How can you ensure your team wins every match they play, and what is the formula or special secret needed to win your games?

The truth is, whether you believe it or not, you can be successful in every game your team plays.

The important thing is to define what winning means to you and your team. If winning a youth football match is defined by your team scoring more goals than the opposing team at the end of the game, then you should read the following article on this site, Winning at all costs, however if winning means something else, then please read on.

The game of Association Football, as like any other competitive sport, has a winner, though your focus as a person involved in youth football should be towards developing young people playing the game, and directed your focus on more than just the end result.

The end result is the best and worst thing in our junior game. It gives the winning team a very short term boost of pleasure, though it also slows the development of our young players and turns their parents into “Gobby Morons”.

We know all too well what is wrong with our sport at youth level, though do we know what can be right and how we can ensure we win every game and win with every player?

The most important thing to do is to define what it means to win. To be able to do this we need to measure what it means to be successful. To know if you have been successful you need to know what the difference is between winning and losing. You need to have a plan and that plan must have an aim of what you intend to achieve, with the team and each individual player.

In youth football winning should be a term associated with improving, developing and getting better. A young footballer, who is a good player one season, playing in a team which scores more goals than the opposition, may not have improved as a player, and although his team might be champions, that player may be a loser due to the lack of development. This is why many teams who run away with their league, often regularly beating teams by double figures, have to play in a league against older children to improve.

Are these teams winners? If you base winning on results, of course they are, though improving and developing as footballers, a massive No, they are actually losers.

To be a winner in every game your team plays you need to fulfil your winning criteria. If your aim is to ensure the progression of development for your players as individuals and your team as a whole, you will have a much greater chance of success than if your only focus is on scoring more goals than the opposition.

Perhaps the best measure of success and winning is to ensure all of your allowable, available players are included in the game and have an equal share of minutes on the pitch.

The football coach who can achieve this and one who doesn’t win at all costs will be the most successful in the league and will win every game.