Grassroots Soccer Coaching: What Coaches & Parents Need to Change

What Coaches and Parents Need to Change

A research-informed ISSPF feature on child-centred grassroots coaching, positive learning environments, parental influence, enjoyment, retention and long-term player development.

Grassroots soccer coaching should provide many children with their first meaningful experience of organised sport. It is where players begin learning how to control a ball, cooperate with teammates, solve problems, compete, cope with disappointment and, perhaps most importantly, decide whether soccer is something they want to continue enjoying. Yet recent events have provided an uncomfortable reminder that the environment surrounding children's football can sometimes become dominated by the ambitions, frustrations and behaviours of adults rather than the developmental needs of the young players themselves.

In late August 2026, grassroots fixtures involving approximately 750 five- and six-year-old children in Central Scotland were suspended following serious concerns about behaviour surrounding youth football. Reports described incidents involving adult aggression, discriminatory language, abandoned matches and an extraordinary confrontation in which one team official allegedly headbutted another in front of children. Separate disciplinary reporting from junior football in the region recorded more than 70 red cards during the opening week of the season. The Scottish Youth Football Association subsequently emphasised that everyone around youth football carries a responsibility to demonstrate appropriate standards of behaviour.

The significance of the story extends far beyond Scotland. Anyone who has spent time around grassroots soccer will recognise the broader debate: adults shouting instructions continuously from the touchline, parents questioning referees, coaches treating results at very young ages as if they were professional league matches, players being afraid to make mistakes and children receiving conflicting instructions from the coach on one side of the field and a parent on the other. None of this means competition should be removed from youth soccer. Children frequently enjoy competing and winning, and learning how to respond appropriately to success and defeat can be valuable. The problem begins when the adult desire to win becomes more important than the child's opportunity to learn.

This makes grassroots soccer coaching an increasingly important area of coach education. The quality of a youth player's experience is influenced not simply by which passing drill appears in the session plan but by the emotional and learning environment created around that player. Research into youth sport repeatedly identifies enjoyment, coach support, parental support, perceived competence and positive relationships as important influences on whether children remain involved in organised sport. A systematic review and meta-analysis by Zhang, Wang and Shao (2022) found that enjoyment showed a strong relationship with young people's intention to continue participating, while parental, coach and peer support were also important factors associated with persistence.

The central question for grassroots soccer should therefore not simply be whether children are winning more matches or developing technical skills more quickly. Coaches, parents and clubs should also consider whether the environment is helping children become curious, confident and motivated enough to return next week. If adults succeed in developing a technically talented eight-year-old who no longer enjoys playing soccer by the age of twelve, it becomes difficult to describe the process as successful player development.

When Winning Becomes the Wrong Lesson in Youth Soccer

Competition is not the enemy of development. Soccer is a competitive sport, and completely removing challenge, goals, results and consequences can make practice less representative of the game children actually love. The coaching challenge is to ensure that competition serves development rather than allowing development to become subordinate to winning. At grassroots level, that distinction is particularly important because the behaviours rewarded by adults quickly communicate to players what the environment values.

A coach who reacts angrily every time possession is lost may unintentionally teach young players that mistakes are dangerous. The result can be players choosing safer actions rather than experimenting, defenders clearing the ball immediately rather than attempting to play, and creative players becoming reluctant to try solutions that might fail. The coach may believe standards are being raised, while the learning environment is actually becoming more restrictive. ISSPF's article on Creating Coaching Environments: Designing for Learning, Not Just Performance explores this principle in greater depth, highlighting how psychological safety, challenge, autonomy and the treatment of mistakes can influence learning.

Research supports the importance of this motivational environment. Gu and Cheng's (2026) systematic review and meta-analysis of 177 studies found an overall positive association between motivational climate and youth outcomes, with the strongest relationships appearing in motivation and cognition. Their analysis reinforces an important coaching principle: the social environment adults create can shape how young people think, feel and subsequently engage with sport, even though the magnitude and nature of those effects vary across settings.

