coach’s knowledge of the player. Next there is a simple template that can be completed with a minimum of work to give the player a record of their goal. The last link has some suggestions on helping palyers to set individual goals for themselves for the duration of a single fixture.

Introducing goal-setting gradually, perhaps starting with a few of our more motivated players would be an interesting experiment. Informing parents of what we are trying to do and enlisting their support could be an important part of the process.