The Soccer Games Book
by J. Malcolm Simon and John A. Reeves

Review by Eric Blommer

This work contains 160 games for teaching some aspect of soccer. It lists the games one per page in alphabetical order. Each game has a Title, Area of Primary and Secondary Emphasis, Number of Players, Equipment, Formation and Procedure along with a diagram. This is the sort of stuff you find in most coaching books, but all too often the beginning coach has no idea how to organize the games into a coherent practice. This book tries to help in the organizing department by providing a cross referencing index with information about the primary and secondary focus of the game at hand.

The games are well presented although I would like to see a section listing the coaching points to look for. Most of the games are drills that have been recast as games. This is a very important quality. Even though drills are not especially motivating, the numerous repetitions are important for solidifying a skill. Thus, if one can take a drill and turn it into a game you can create a situation that is productive but also self motivating. Furthermore, I feel that if a coach is uncertain about their coaching ability they should conduct their practices as a sequence of games and let the game be the teacher. It would be best, though, if all the games in one practice related to the same topic. There are enough games in this book that this objective could be easily met by using the cross referencing index. I would recommend this book mostly for coaches of players 12 and up although younger teams could use most of the games without harm. Basically it is a good book for any coach looking for some fun ideas to liven up their routine drills.

Other Details

Paperback: Dimensions (in inches): 0.25 x 9.00 x 6.00
Publisher: Human Kinetics Pub; (June 1989)
ISBN: 0880110643

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