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Basic coaching concepts for players up to the age of seven

Individual Technical and Tactical Issues for U-5’s and U-6’s

by Tom Turner, Ohio Youth Soccer Association-North, Director of Coaching and Player Development

Coordination and Basic Motor Skills

Very young children (four and five year olds) are learning to coordinate and control their body movements and dynamic balance, and are generally not very nimble or agile. Practice activities that develop these basic motor skills, with and without the soccer ball will be beneficial and fun for all young children. In addition to soccer-specific activities, practice activities for five and six year-olds should target directional sense, spatial awareness, and basic motor patterns, such as hopping, skipping, jumping, bounding and running.

Contacting the Ball

There are six surfaces (inside, outside, instep, sole, toe and heel) used for kicking, dribbling or controlling a soccer ball. For most U-5 and U-6 players, the toes and the laces are the most commonly used surfaces. Practice activities should encourage these players to experiment with different surfaces and ask them to “imagine” new ways to kick and dribble the ball. Games that cater to discovery learning and imitation are the recommended approaches to “teaching” new skills to young children.

Dribbling

Dribbling the ball is arguably the most important soccer skill at any level, and practice activities should encourage all young players to dribble and stop and turn the ball with different surfaces and to move in different directions with the ball under control.

Passing

Players as young as five will look to pass the ball to teammates, and they will do so with purpose if they are given enough time and space to consider their options. In many cases, young children are still learning how to coordinate their perception of a game situation with the muscle actions necessary to make contact with the ball. It is important to encourage beginners to take extra touches when controlling the ball so that passes (or dribbles) are attempted with a purpose in mind, rather than as a means of kicking the ball to safety.

Shooting

A player’s first thought in possession should always be “Can I score a goal from here?” Goals in practice should be wide and high enough to encourage shots from various distances and angles, and coaches should reinforce to players through their practice activities that the objective of the game is to score more goals than the opponents in the time allowed. Soccer games and other activities with no stated “outcome” are less motivating than activities that provide a way to win.

Ball Control

Time, space and repetition are the most important elements for improving comfort level and reducing the number of touches necessary to control the ball. Small-sided games and complementary one-player/one-ball activities provide opportunities for young players to begin to associate the techniques of dribbling and controlling the soccer ball with the three tactical applications of dribbling: moving away from pressure, running into open space, and dribbling towards goal. Beginning level players will rarely try to control balls coming out of the air, and bouncing balls present another very difficult coordination and emotional problem for five and six year-olds. The secret of good ball control is a soft first touch; the most damaging coaching advice to give five and six year-olds is to kick the ball away.

Heading

Five and six year olds will not head the ball.

Support

Young players should not be restricted in their movements on the field and moving should become a natural extension of passing. Passing to other players should be expected and encouraged at this age, although dribbling the ball is the most likely method of advancing the ball. Instruction that limits players to a particular area of the field does not allow for the natural emergence of supporting positions and angles that become so important for positional play in later years.

Spaces versus Positions

For all players under the age of eight, positional coaching of any kind is irrelevant and detrimental to their fun, enjoyment and progress. Rather than be told what position to play, young players should be encouraged to “find” new supporting positions away from teammates so that passes can be exchanged.

Vision

Most young players have little or no visual awareness of their immediate surroundings, and, in particular, the proximity of teammates and opponents not directly in front of them. Receiving passes when facing away from the opponent’s goal is a difficult skill, even for accomplished players, and most children will not look up until they have received the ball, secured possession, and turned to face forward. Often, young players will simply let the ball run past them into what they hope will be open space.

Defending

“Defending” at this age should be no more complicated than encouraging the children to try and win the ball back when possession is lost. Players will often naturally transition from attack to defense and recover towards their goal, but it is also true that young children will often stop playing when the ball is lost. While these players should be “gently” encouraged to participate in the game, they should never be scolded for their decision to “take a rest.” When the ball comes their way they will become involved again. Because players should be encouraged to move forward when attacking, there will be many situations when no one is at the back of the team when the opponents gain possession. This should be anticipated as a natural aspect of play for young children and one reason why scores are generally much higher in small-sided games.
Transition

When the ball turns over from the attacker to the defender or from the defender to the attacker, the game offers chances to demonstrate awareness of two very important concepts: immediate recovery of the ball and immediate counter-attack to goal. Players should be assessed on how well they understand these concepts and encouraged to react as quickly as possible to any change in possession.

