The Game Within the Child

I once had a parent/coach in my program who was an accomplished coach who had a talented child. The child played multiple sports and excelled at each of them. For this reason, he only played in my program every other season. His father was his coach initially, but wasn't able to work coaching into his schedule after the first season, so he had to relinquish coaching to others. I would see him on the parent's side of the field, pacing, fists clenched. He would yell instructions to his son (sometimes other players) and always looked unhappy. Sometimes other parents would report his behavior to me when I wasn't around. When I did talk to him, he was always reasonable, but he was never happy either with his son's play or the coaching that he was receiving. Do you get the picture? I was reminded of this recently when I came across this excellent article from Go Play Better, a website dedicated to improving youth sports by focusing on player development and teamwork. Thei...

U6 is the entry level for many players in soccer. Because the level isn't very high, there is an idea prevalent that anybody can coach U6 players. That idea is quickly dispelled when parents go out to coach for the first time. While it may be easy to entertain your 5 year old, when you have a group of 5 year olds, the challenge is much more complex. As a high school teacher during the day, I constantly encounter peers who say that they couldn't deal with a group of children that young. With a spouse who is an elementary school teacher, I hear comments from her peers about how they couldn't handle older children. For some reason, that has never been an issue for me. I don't know why, but I can coach any age and not be intimidated or uncomfortable. For over 20 years, I have taught parent coaches how to work with the U6 player. The past seven years, I have been able to watch these coaches then go out and try to coach. This is not to say that a 4 hour training session or ...

I have always been reluctant to post model training sessions. Probably the most important reason is that coaches may take that model and then simply copy it, without putting in any of their own philosophy or ideas. Having taken model sessions from others and trying to implement it never worked out that well. The next issue is that the session should match the players as well as possible and that takes the ability to read the session and making changes as the session progresses. However, after watching hundreds of practices, I came to the conclusion that my model of providing coaching courses, suggesting activities and dropping in on practices was not giving me the quality of session from my coaches that I was hoping to see. In short, only a few practices were at an acceptable level. The vast majority were of low quality and did not focus on the core skills I have identified as important to develop players. So this season, I decided to do a relatively generic session that included ...

The lowest common denominator (LCD) "the most basic, least sophisticated level of taste, sensibility, or opinion among a group of people," according to thefreedictionary.com In youth soccer, I often hear coaches and parents relying on the LCD to relay information to their players. In the quest to make the game easier for their players, they often end up building up patterns that are hard to break later, even among the strongest players. I have compiled a short list below and will add to it as I hear more of these comments. Throw-ins "Throw it down the line" Data from youth soccer games shows that the most likely outcome of a throw in is a turnover. Players struggle to throw the ball to a teammate and when they do get it to a teammate, the pass is of such poor quality that the other team ends up with the ball either as a throw-in or as a turnover. In an attempt to simplify the game, coaches just encourage (ok, yell at) their players to throw it down the line. W...

One of the all-time favorite games that players want to play is called World Cup. There are variations on how to play it, but basically everybody on the team pairs up (so if you had 14 players, you would have 7 teams). Each team chooses a country to represent. One player plays in goal and the teams try to score. The GK plays a ball out and then there is a free-for all as the team play 2 vs everyone else. When a player shoots, they are supposed to shout out the name of their country. If they score without calling out the name, then the goal doesn't count. When a team does score, they get to sit out until there is only one team remaining that hasn't scored. Then you start round 2 with 1 less team. If played properly, then this game lasts 6 rounds. With each round seeing more players out, it very quickly becomes a game that has more watchers than participants. In addition, it takes a long time to play. If you counted the average number of touches each participant takes during th...

The U10 game is the first one that incorporates a referee, player passes and a game card. It is also the first age group that keep tracks of results. When I first started working with the Impact, I observed lots of U10 games and as a result, I came up with a couple of modifications to emphasize skill and possession. There is NO PUNTING in U10.  When the GK gets the ball under control, the last thing we want to have him/her do is to kick the ball away. When the GK does punt the ball, the other team gets possession about 80% of the time. In addition, players have a hard time judging the speed and direction of the ball, so when the ball is in the air, they either cower from the ball, try to play it with their head or let it bounce over their head. None of these results makes it easy for the attacking team to retain possession. Instead of punting, the GK can throw the ball, roll the ball to a teammate or put it on the ground and pass it to a teammate. the GK's most important job i...

The U6 game has evolved quite a bit from 20 years ago when we played them 11 v 11 with goalkeepers and positions because it was "like the real game." Today, we play a game that the players can understand, develop skills and enjoy playing the game because it is more appropriately scaled to their understanding of the world. In addition to the national federation rules regarding U6 games, we have added some modifications to improve the player experience and increase our likelihood of achieving our player development goals. Use a size 3 ball.  Sometimes, kids come to practices and games with larger ball sizes (4 or 5). Check that out and see that you have a size 3. We play 4 v 4 Having fewer players on the field decreases the complexity of the game. There are no GK's at this age group either, so as a coach, all you have to do is manage how long each player plays before taking a break. Plan the game matchups with the other coach before the game.  We want to challenge ...