Falling in love with the game

I offer group training sessions once a week during the season for U6-U14 age groups in my club. The sessions are open to all players in each of those age groups. Because these are my target age groups and comprise the bulk of the club, it offers me a chance to implement my philosophy more consistently than other approaches I have used in the past. This is the fourth season I have had the pleasure to work with these age groups in this format. I have learned a lot about how to manage a training session for a diverse group of players and keep it fresh for those who have been in attendance for each of the four seasons worth of sessions. For me, it has been a tremendous growth experience and I have had the chance to see players grow in confidence and love of the sport. A couple of weeks ago, I got this hand drawn picture from one of the U6 players and a hug. That experience reinforced my subjective opinion of the program and complemented the objective improvement in skills that I have been observing. It also reminded me of one of the seminal ideas I learned from the National Youth Coaching license I took in 1999.

When I first took the National Youth Coaching course back in 1999, the idea that made the greatest impression on me was that the U6-U12 age group is the age of romance or falling in love with the game. Ever since then, I have pushed my coaches and parents to help their children find the joy in the game. In fact, that course formed the basis of the name for my former website and this current blog, "the game within the child."

We all know that this game is played at the highest levels and it is played throughout the world and people take it very seriously, so seriously, in fact that two Central American countries once started a war over the results of World Cup qualifying matches. Every professional player and I'd venture to claim that every player who continues to choose to play regardless of age or level, got there because at some point s/he fell in love with the game.

It is hard to understand how someone can fall in love with a game that is so frustrating to play and so difficult to master. Every moment there are a thousand things that you could do. The situation is constantly changing and success one moment is met by failure the next. I remember the despair on Messi's face at the end of the Copa Centenario final in 2016 when he had again fallen short of bringing a trophy home to his country*. The greatest player of his generation has experienced success at all levels of competition, but has not been able to reach the ultimate goal for his country. For months afterward, he swore that he wouldn't represent his country again, that it was too painful. And yet he did return, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. That passion is not borne out of club or country or even family, it is borne out of love.

So how did Messi learn how to love the game? How do any of us get to that point? Having started playing shortly before my 17th birthday, I was clearly out of that age range where falling in love was the goal. Because I was older when I started, I do have a clearer recollection of what happened. I am athletic, but not especially gifted as an athlete. I tried out for the high school team in its first season of existence after I finished football season (Florida plays HS soccer in the winter). Having played football since I was 9, I am not sure what I expected from the game, I hadn't seen much of it on TV and I had never even seen a game in person before I played my first game for the HS. But I can remember, just a few days into practice that I remember thinking that this was so much more fun than football. All the usual constraints (running the play, huddling up, limited touches on the ball, clearly delineated positions) were off and it was mostly about playing. I had freedom that I had never experienced in football or baseball. Although the coaches did do a lot of coaching, ...

When I started coaching, my only point of reference was my own playing experience. I tried to teach my players the things that I wished my coaches had taught me. As you can imagine, it was a haphazard approach. I took my first coaching course about 8 years after I started playing. While my pedagogy improved (along with my skill, in one respect coaching courses are like soccer camp for adults), my understanding of how players can fall in love with the game did not improve.

Even today, I am not sure I understand what works for each player. However, I am very sure I do know what doesn't work. I observed a U6 session recently in which the players were forced to pass the ball in the same exercise for at least 30 minutes. There was a lot of coach talking and a lot of player standing around. I can imagine the child thinking that this is what soccer is supposed to be and it made me sad. I moved from that session to a U12 session where the coach spent at least five minutes setting up a 2 v 1 + GK activity in which the kids had to stay in lanes and dribble and then pass to a player who might shoot on goal. During that time, nobody was playing or touching the ball. I again imagined the mind of the player who couldn't possibly understand how this applied to the game.

So what does work? Here are a few pointers:

Focus on dribbling.
Why? next to scoring goals, beating a defender by dribbling is one of the most difficult things to do and also provides the greatest thrill. I was in my early 20's before I ever successfully planned a move, executed the move and beat a defender for the first time. I can remember the thrill of doing it and the pain (the player I beat then tackled me from behind). Inexperienced players need to be able to dribble to solve the problem of what to do with the ball. We can always teach passing and it is so close to kicking the ball away that for many players there is no difference between a kick and a pass.

Engage the mind.
Players need to connect to the game and they need to be able to do it without the help of the coach or parent. Activities should be designed to make the player solve a problem that they will experience in the game. Free thinking, coach-independent players are the most creative and find the most joy in the game.

Keep them moving.
The last thing players want to do is hear you talk. Activities should be designed to get them moving and participating quickly. You already know about avoiding lines and lectures. You also know that games of elimination like world cup and sharks and minnows mean lots of players sitting out. You have an implicit contract with your kids that they signed up to play. Every exercise should invite at least some aspect of play.

Play
This should go without saying, but I am always amazed by the small amount of practice time that many coaches devote to actually playing the game. One reason I often hear is that practice is for preparing for the game and the game is where you play. This is a misinformed idea. Players will not do things in games under high pressure until they have done them lots of times in practice. We know from research and experience that there is very little transfer of skills from practices to games even under the best designed practices. Players take time to develop and they need to play to understand how a skill can and should be used under pressure.

Finally, watch the game. I have had the pleasure of witnessing the birth of the Atlanta United franchise up close and have attended several games of their inaugural season. The energy is palpable and the team plays such an open, attacking style of play that it is impossible not to enjoy. Watching this team play has ruined watching other sports like baseball and football for me. They simply don't compare. If I was a kid growing up and watching soccer like the kind I see being played here, I wouldn't have waited until I was 17 to start kicking a ball around.

*If you are reading this in 2023 or later, you probably know what happened. Messi and Argentina have won BOTH the Copa America and World Cup titles.