Creativity

Because five and six year-olds are learning to coordinate ball manipulation with body control, “creativity” is more likely to appear as good ball control or faking or feinting movements. Players who can change speed and direction and retain control of the ball are applying their techniques in a creative way. Players who can move their bodies from side to side in an effort to unbalance a defender are showing signs of creativity. Players who experiment with different parts of their feet or control the ball with different body parts, are showing signs of creativity. At this age, allowing children to think and to fantasize and to create their own solutions to the game’s problems is a critical element of coaching.

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First season as a youth soccer coach

For the parent coach that’s new to the game and coaching, the first two questions they usually ask are “What am I supposed to do and how will I do it?” This article offers information and direction on these questions. It also contains links to other pages so that even novice coaches can get a basic understanding of how to use small sided games and why they are such an effective learning tool.

How Do I Do This? Choosing a Model

Becoming a coach means adopting a set of behaviours on how to do a job. It amounts to assuming a role when dealing with the players, parents, opponents and officials. This can be seen as a coaching style which is based on a set of expectations of what a coach is and does. But choosing a model for this behaviour is limited by experience. For the new parent coach this experience might only be the memory of a Physical Education class from long ago. What’s important is that it will form the framework for how the coach sees the game, the children, learning and themselves. It will be an unconscious, internalized starting point for every decision.

The Physical Education Teacher – The Physical Education model is the most dominate model in the game today. It divides the game into separate, distinct areas: technique, rules and basic strategy. This model sees the game as isolated components that can be learned separately in practices and reassembled later on in the game. It usually employs three different parts in a practice. A warm-up, the lesson and finally a scrimmage. This is an outline for the standard PE class lesson.

The strength of this model is that everything is controlled and quantified. Almost everything can be evaluated on an objective basis. This is what Physical Education teachers do. Control the environment, and the students, in order to evaluate them for a grade. The grade will be based on technical proficiency, knowledge of the rules and basic strategy. Players learn how to wait in line for their turn and follow directions, they learn little about problem solving or team work. At no time are end results (winning/losing) a part of the evaluation. In this way it’s easy to justify the activities when the evaluation is isolated from a larger more complex picture.

But success for a coach is different then for a PE teacher. Coaches are concerned with results from games. Mastery of any area is useless if it does not transfer directly to the sport. The structure used in learning PE (static positions, lines) can only be found on the field in a few brief moments, i.e. restarts if at all. The PE teacher exercises all of the control of the objectives and pace of the lesson. Students are dependent on the teacher as an external source of motivation and evaluation. But soccer is a player centred activity and children need to develop their own source of internal motivation and evaluative skills. They also need to learn for themselves how to control the pace and objectives of the game and themselves. So the basic weakness of the PE model is that it prepares the children for drills rather than games by both its focus and methods.

Street Soccer Model – its focus is on learning how to play games by playing the game or, some modified form. It takes a holistic approach to learning. The upside of this model is that with it’s focus on games children not only learn how to play soccer but simply how to play. Playing together without supervision is a rapidly vanishing activity. Children must learn not only the skills of the game but how to self assess, take responsibility for their own actions and work together in a competitive environment.

The downside of this model is that much of the control is given to the children and they might not go in the direction that you want. They may choose different solutions or ignore the problem altogether. They will learn at their own speed, not yours because they are the ones who decide what is really important. (And since this is their childhood, who can blame them.) It can also be chaotic and that will be a problem for some adults. There is an element of uncertainty in the training which matches the uncertainty of the game itself.

