Why Communicating More Can Be Difficult For Girl’s Soccer Players

Communicate! It’s the age-old command soccer players hear from their coaches constantly. But, it’s one of the things that individual players will often say they need to do more of. And, when teams huddle and captains give pep talks, “we need to communicate more” is one of the lines that often comes up.

For many socceristas, communication is not an issue. They are confident in their ability to lead well from the field, direct the ball from player to player, and speak up to take control of the game. But for others, talking more in soccer continues to be challenging year after year. 

When players feel stuck–like when ‘communicating more’ seems impossible for them to overcome–it is likely because the root of the problem lies much deeper than it looks.

Here are several reasons why some players struggle to communicate with their teammates effectively:

• they don’t know what to say
• they are worried they might say the wrong thing
• they believe no communication is better than bad communication
• they are afraid they will be held responsible if they give bad information
• they are worried they will be labeled as ‘bossy’ if they appear to be telling their teammates what to do

If we take a closer look at these, we can see that some are simply due to a need to grow game awareness and tactical knowledge (not knowing what to say, for example). And then all the rest fall under the umbrella of being concerned with what others think of you and not wanting to do anything that risks you being a part of the group.

This GSN article on over-apologizing in women’s soccer explains the situation well, “girls are implicitly and explicitly taught to be more of people-pleasers than boys from the time they start playing in the sandbox,” and “bossy, know-it-all girls are more likely to experience backlash in female social groups.”

These two statements sum up the age-old communication problem in girls’ soccer. Girls are socially conditioned to be hyperaware of everyone else’s feelings and opinions. So they learn to keep the peace and do what it takes to have others like them. They shift their behavior so that they don’t ruffle any feathers.

However, these ingrained ways of operating create many challenges on the soccer field. They hold back both players and teams from playing to their full potential. Here are several suggestions for combatting this issue and ‘communicating more’ on the soccer field.

Building trust in your team

When teammates trust each other, they play better soccer. Because when teammates trust each other, their concerns about being liked, saying the wrong thing or being called bossy all go out the window because they know deep down that they have each other’s backs no matter what happens. 

However, this is a team effort. It requires a culture shift from the entire group–both the players who want to talk more and those who already do.

If you are the teammate of someone who struggles to communicate, you have a role in this. You absolutely stand to gain individually because the entire team will have more success as the trust builds.

If your teammate is quiet on the field, don’t get angry with her. Instead, support her and encourage her to give you information. If you play next to her on the field, try to help her gain confidence by asking her for information. Then express your gratitude when she gives it to you. This will go a long way in improving your connectivity and ability to work together on the pitch.

Individual awareness, growth-mindedness, and confidence

 Along with doing your part to help create a team culture of trust, here are some tips to help you overcome your communication hurdle if you struggle to talk more in soccer:

1. Self-awareness & self-reflection: Simply knowing why ‘communicating more’ is hard for you (use the bullet point list above) is a huge first step. If you don’t know why you struggle to communicate, overcoming it will be near impossible.
2. Growth-mindedness: Once you know why talking more in soccer is hard, you can work on making changes. Self-compassion is essential here because you must be self-reflective without being overly critical and beating yourself up. This can be complicated as it requires a lot of reflective work, self-examination, and a growth-minded perspective.
3. Grow your confidence: How do you grow confidence? Through preparedness. And in this case of communication, preparedness means collecting more information in the run of play. The more you scan the field, the more you keep your head on a swivel and check your shoulder, the easier and easier communicating will get. Why? Because communication is mostly about making sure you have information and feeding that information to your teammates so they have what they need to make good choices. The whole group can make better gameplay decisions when the information flow is constant and reliable.

Listen up, socceristas; your communication is valuable to your teammates. Whether you think so or not, your words are an important part of the puzzle. Your teammates will play better the more information you give them.

Think about this: is it helpful when the person behind you on the soccer field is feeding you information about what is around you? Do you play better? Of course, you do! Now, what would happen to the gameplay of the players around you if you started paying that forward?

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