How Parents Can Help Their Teenage Footballers

1. Introduction

The thing is. Sometimes it is easy to get off track and veer into a not very productive direction. Your children are probably already dedicating themselves a lot, but to make it effective, or more effective, it is important to focus on what matters.

What I learned is that improving the fundamentals is usually the best approach. From that observation, I built an app to help parents support their teenage footballers. Click here to learn more about the fballyt app.

Now, let’s explore how you can help your teenagers develop as footballers, starting with how to focus on evolution.

2. Focus on Evolution

I want you to remember the car ride home after a loss and after a win. Most of the time, I acted like a fan. The mood depended on the result. What I have learned is that sharing happy comments did not help much. And after a loss, any well-meaning comment to help almost always backfired, leading to an argument. Over time, I found that at times the best thing was to ride home in silence. But then I was not helping either. What I needed was a way to share my comments without putting my son on the defensive. The way I found was to adopt the Academy Mindset. To focus on the process, on progress, not on results.

The approach that worked best for me was to focus on their development over time, not just the results. The key message for any parent is to support steady evolution and growth in your teenagers, rather than emphasising wins and losses.

If the first question you ask is "Why did you do that?" or "You could have scored if you had done such and such", you are inviting an argument. You are telling your teenagers that their value comes from the result. Instead, ask about their progress. Instead, ask about how much they improved from the last match and how they feel about it.

Future-Proofing Your Athletes

In youth football, especially during the teenage years, a win can hide a few things that aren't yet good. Maybe the team won because it had a few players who were stronger than everyone else. A win is great, and the players need that feeling from time to time, but it’s not doing much for lasting improvement. If the player played well, it does not matter what the match's outcome is. The focus should always be on how well the player executed the fundamentals and what they can do to improve.

Think of youth development as building a skyscraper. During the first years, you are laying the foundation. Some parents spend their time worrying about the colour of the paint (the score) instead of the depth of the concrete (the technical and tactical foundation). If your children are winning games simply because they are faster or stronger than everyone else, they are profiting from a temporary advantage. That will disappear in later years, when everyone else has physically caught up.

We want to build the Tactical Intelligence and the Technical Foundation now, so that when your teenagers are standing on a U-19 pitch where everyone is strong and runs like a racer, they have the brain and the touch to survive. Today’s mistakes are necessary steps toward becoming a better player.

3. Touchline Observation

I used to think that shouting from the touchlines was helpful. Well, I never really did too much shouting. I am more of the quiet type, but sometimes it was hard to resist the urge to say something. I thought I could see more from my vantage point, and that might have been so. But it does not help. I believed that by giving immediate instructions, I was giving my son a competitive benefit. I was wrong. In fact, I was disrupting more than anything else. One day, my son asked me not to say anything during the game anymore, and that was that. Now I share my observations after the game.

The positive consequence was that I could suddenly focus on the match actions. In fact, I could see more of the match than before. At first, it was disorganised. I “made” a lot more observations than I could remember. Eventually, I developed my own little system (a mix of videos and notes) to help me collect useful information I could use to ask better questions later.

The Silent Helper

Not talking from the touchlines works on two levels. First, they gain time. They are free to figure out what is best in each moment of the match. Thus, they are not wasting a few valuable seconds to “understand” what we are trying to say. Second, you are giving them a “vote of confidence,” which will help them enormously over time.

A good player must be able to solve puzzles during the match. If we provide the solution from the touchlines, we are essentially giving them the answer key to a test. Whatever we “instruct” them to do might work, but they would not learn the logic behind it. Eventually, there will be a point at which we cannot talk from the touchlines, and they will need their own internal tactical sense, not ours.

Step back and give them space. This helps them improve and grow as footballers.

4. Technical Mastery

We’ve all seen videos of players performing tricks. It looks impressive on social media, but you must ask: Is this actually football?

Footballers master the fundamentals. Some got there through pure talent, but most got there through a deliberate process. I propose the fballyt app process. We can resume it as: 1) measure how they are performing the fundamentals during the match; 2) deliberately focus on the weak parts during training sessions; and 3) rinse and repeat.

On top of that, there is scanning. A player who is constantly scanning the pitch knows the best action before anybody else. It is absolutely crucial.

5. Tactical Intelligence

For a teenage player, tactical intelligence can develop last. Most teenagers are pulled toward the ball. On the other hand, elite players are "space-hunters." They understand that their movement without the ball is what actually determines success.

In this area, most coaches can be extremely helpful. Pay attention and learn from the coach’s instructions. That is a very good way to improve tactically.

It also helps to watch football matches, but following one player, with and without the ball.