What Do I Do? Setting the First Seasons Objectives

In the Physical Education model the seasons overall plan will focus on improvement in key areas. This usually results in a grocery list of objectives. Techniques such as passing, shooting and dribbling. Tactical concepts such as spreading out, proper support, defending angles. Rules such as proper throw ins, penalty kicks and so on. With a grocery list, lessons become topics and the children and coach are held in the straight jacket of the agenda. Success is measured by how much the children improved in the topic, even if the children don’t care about or have little use for it. “Tuesday we will work on dribbling, Thursday passing. We will be better dribblers and passers because that is what we have worked on.” While this statement might be true, it does not necessarily follow that they’ll be better soccer players.

In the street soccer model the season’s objective will be to find the correct form(s) of the game and to help the players to increase their speed of play. This takes into account the players level and motivation. It will mean adjusting the resistance to meet the ever changing needs and situations. It allows the players to face constantly recurring and realistic situations under varying degrees of difficulty. As they progress in mastering the particular form their speed of play increases. Players’ decisions and their ability to execute them improve. “This week we’ll work on the shooting game, we might not be better shooters but we should be better soccer players because we have been playing soccer.” The goal is not just to improve the tools of the game, but to improve the quality of the game itself.

A problem with the PE point of view for the new parent coach is that the grocery list of needs and objectives never ends. You simply keep adding on one more thing that you think they need to learn. In reality, the vast majority of youth players stop playing the game before they are 18. Lessons devoted to standing in lines and passing a ball back and forth or dribbling aimlessly around in a grid will have little relevance to their adolescent and adult needs. In the street soccer model the lessons are focused more on communication, responsibility, and team work with the technical and tactical side being driven by how the players see their own needs. They’ll be as good as they want to be, not as someone else wants them to be.

Some Age Appropriate Guidelines

The following will focus on a few general ideas.

5-6 Year Olds – Five and Six year olds can’t play competitive team sports. They lack the experience to understand cooperative play and the real meaning of winning and losing. Here soccer is a means to an end, a way to introduce social and motor skills to young children who are just beginning to experience the world outside of home and school.

Some of the children may experience a new form of conflict, the difference in what adults say and mean. One example is between the “just do your best and that’s good enough” mantra and the realization that sometimes “your best is not good enough.” Another is when the coach instructs them to take the ball away another child, (which isn’t nice) while their teachers insist on sharing and being nice. This can lead to confusion about what adults, authority figures, really want.

The basic game format (2, 4 goals or use targets) allows the children to learn direction. 2v2 and 3v3 mini-tournaments allows for team work on their scale. Using an appropriate field size (too big and there is no pressure, too small and players will experience conflict and stress) can help teach the consequences when the ball goes out. Goals in unusual positions (in the corner of the pitch or at an angle) can help children to get their heads up and to see beyond their feet. All of the technical skills will come along with the games and the basic lessons of “work together, keep the ball on the field and let’s try going the right way” can be learned.

7-8 Year Olds – One of the biggest problems at this age will be when children of different levels are mixed. Sometimes it’s between children who have been playing for a while and those that are either new or really don’t care about it. Sometimes the difference is in physical or mental qualities. When the levels are too great this puts a stress on everyone’s relationship and is the hardest problem for a coach to solve. Ideally, the club should have a way to ensure that children play with others that are close in their own level and interests.

If the children have been playing SSG’s for a few seasons they should have enough experience so that the basic games can be modified and made harder. The number of players can be increased, line soccer or combined goals can be introduced and some simple rules set. Changing the demands of the training games can improve the speed of the basic game and their real weekend match. If the children have only had exposure to the PE model they will need some time to adjust to the freedom that SSG’s offer. Their speed of play will initially be slow but can improve over time.

9-10 Year Olds – The separation between levels becomes more pronounced and often the parents of the top players bring increased expectations to the situation. Some parents see these years as a continuation of a hobby while others see it as the final preparation before the “real 11 a side game.” This can cause conflicting agendas between adults on the same team and add to the stress that the children and coach already face. However, the separation in levels also means that some children will be faced with the choice of playing in a secondary role at a higher level, or, playing their preferred role at a lower level. Children who find themselves in a primary role but are faced with too much resistance from the too high a level will find a lot of frustration.