The behaviour of parents is equally important. A 2024 systematic review involving research on more than 9,000 young athletes identified positive parental goals, autonomy-supportive behaviour, moderate involvement and positive parent-child relationships among the more constructive approaches to supporting young athletes. The key message was not that parents should be excluded from sport. Parents provide transport, finance, encouragement, emotional support and countless hours of voluntary commitment that allow grassroots football to function. The issue is how that involvement is expressed.

Previous soccer-specific research has reached similar conclusions. Studies of young soccer players have linked supportive parental behaviour, particularly praise and understanding, with enjoyment and aspects of life-skills development, while excessive directive behaviour and pressure can create a very different experience. Research involving 677 Norwegian youth soccer players also found that combined pressure from parents and coaches was associated with more maladaptive achievement concerns and lower perceptions of competence, whereas supportive coaching climates were associated with more constructive psychosocial experiences.

This provides a practical challenge for clubs because simply telling parents to behave is unlikely to be enough. Parents need clarity around what the club is trying to develop. If a coach promotes playing through pressure, for example, the parent shouting 'get rid of it' every time the goalkeeper gives the ball to a defender creates an immediate conflict. If the coaching objective is to encourage decision-making, adults continuously supplying the decision from the touchline may reduce the player's opportunity to read the game independently.

Clubs can improve this by communicating the purpose behind the coaching programme. Parents who understand that mistakes are expected during skill development may be more likely to support experimentation. Adults who know that equal or developmentally appropriate playing opportunities are part of the programme are less likely to interpret rotation as a failure to select the strongest team. Coaches who explain why a small-sided game has been designed in a particular way can help parents understand that a session which appears less structured may still contain significant learning.

The ISSPF Certificate in Grassroots Soccer Coaching places this learning environment at the heart of grassroots coach development. Its curriculum includes the FUNdamentals of coaching, coaching processes, youth training structures, off-pitch principles and an integrated, player-centred coaching approach. The course specifically emphasises creating a safe learning environment, organising games, managing player expectations and developing young players through fundamental coaching principles.

This emphasis matters because coach education at grassroots level should not simply provide a library of exercises. Coaches need to understand why they are intervening, when players may benefit from being allowed to solve a problem independently and how their communication influences behaviour. Dr. Ashley Allanson, an ISSPF faculty member specialising in coach education and player development, has focused professionally on how coaches learn and how social and cultural factors shape development environments. These areas become particularly relevant when the behaviour surrounding young players can influence whether soccer feels like an opportunity to explore or an environment in which mistakes carry social consequences.

Fun Is Not the Opposite of Development

One of the most damaging misconceptions in youth sport is the belief that enjoyment and high-quality development sit at opposite ends of a scale. Under this assumption, sessions that are enjoyable are sometimes treated as recreational, while serious development supposedly requires greater instruction, more repetition and increased adult control. The evidence suggests a much more sophisticated relationship. Enjoyment can contribute to persistence, intrinsic motivation and the willingness to invest time in learning, making it an important part of long-term development rather than a distraction from it.

The 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis examining predictors of continued youth-sport participation found that enjoyment had one of the strongest associations with intention to persist. Coach support, parental support, peer support and satisfaction of basic psychological needs were also identified among relevant factors. This does not mean every moment of training needs to be easy or immediately enjoyable. Learning difficult skills can involve frustration, and competitive sport naturally produces disappointment. The more important point is that the overall experience needs to provide enough competence, connection, challenge and enjoyment for children to want to continue investing in it.

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The distinction between play and structured practice is particularly relevant in soccer. A 2026 longitudinal case study examined the annual activity of a 13-year-old grassroots footballer who later progressed into professional football in Norway. Over one year, the player accumulated significant organised team and academy practice but also substantial unorganised football alone and with friends, alongside other forms of physical activity. The researchers stressed that this was a single case and therefore could not establish a universal formula for becoming a professional player, but the study illustrates how development can involve a mixture of deliberate practice, informal play and varied activity rather than one linear pathway dominated entirely by formal coaching.

