The Game Within the Child

Way before the concept of hashtags, I developed a set of simple phrases that I used in training to help my players understand some key principles of soccer. In this article I wrote a long time ago, I talk about the top 10 phrases I use in training with my players. I think it will be helpful to you as you work on communicating more effectively with your players. Remember that your goal is to do less talking and have the kids play for longer periods of time. With a few good memes, you can easily accomplish this goal.  Now on to the phrases:  I have noticed that many times I say something and I assume that the people I am speaking to know exactly what I am talking about. Somebody pointed this out to me one time when they asked what “playing good soccer” actually meant. For years, I would say we want out players to play good soccer without ever defining what I thought it meant. It was up to each person to interpret that in whatever way they could. This is not ...

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...

One of the reasons why I have stayed in this game so long is that I am constantly learning new things and I get excited about trying them out with the teams and coaches in my club. The exercise I am going to describe today was one I learned from a State Instructors Seminar run by my state DOC, Jacob Daniel, back in 2010. From the title, it sounds like a typical 3 v 3 game, but over the years, I have expanded it out to 7 v 7 and even larger. The great thing about it is that it can work with a U10 rec team as well as a high level select team. The setup is simple, 3 players on a 15 x 25 yard grid with a 5 foot goal at each end. Depending on the size of your team, you can have up to 3 grids going at once in the first level. In a typical 3 v 3 setup, all of the players are moving and switching positions. In this game, there is one designated player who is the nominal GK. In a real game setup, this would be your #6 (defensive mid or holding mid), or possibly your #4 or 5 (center backs) pla...