Often this is the age when some children will start to gravitate to a position or a role. While it’s too early to predict where a child is best suited to play in the future, they should be allowed the option of sticking to the position or role of their choice. This allows them the opportunity to experience the game in depth as it meets their needs. (If a 10 year old wants to play the violin do they need to practice the trumpet?) Later, if they want to change it’s their choice. Soccer at this age is a hobby. Hopefully the children are there because they choose to be. If they are forced to play too often outside of their comfort zone they can simply pick a new hobby. The down side of this position is that the average 12 player team has 8 right wings and will require the coach to work out a diplomatic plan for playing time.

Children that have been playing a while might express a total commitment to the game, even dreaming of a professional career. The game has become the centre of their lives outside of school, church and home. But this attachment is like a first love and is subject to change with age and experience. Unfortunately, many parents don’t recognize this and it can also lead to increased expectations. In addition, some children go through a prepubescent growth spurt and their physical qualities can change almost overnight, usually for the worse. Children who only a year ago were stars can rapidly gain 15% in body weight, lose confidence and develop a fear of failure. This period of a crisis in confidence must be recognised as a temporary and natural process. They’ll simply out grow it.

At this age children are capable of fairly sophisticated games. The big goal, two small goals and 5v2 games can help them prepare for the building up phase of play. The ball will be getting off of the ground so soccer tennis and heading games will help as an introduction to this part of the game. If the children have mastered the basic forms of SSG’s they should be able to quickly adapt to new problems and situations. When the resistance is correct this age is capable of quality play at a high speed.

Keep In Mind

A soccer season is short, perhaps 9 games and 20 practices. Ideally this might mean 29 hours for learning soccer. But some children will miss practices and games. Practices and games will be rained out. Children will arrive late and leave early. Many children will not practice at all away from the team. Time is lost for breaks and setting up new activities. All of these things will reduce the amount of time that the children have to learn. When the learning curve of the new parent coach is figured in it’s easy to understand why the training must be first and foremost, efficient and effective. Keep things simple and don’t forget to play soccer!

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How to manage your players’ parents

Parents are, obviously, necessary. Sometimes they can even be useful! You can, for example, get them to transport children, fetch balls during practice sessions and provide financial support.

There will, however, be occasions when you have difficulty with one or more parents. Some may want their child to play more while others may question your judgment as a coach. You can minimise the number of times you have to deal with an angry or upset parent by following these guidelines:

1. Have a pre-season meeting before the first practice to discuss your plans and expectations for the season. Encourage questions from the parents and let them know that you have given a lot of thought to how you’re going to coach their children.

2. Express appreciation for their interest and concern. This will make them more open and at ease with you.

3. Always listen to their ideas and feelings. Remember, they are interested and concerned because it is their children that are involved. Encourage parental involvement.

4. Know what your objectives are and do what you believe to be of value to the team, not to the parents. No coach can please everyone!

5. Know the club and game rules. Be prepared to abide by them and to explain them to parents.

6. Handle any confrontation one-on-one and not in a crowd situation. Try not to be defensive. Let the parent talk while you listen. Often a parent will vent their frustrations just by talking. Listen to their viewpoint, then thank them for it.

7. Resist unfair pressure. It is your responsibility as coach to make the final decision. This doesn’t mean that you can’t still listen to parents.

8. Don’t discuss individual players with other parents. The grapevine will hang you every time. Show the same respect for each player on the team that you want the parents to show toward you.

9. Ask parents not to criticize their children in front of anyone else. Don’t let your players be humiliated, even by their own parents.

10. Don’t blame the players for their parents’ actions.

11. Be consistent! If you change a rule or philosophy during the season, you may be in for trouble. At the very least, inform players and parents of any change as soon as possible.

12. Most importantly, be fair! If you treat all your players fairly and equally you will gain their respect and that of their parents as well.

Remember that your children (and their parents) are not all the same. They will have a wide variety of backgrounds, beliefs and ideals. This diversity is to be valued.

The challenge for you as a coach is to address these differences in a positive manner so that the season will be enjoyable for everyone involved.

