Team chemistry is often cited as a key to success in soccer and other team sports, and soccer team-building exercises are a crucial element of bonding for the team. As a coach, you should use soccer team-building exercises in the preseason to help your players get to know each other. You should also focus on team building and the development of a group identity as the season progresses.
Social Bonding
In youth soccer, players usually come to practice on time and leave immediately afterward in their parents' cars. Organized soccer practices require focus, so players find little time to socialize. Team activities such as pizza parties or team trips to a theme park increase social bonding off the field. As a soccer coach, you could encourage each player to host a team meal as the season progresses or ask for volunteers to do so. The more time your team spends in each other's company away from the field, the more naturally they will communicate on the field during practice and games. Players will also take more pride in being a member of a team that is full of their friends.
Learning From Failure
Dr. Colleen Hacker of Pacific Lutheran University was sport psychology consultant to the World Cup winning U.S. women's national team in 1996. Dr Hacker suggests a soccer team-building exercise known as wrong way waffle ball to help players bond together and learn from failure. The game is played on a softball field using a plastic bat and ball. The game is similar to softball and has six to 10 players on each team. Players pitch to their own team with the opposition team fielding. Batters are required to bat with their nondominant hand. Batters hit the ball and run the bases in the opposite direction to softball. A fly ball caught by a fielder is out. A ground ball allows the batter to run the bases. The ball must be touched by every member of the fielding team before the out is given for beating the batter to the base. The conditions of this game mean failure is common for each player. As well as providing a fun bonding activity, Hacker states that this game teaches a team to persist through failure for eventual success.
Ropes Course
Utah State University provides a ropes course as a soccer team-building exercise at their summer camps. The ropes course consists of physically and mentally challenging activities performed high in the air. An example is walking a rope 50 feet in the air or jumping off a high platform to grab a rope and hold on. This activity adds an element of fear and allows a team to bond by performing activities together that are outside of their comfort zone.
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