Introduction:

Alex’s playing experience began in England where street soccer was the game of choice.  Alex tells of dribbling a soccer ball around the furniture in his home for countless hours as a child.  His professional experiences as a player began in 1975 having his first trials as a Goalkeeper. His playing career continued until 1999 starting in England and ending in Omaha, Nebraska.

Alex has been coaching for twelve years, ten of which have been here in the US. During this time Alex has taken many coaching education courses to better his knowledge of the game. Alex holds the U.S.S.F “A” license, the National Youth, as well as the English F.A license. Alex has coached teams to 10 Nebraska State Cup Championships and 15 league titles. He has coached 32 tournament wins, and one National 3v3 title. Alex started the Arsenal program in Omaha Nebraska in 1996 with six teams. The program today has 43 teams and a total of 600 players.  Alex became the full time Director of Coaching for the Millard Star Soccer Association in 1997. At that point there were 1,100 players playing. Today the total is 2,700 players ranging from U5 to U18. Alex was awarded the Nebraska State Boys Coach of the Year in 1999 and was a nominee for the 2002 Positive Coaching Alliance Award.

Alex has also been involved with the Olympic Development Program as a Clinician, and became the Head Boys Gender Coach for Nebraska in 2004. The Nebraska Coaching Education Program known as C.E.P is another organization that Alex is associated with.  His responsibilities focus on the education of coaches within the state of Nebraska. Alex has been a Camp Coordinator and the Director in Nebraska for 8 years. Total campers per summer are estimated at around 500. In 2004 Alex attended several professional Clubs in England to further his coaching education.  The clubs were Fulham, Coventry City, Derby County, and Crystal Palace.

On Motivation:

Coach Mason believes that motivation is a required tool to succeed. He feels it is his role as the coach to tap into and expand every player’s individual motivational skills so the team becomes self-driven. Players must see the coach as a leader and someone they can always turn to for more reinforcement if needed. Goals must be set on and off the field with players and coaches continually working together to reach, revise, and expand those goals. If any link is broken the team will suffer. One area that must be dealt with very cautiously is negative communication or negative comments. The team cannot allow outside comments to disrupt their goals. Nor can the team be spoken to in a manner that questions one player against another. Players become more delicate the longer the season goes on due to the physical demands of the game, and Alex believes that good motivational skills will help balance the overall team chemistry for any upcoming challenges. Motivation begins at the very first team meeting and ends after the last event of the year. It must have a purpose and that purpose is for the team to build its confidence through positive means.  One excellent way to accomplish this is for players and coaches to use key words or cues to promote motivation.   

On Team Cohesion:

Alex looks at cohesion as a main factor; players must understand that working together for the same goal will make the task easier. Even though players may have different backgrounds, among these being religious, nationality, and language, or basic social skills, players must be shown that all of these obstacles must be overcome. This is the job of the Coach.  He must acknowledge and teach his players to respect every individual belief while maintaining team cohesion on a day-to-day basis. This is no easy task but captains and team leaders can be given tasks to achieve this on and off the field thereby helping players read how they individually fit into the whole of the team. Team events will help build cohesion, especially events away from the game of soccer. This will put every player in a relaxed environment with fun being vital to the chemistry needed to work as a team.

On Discipline:

Alex looks at discipline as a tool, which can be self-taught within the team. Every player must be held accountable for his or her behavior. The way players and coaches express themselves verbally can break down discipline, for example a coach who uses bad language is in no position to punish a player for using the same language. Bad language should not be tolerated. Players and coaches are faced with many distractions--alcohol and drugs being the most common. The coach must first set rules and guidelines which all players must adhere to with every player joining the team with a clean sheet. Every player must remember a poor decision by any individual will affect the team. Players will be challenged to make good ethical and moral decisions during every day of their life.

On Mental Preparation:

Alex believes mental preparation is the maker or breaker for many players. Different players will go through their own set preparation whether they are preparing for a practice or a game. Each player must be allowed to carry out their own preparation while understanding the coach will also set routines for the team. For some players there is no set time as their individual preparation may start the day, week, month, or year before the event. This is where the communication between coach and team becomes vital; a coach can promote this preparation by laying out the team training schedule. Players are taught to look at other components that will help their overall mental preparation; healthy diets, rest, sleep habits and so on. All of these added areas will help the player and the team feel prepared. Practices are used as a rehearsal for the game. By having players repeat what has been covered in practices they become confident and more relaxed thereby building the mental toughness needed to overcome a mistake by themselves or a teammate. Players should also be placed in situations that may arise during the game, for example, replacing a role player, a tactical change, being a goal up or a goal down and playing against the clock. Simulating all of these situations during practice will help the players in their mental preparation come game time because they know what to do and can remained focused on the task at hand.  

On Mental Toughness:

Alex looks at mental toughness as a tool, which may need to be repaired or taught. Some individuals have been only coached on their failure; this has left the individual feeling negative and weak. Other players may have been more fortunate to have a coach that has realized that whether the coaching point is negative or positive it is how it is presented so the player learns from it. Parents play a major role in the mental toughness of the individual; a positive home environment will help the player stay confident during a situation that may break down a player who has come from a negative environment. The “sandwich” approach is safer to help build mental toughness--Positive- Negative-Positive. Through this approach the player is given a positive cue by the coach, followed by a correction of a weakness, and followed up with another positive cue or attribute regarding the player. Alex notes that a team will also be challenged on mental toughness especially during a possible losing streak but that mentally tough teams that train hard are always confident they will bounce back after a loss or two. The delicate job for the coach is to let his team know its weakness and teach them how to protect the individual or the positional player. This again comes back to overall confidence in the coach and the team’s mental and physical preparation incorporating the desire to win. Win the game, the tackle, the header and so on.  Can the player overcome pain, heat, extreme cold, their opponent, and even the clock ticking away while having to execute a technical demand?  These are all demands of every soccer player, and all players need to work on mental toughness and be accountable to the team in these areas. Mentally tough players understand and accept the every challenge and work through it so as to contribute to the victory.

On Communication:

Alex believes communication must be kept simple and often. Players should know team plans in advance; this can be done through emails, bulletin boards, and team meetings. During the course of a practice coaches must understand that players want to play, so a simple solution is get it said in 30 seconds! If players stand around while a coach vents or just continually states the same coaching point players will mentally switch off.

As the game gets closer the coach needs to be more specific in what the game plan is, this is obviously done on the practice field. As the game is about to start the coach prepares the team, highlighting the teams strengths and its goals. Players in and out during the game again should not be overloaded with several detailed situations; a specific task will be achieved easier. At half time allow the players to communicate with each other to discuss problems or issues which have all ready happened. Your speech should be a reinforcement of the original pre-game speech. Highlight areas which are vital to the game for example, the opponents system of play, a dangerous player, or how restarts should be addressed. Then very casually move from player-to-player confirming every player is confident and prepared to play the next half. After the game if your team has won allow your players to cool down and leave. If you have lost, allow your players to cool down and again leave, the sooner they are away from you the less chance you may say something out of character. The next practice will have allowed enough time for the coach and the players to reflect over the game. Any individual issues should be dealt with privately with the player, do not address these issues in front of teammates as it will chip away at your overall team confidence.  Lastly, communication during practice or games must be watched carefully, players must be aware of the fact to continually isolate a player will damage the teams confidence. Remember in the heat of the battle players may say things that are not meant, always defuse these incidents by talking directly to the player(s) involved.

Alex Mason

Director of Coaching

MSSA / Arsenal

402-510-9953

Director1@GoArsenal.com