In youth sports the dominant approach is still heavily instructional

In youth sports, both in team and individual disciplines, the dominant approach is still heavily instructional: the coach speaks, and the young athletes execute.
You still see a lot of mechanical repetitions, isolated drills, and very few situations in which the athlete is required to think, choose, and adapt.

But why does this happen, despite modern research and sports pedagogy pointing in the opposite direction?

Traditional Coaching Culture

Many coaches have grown up in a system based on top-down knowledge transmission. This model:

• prioritizes technical repetition;

• is perceived as “orderly” and controllable;

• ignores the cognitive complexity of the game.

Pressure for Short-Term Results

Coaches, managers, and parents often aim for immediate outcomes: winning games, seeing “organized play,” avoiding mistakes. This leads to:

• simplifying instruction into rigid, standardized patterns;

• reducing the athlete’s autonomy;

• excluding or penalizing those who don’t lead to immediate victories;

• stifling creativity.

The focus on results replaces the care for long-term developmental processes.

Lack of Coach Education

Many youth coaches:

• lack in-depth training in active methodologies;

• are unfamiliar with tools like the ecological model, the constraints-led approach, or Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU);

• rely on “successful” adult-level models, which don’t work the same way with young people.

Difficulty Handling Complex Learning

A path that develops game understanding requires:

• time and patience;

• accepting mistakes as part of the process;

• the ability to ask thought-provoking questions, not just give instructions.

Many coaches fear losing control if they open the game to players’ initiative, because active learning can appear chaotic from the outside.

Stereotypes and Misguided Models

In sports media, authoritarian coaches, rigid systems, and “chalkboard” solutions are often glorified. This reinforces the idea that youth sports should follow the same approach, even though children and adolescents don’t need to execute patterns—they need to understand and decide.