Preseason: Laying The Foundations
It’s that time of year again. Summer holidays are winding down, boots are being dusted off, and players of all ages are heading back to training for another season.
For many young players, it’s a chance to swap game controllers for a football, catch up with teammates, welcome new faces, and simply enjoy being back on the pitch.
For older players, preseason brings new challenges. Some will be stepping up to senior football while trying to balance jobs, college, family commitments, and social lives. Attendance can be a bit patchy at this time of year, but the ambition to improve is still there. Whatever the level, preseason is a chance to come back a little better and keep building, one step at a time.
For coaches, preseason is one of the most valuable windows of the year.
It’s our chance to lay the foundations. Whether you plan week by week or map out the next few months, this is where we begin to shape how we want to play, agree on standards, and help players work towards shared goals. The reality for most grassroots coaches is that we only get two one-hour sessions each week, so every minute counts.
Preseason is also the time to start answering a few simple questions about how we want to play. What do we do when we have the ball? What happens when we lose it? How do we want to defend? The answers don't need to be complicated. A few clear principles, repeated regularly in realistic training situations, give players something to recognise and rely on when the season starts.
Coaching has moved on from the days when preseason meant endless laps of the pitch until players were exhausted.
Players get fit by playing football.
Small-sided games, conditioned practices, speed & quickness and realistic match situations allow players to improve their fitness while developing technical ability, tactical understanding, and decision-making under pressure. Just as importantly, they help players build confidence and prepare mentally for the season ahead.
A well-planned preseason should help players:
- Build match fitness through football-specific activities.
- Develop tactical awareness and an understanding of their role in and out of possession.
- Become more composed on the ball under pressure.
- Reduce injury risk through progressive training loads.
- Improve communication and team problem-solving.
- Understand key habits around nutrition, hydration, sleep, and recovery.
- Prepare mentally for the highs and lows that every season brings.
These are essential foundations. But from a grassroots perspective, preseason can—and should—be even more than this.
Developing People Through Football
Before we build a style of play, we need to build relationships.
Every season brings new players, different personalities, and changing friendship groups. Some players return full of confidence, while others carry disappointment from last season, are returning from injury, or wonder where they fit into the squad.
Giving players space to reconnect, work together, and support each other is every bit as important as passing patterns. Teams that trust each other learn and improve much faster.
Every Player Has Their Own Story
No two players return to preseason in the same place. Some stayed active all summer; others haven’t kicked a ball in weeks. Some shot up in height, while others are dealing with challenges away from football.
Sometimes the best thing a coach can do is ask simple questions:
- “What would you like to improve this season?”
- “What are you looking forward to most?”
- “Is there anything you’d like me to help you with?”
Those quick conversations tell us far more than a fitness test ever could.
Confidence isn’t something players suddenly find on opening day—it’s built over time. It grows during training through encouragement, taking risks, making mistakes, and seeing progress while remembering what they are doing well and reflecting on previous times when they felt confident.
Preseason allows coaches to build an environment where players feel safe to try new skills and believe in themselves.
“Do players feel like they belong here?”
We spend hours working on passing, pressing, and finishing. But how often do we coach what happens after a mistake?
- Can a player reset quickly after losing possession?
- Can they encourage a teammate who made an error?
- Can they stay calm when a decision goes against them?
These psychological habits are skills too, coaching the mind as well as the footballer, and they often determine which teams handle pressure when competitive games start.
Grassroots football works best when coaches, players, and parents are pulling in the same direction.
Parents organise lifts, stand on the sidelines in all weather, and support players after every game. Preseason is the ideal time to share expectations around development, game time, touchline behaviour, nutrition, and recovery. When everyone understands the bigger picture, the environment benefits immediately.
Building a Team Culture
Every team develops a style of play, but every team also develops a culture.
- How do we respond when we’re losing?
- How do we react after a mistake?
- How do we speak to each other in training?
Those behaviours become your culture, and they shape the season far more than the formation written on the team sheet does.
At grassroots level, our job is about more than winning matches—it’s about helping young people grow.
Above everything else, football should be enjoyable.
The best preseason sessions challenge players, but also leave them smiling as they pick up the cones. Players who enjoy training come back more often, work harder, stay involved longer, and ultimately improve the most.
If players finish preseason fitter, more confident, better connected, and excited to return every week, we’ve already achieved something far more important.
We’ve started building people as well as players—and that’s what grassroots football is really about.
