Developing the Young Ones

A football team, normally comprises of experienced players and also the younger or new players who are full of enthusiasm, energy, basic skill required but lack the exposure and experience. All training will definitely emphasize on skill development, confidence building and strategy enhancing in order to enable the younger ones to be absorb into the system. Coaches who have the mind for development will not hesitate to put in the junior into the matches when the time is right (when is the right time?). Putting one junior player will allow ten other senior players to carry him and to build themselves too. Coaches need to be patience too to accept their mistakes or else these junior players will lose their confidence and thus will hinder in their development. At times the coach has to gamble and put in the junior player even in crucial matches. Many juniors, given the chance will perform beyond the coaches' expectation as they want to gain their place in the regular line-up. If coaches of team at the bottom of the league wait for matches when they are leading then the juniors will never get a chance to make their break at all. Putting the junior or even warming them up in the sidelines will push the senior int he field of play to buckled up and perform better.
In refereeing, there is similarity in the development process. Referees Committee will decide the right time to appoint junior referees into the main stream. This of course is done after giving them the appropriate training, building their confidence in the lower level leagues matches, guidance from referees assessor besides some tips from the senior referees and when their performance are good, putting them into the higher league is a wise move. Their performance will of course be under the scrutiny of the referee's assessor (RA) whose duty is to give advice and to guide them in their development. Making mistakes is humane and the approach adopted by RA in accepting minor mistakes or error will help in enhancing their self-confidence in the development process. Mistakes should not be made at the expense of the teams or players. Matches in the earlier stage (early round) should be the right time to give the junior referees a break as matches in the final round are usually more challenging and crucial. With the kind cooperation of team officials the synergy process will definitely benefit the country football on the whole and the referees, specifically.