If you're going to coach your first soccer team, you know you've got a lot to learn about teaching kids this unfamiliar sport. If you coach soccer now, you want to improve your team. If your son or daughter plays soccer, you want to know what good coaching is all about. This is the book for you!

Jim San Marco (head soccer coach at the highly successful Edgemont High School program in New York State) and Kurt Aschermann (coauthor with Gerard O'Shea of Coaching Kids to Play Baseball and Softball) have written this friendly, easy-to-use, fully illustrated guide that teaches you how to run a successful soccer team -- from setting up the first practice to choosing calisthenics to running individual and team skill drills to getting everyone a ride home at the end of the game.

Emphasizing that helping kids to have fun and learn about team spirit, competition, and themselves is far more important than winning games, the authors detail every step of building a soccer team that plays well and plays healthy. Instructions are fully illustrated with photos and diagrams:

* Teaching the rules

* Pre-practice preparation

* Choosing the right equipment

* Evaluating talent and assigning positions

* Drills and exercises to teach fundamentals

* Offensive and defensive tactics

* Game strategies

You may not have played much soccer or know much about it, but Coaching Kids to Play Soccer will teach you everything you need to know. Don't start your season without it!