Pass the puppy

When introducing players to passing, I have always avoided the pairs standing 5 yards apart kicking a ball back and forth. Instead, I want kids to focus on how the ball moves after you strike it. If a ball is rolling along the ground and didn’t have spin, then the kid could know that he or she had struck it pretty well.

Most coaches focus on body shape, balance and leg swing, endlessly emphasizing the mistakes that players are making. While the information they are passing on is correct, it is at such a high volume that kids very quickly tune out the coach. Additionally, coaches often don’t take passing exercises past the fundamental phase or have the passing skill as a focus of the small-sided and expanded small sided activities.

Even as players mature, they don’t think about what kind or quality of ball they want to give their teammates. They are more focused on giving the ball away than about the quality of the ball. I recently came up with an analogy that I used with my U10 and U12’s that has worked really well. I asked them to imagine that the pass going to their teammate would be so good it would be like watching a puppy running to you that you just wanted to pick up and give it a hug. A difficult pass would be like being attacked by a Rottweiler.

Even if they thought it was lame, the idea took hold very quickly and the quality of passing improved rapidly. It also allowed players to judge the quality of the passes that their teammates were making. “that was a good puppy”, “the puppy is running away” (a pass that missed its target), “that’s a bad puppy” were all very quickly incorporated into the communication of the players and coaches.

It also allows me to communicate with players about their decision making when they have the chance to play the ball. One of my pet peeves is players who only kick the ball away. For me, I can emphasize this by saying “don’t kick the puppy away” so that they can be more cognizant of when they are simply kicking the ball away as opposed to trying to do something skillful with the ball.

I think this meme has legs, try it with your players and see what happens.