The Game Within the Child

  Avoiding the 3L's Sam Snow , former Director of Coaching for Louisiana Youth Soccer Association , introduced me to this term and it clarifies so many things for me that I feel compelled to share it with you. The three L’s are Lines, Laps and Lectures . I will deal with each of these separately, but the basic idea is that the 3L’s will eventually cause your players to look at practice as work and not play. Lines reduce the number of touches a player will get on the ball and will reduce the reality of the game. There is no element of the game where the players line up for anything except a handshake at the end. I once counted the number of touches a player got during a 5 minute period while participating in a shooting activity . There were 12 players on the team and no goalkeeper. During that 5 minutes he got 4 shots and his touch count was 8. The rest of the time was spent holding his ball so that other players wouldn’t knock it away or chasing his errant shot, retrieving it and r...

  The first week of practices can be a little messy. You may not know your kids names and you may be unsure about what you are doing at your session. This can be very stressful. Here are some tips to get started: Get to know your kids Coach Amy worked with us for several years and every time I saw her teams play, they were calling each other by something they liked or their favorite food. So Amy wouldn’t say their name, but their nickname like “Blueberry” or “Potato Chip” or “Butterfly.” It was part of what made it fun to be on the team was to have this secret code that only the players and coaches knew. Establishing the connection between the players and yourself can be a little awkward. Even if you don't do what Coach Amy did, try to find a way to build rapport with your players that builds trust between you and your players. Establish Routines and Boundaries Keep in mind that children appreciate routines and boundaries. If your rules are clear and you are consistent, then they ...

If you are looking for a game that can be used to emphasize a technical skill like passing or to present players with a more tactical focus like solving problems in groups of 2-3 or creating space in the final third, then look no further than GET-OUTTA-HERE. This game has all the skill elements you need and most of the tactical elements you will need up to 4 v 4. In addition it is a competitive game that always gets your team motivated. Finally, players are forced to communicate both on and off the field to ensure success and if they cannot communicate effectively, their team will lose, so there is a real penalty. The setup of the game is simple. Break your team into two approximately equal level groups. Assemble them on the sideline on either side of you with all of the balls next to you. Give each team a goal to defend. I usually start out with 2 v 2. Set a time limit of 2-3 minutes for the game and play up to three rounds. The team that wins two out of three rounds is the winner...

U12 is a great age to play soccer. The game speed is much higher than in U12 and players are starting to think ahead. There is a marked improvement in skills and players can show a wider variety of skills. Long passing enters the equation for both crossing the ball and playing it forward early to break pressure. Players are finally allowed to head the ball and they start to settle into more clearly defined positions. With our implementation of the new US Youth Soccer Association (USYSA) recommendations, the U12 grows from 7 v 7 to 9 v 9. More players on the field makes the game more complex, so the challenge for you is how do you prepare the players to first survive and then excel at the game. The most obvious strategy is to focus on the three core skills: dribbling, shield/turn and controlling the ball for your least experienced/ skilled players. Each of these can be developed using the  model training session  I have posted elsewhere on this blog. It mixes the core skil...

U10 is a great age, the players have longer attention spans and some of the higher order thinking required of a good soccer player begins to show at this age. They become capable of a greater range of skills and their physical development make the game much faster. With our implementation of the new US Youth Soccer Association (USYSA) recommendations, the U10 grows from a six a side game to a 7 v 7. More players on the field makes the game more complex, so the challenge for you is how do you prepare the players to first survive and then excel at the game. The most obvious strategy is to focus on the three core skills: dribbling, shield/turn and controlling the ball for your least experienced/ skilled players. Each of these can be developed using the model training session I have posted elsewhere on this blog. It mixes the core skills along with some physical training, building up to a game to finish off the practice. I have also searched youtube and found some good exercises to...