Children enjoying a player-centred grassroots soccer coaching session

That has important implications for grassroots soccer. Highly structured coach-led training has value, particularly when coaches create representative situations that help players understand the game. However, players also benefit from opportunities to experiment without adults constantly stopping play. Small-sided games can create exactly this type of learning environment because players receive more interactions with the ball, repeatedly make decisions and experience attacking and defensive problems in a form that resembles soccer.

ISSPF's article on How to Coach Leaders in Youth Soccer emphasises the importance of putting young players in environments where they learn and transfer skills into realistic game situations. The ISSPF Grassroots Soccer Coaching course similarly includes the use of player-centred small-sided games and integrated training, while faculty content examines how session design can develop technical, tactical, physical and psychosocial skills together.

For the grassroots coach, this can require greater patience. If players are learning how to create width, the coach does not necessarily need to stop the game every time they become too narrow. A carefully designed practice can create the problem repeatedly and allow players to discover solutions, with interventions used when they genuinely help understanding. Coaches can ask questions, offer visual demonstrations or briefly freeze play, but the objective should ultimately be to return decision-making responsibility to the players.

The same principle should influence match day. A child receiving constant instructions for every pass, movement and position may appear organised, but the adult is effectively making many of the decisions that the game should be teaching the player to make independently. Youth soccer development requires opportunities to perceive information, decide and act. If every decision comes from the touchline, the child may become better at following instructions without necessarily becoming better at understanding soccer.

Youth soccer coach using positive communication with a developing player

Parents can support this learning by changing what they praise. Instead of focusing only on goals, victories or obvious technical success, adults can recognise effort, bravery, teamwork, problem-solving and attempts to apply something learned in training. Asking a child whether they enjoyed playing or what they learned after the match creates a very different conversation from beginning the journey home with a detailed analysis of every mistake.

This does not mean avoiding standards. Young players can be expected to listen, work hard, respect teammates and officials and take responsibility for their behaviour. A child-centred coaching environment should not be confused with an absence of discipline. In fact, clear boundaries can create greater psychological safety because players understand what behaviour is expected. The difference is that standards serve learning and respect rather than adult ego.

Coach and parent education may help create those environments. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis examining interpersonal development programmes for coaches and parents found statistically significant small-to-medium effects across several youth-athlete outcomes, including aspects of motivational climate, enjoyment and anxiety. The research base remains stronger for coach interventions than parent programmes, but it provides encouraging evidence that adult behaviour around youth sport can be developed rather than treated as something fixed.

Building a Child-Centred Grassroots Soccer Environment

The immediate response to unacceptable behaviour in grassroots sport naturally involves discipline and safeguarding. Serious aggression, discrimination, intimidation or threats have no legitimate place around children's soccer and should be addressed through the appropriate club, league and governing-body procedures. However, the wider challenge cannot be solved only through punishment after incidents occur. Clubs also need to consider the culture that develops every week around training and matches.

A child-centred model begins with clarity about purpose. At the youngest age groups, success should involve improving players, developing confidence, creating social connection and sustaining an enthusiasm for soccer. Results can exist within that environment, but they should not determine the behaviour of the adults responsible for delivering it. A five-year-old match does not need to resemble the emotional atmosphere surrounding a professional championship decider.

Coaches can establish this culture before the first ball is kicked by communicating expectations to parents and players. The club can explain what appropriate touchline behaviour looks like, who provides technical instruction during games, how playing opportunities are managed and what values the programme prioritises. When adults understand these expectations before emotional match situations develop, intervention becomes easier.

The coach then needs to demonstrate those values consistently. A coach who asks parents to respect referees but spends the match arguing with officials sends a much stronger message through behaviour than through any written code of conduct. Young players notice how adults respond to mistakes, defeat, unfair decisions and opposition success. Grassroots coaching therefore involves modelling the behaviours that coaches hope players eventually adopt.

Communication with referees deserves particular attention because many grassroots officials are themselves young and developing. Creating an environment where teenage referees are verbally abused by experienced adults teaches players a damaging lesson about authority, accountability and respect. Coaches have an opportunity to model disagreement appropriately, demonstrating that frustration does not justify intimidation.

