The "show my skills" pinkie promise

American Soccer has long been derided as little more than "kickball." We have a large number of players, but produce relatively few truly outstanding players compared to a country like the Netherlands which has a much higher success rate at developing young talent. There are tons of reasons why we lag behind other countries including the lack of infrastructure and the lack of a "soccer culture" where people had grown up with the sport and therefore have parents with prior experience. Our parent coaches are often transplants from other sports that are primarily coach directed like football and baseball. Employing the same coaching strategies in soccer is not very effective due to the player-centered nature of the sport.

The problem

As the director of coaching for a recreational program, my most persistent problem was finding coaches for U5 and u6 teams. When I did find these coaches, they had little idea of what to do with the kids during a training session or during the game. Our club does have a U4 program that holds one session a week and focuses on ball skills and movement education. Many of our players graduated from that program, which was well run and employed good training methods. When they transitioned into the older age groups, they didn't get the same experience or focus. 

Group training

I tried for years to focus on the game play and coach development as ways to get around the problem, but it were not very effective. Several years ago, I adopted the same group training model that was used in the U4 program. We began a practice/play model one day a week where I ran the training session for the whole group of U5/U6 players and then the coaches ran the game. In the game, we used the dribble in model of game play. 

With the introduction of a standard curriculum, consistent training methods and improved quality of game play, player development improved. I still wasn't satisfied because I still observed players struggling to solve problems like "how do I dribble around an opponent?" and "how do I change direction when I am facing the wrong goal to score on?" Even though we practiced these skills in training, players weren't quickly transferring them to the game situation. 

Show my skills pinkie promise

To address this problem, I developed the "pinkie promise" and the "finger wag." Before, during and after practice, I ask players to give me the pinkie promise- "I promise to show my skills." I also added the finger wag with the saying "and never kick the ball away." So now kids are aware that we value skills like the ones we practice in games and do not value kicking the ball away. Making players explicitly aware of what we value helps them to try and incorporate it into the game. 

Feedback

The next problem was transfer to the game. I wanted to give coaches a way to help in the process of transferring from practice to game and give them something to do which would be more appropriate feedback. So during game play, instead of coaches telling players what to do, they instead give the direction "show your skills." 

We have also added feedback to the game play in the form of yes and occasionally no. So as the game is being played, when a player controls the ball, attempts to make a dribbling move or changes direction (any of the skills we worked on), the coach says "yes." Sometimes, when a player kicks the ball away (especially when he or she is under no pressure), the coach says "no." A player who controls the ball, changes direction and tries to dribble past an opponent will get multiple yes's. Sometimes a player will get a yes and then a no. The coaches are instructed to be positive with the yes's, so they say it with enthusiasm while the no's are not said negatively. 

Response has been positive to this kind of feedback and it also has the effect of dampening feedback from parents who see a player kick the ball away and are enthusiastic about how hard they kicked it. I have also tried this form of feedback on older age groups and the players are even more aware of it. I watched a U8 player smile when she received multiple yes's for controlling the ball, dribbling past an opponent and creating a scoring chance.