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Session design also contributes to culture. Long queues, repeated elimination games and constant coach instruction can reduce engagement, while well-organised small-sided activities provide more decisions, more touches and more opportunities for children to learn through the game itself. ISSPF's Unlocking Soccer Potential: Coaching Grassroots and Youth Soccer examines how coaching culture, communication, player pathways and session design can be combined to support holistic development.

There should also be room for player voice. This can be as simple as allowing children to choose team names, helping design the final game, explaining what they enjoyed in a session or reflecting on what they found difficult. Autonomy does not mean the coach gives up responsibility; it means players gradually become active participants in their own learning rather than passive recipients of instruction.

The role of parents can similarly be reframed from sideline coach to emotional support. Research suggests that young athletes generally benefit from positive relationships and autonomy-supportive involvement rather than excessive pressure. Parents do not need to understand every tactical detail to contribute positively. Consistent encouragement, practical support, perspective after disappointment and recognition of effort may be more valuable to a young player's long-term relationship with soccer than technical advice provided immediately after every game.

Clubs should also evaluate themselves differently. The most successful grassroots club is not automatically the organisation collecting the most trophies at under-seven or under-nine level. Useful indicators could include player retention, coach development, enjoyment, the quality of learning environments, progression opportunities, parent engagement and whether players continue wanting to train. Competitive success may emerge from good development, but it should not be the only evidence used to judge whether development is occurring.

The current grassroots behaviour debate is therefore not an argument for making soccer less competitive or less demanding. It is an argument for remembering who youth soccer belongs to. Adults are temporary custodians of an experience that can influence how children view sport for many years. Some players will eventually enter academies, a very small number may progress towards professional football, and many will simply play because soccer becomes an important social and recreational part of their lives. Every one of those outcomes has value.

Recent research into one successful grassroots-to-professional pathway provides a useful reminder that elite development does not necessarily require childhood football to become an imitation of the professional game. Structured practice, informal play, supportive environments and sustained motivation can coexist. For most children, the first objective should be to build enough skill, confidence and enjoyment for them to remain engaged long enough to discover what their own potential might eventually become.

Children enjoying informal soccer play as part of long-term development

The events that led hundreds of very young children to miss football in Scotland should therefore provoke more than temporary criticism of badly behaved adults. They should encourage coaches, parents and clubs everywhere to reflect on what their own touchlines communicate. If a child is afraid to make a mistake, is constantly instructed where to move, hears adults abusing officials or believes that winning determines whether the journey home will be enjoyable, the environment is teaching lessons whether the adults intended them or not.

Grassroots soccer has enormous developmental potential precisely because children care about the game. Good coaches can use that enthusiasm to develop technical skill, decision-making, resilience, cooperation, discipline and confidence. The challenge is to maintain enough perspective to remember that development takes time and that the quality of the environment helps determine whether children remain around long enough to benefit from it.

For coaches, parents and volunteers who want to build stronger player-centred learning environments, the ISSPF Certificate in Grassroots Soccer Coaching provides a dedicated online pathway into the practical methods required at grassroots and youth level.

References (6)

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Gao, Z., Chee, C.S., Norjali Wazir, M.R.W., Wang, J., Zheng, X. and Wang, T. (2024) 'The role of parents in the motivation of young athletes: A systematic review', Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1291711.

Gu, Y. and Cheng, L. (2026) 'A systematic review and meta-analysis of motivational climate and youth sport outcomes: Examining a hierarchical effects model', Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1716745.

Hanstad, D.V., Skille, E.A., Johansen, B.T. and Strittmatter, A-M. (2026) 'The fine line between deliberate play and deliberate practice within talent development in grassroots football: Evidence from a one-year longitudinal case study', Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 8, 1799878.

Mossman, G.J. and Cronin, L.D. (2019) 'Life skills development and enjoyment in youth soccer: The importance of parental behaviours', Journal of Sports Sciences, 37.

Zhang, M., Wang, X-C. and Shao, B. (2022) 'Predictors of persistent participation in youth sport: A systematic review and meta-analysis', Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 871936.