Dealing with “overly-helpful” parents

If parents have been acting as your assistants at practices, it is not uncommon for them to want to continue to participate during games. This is something which you need to watch closely, for several reasons. First, if other parents see a “non-coach” giving instructions to players on the field, they are going to be tempted to start doing this themselves. This will drive the kids crazy, because “too many cooks” really do spoil things. Secondly, most parents are going to be watching their own child – and giving most of their instructions to their own child. This can be very distracting to the child (even if the instructions are good) because it takes his attention away from the game and keeps him from using his own brain to figure things out for himself. Furthermore, many children simply want praise, praise and more praise from their parents – so any corrections will be viewed as a public statement of “Boy, you are so stupid, I hate having you as my kid.” Finally, and often most importantly, the instructions being given by these “helpers” often tend to be completely wrong – and exactly opposite from what you have been working on at practice.

What to do? The key is tact – and a Preseason meeting. Explain to the parents that the kids need to be able to use the games as learning experiences – and too much criticism is going to feel to them that the parents view them as failures. Tell the parents that, on game day, the ONLY thing that you want to hear is some general praise “Nice job; good shot; unlucky; good idea; etc.”). Tell your assistants that you really appreciate their help, but you need them to sit in the stands on game day, because you are afraid that other parents will be tempted to start “helping” by shouting instructions – and this will drive the kids nuts!

Then, if you have some parent who starts to give instructions, nip this in the bud early. Each time that the parent does this, smile and say “Remember the Rule, please.” Be good humoured about it. Make a sign which proclaims the stands as a NO COACHING ZONE. Bring a gag. But, don’t permit this parent to violate your rules.

The same goes for parents who want to yell at opposing players or referees – except that you MUST leap in hard to prevent this. A very firm “George, we don’t yell at the Refs” – followed by “Sorry, Ref – It won’t happen again” – makes it clear to everyone that you don’t like this conduct. Ditto for yelling at opposing players, but be even more forceful. It is very scary for smaller players to deal with irate adults – and you need to stop this immediately. If the parent doesn’t listen, tell him to go sit in his car. Even if this means abandoning the game, or going to get a Club official to help, it is your obligation to protect these other children – just as you would want the other coach to protect your little ones. Besides, if you do not move in quickly, the next thing that you know, you will have some irate Dad from the other side coming to see your parent – and all hell could break loose. So, do what you need to do – but don’t tolerate this type of behaviour.

Dealing with parental complaints

Almost every parent occasionally disagrees with your decisions as a coach (whether or not you hear about it). Usually, the parent is simply putting the interests of the child first – and seeing things from the child’s point of view. Most parents don’t complain, and are more likely to leave the team if they are unhappy with how things are handled. So, it is good to have parents who will bother to give you feedback (even if it can be painful to hear). Most of the time, this feedback is well-intentioned – and the parent simply wants an explanation for what has happened or wants to offer some suggestions about alternate ways to do things. Most of the time, this advice is well-intentioned (and the parent had no desire whatsoever to take over the team – or to try to order you around).

Most parents have 2 objectives when they sign the child up: for the child to succeed and for the child to be happy. If you praise the child in front of the parent, you can rest assured that the child will give you a big grin – and you earn points in both columns. Do this as often as you can – and you will keep gripes to a minimum. Any time that you start resenting the time that it takes to give this positive feedback, tell yourself that you could easily be spending double this time – and a lot less happily – talking to just one upset parent! In short, a good coach makes the parents believe that they have wonderful, successful and happy offspring – which causes the parents to believe that the coach must be an absolutely brilliant judge of children.

But, of course, you cannot please all of the people all of the time – and you may end up with a complainer or advice-giver despite your best efforts. If this happens, listen briefly to find out what the problem is, then schedule a time to talk about it. NEVER discuss any serious problem right before a practice (or right before a game). You have work to do, and don’t need the distractions (and certainly don’t need to be upset yourself if any harsh things are said). Furthermore, if the parent is really upset, you don’t want any confrontation to occur in front of your players or other parents. So, set the discussion for the end of practice – or schedule a time to call the parent later (if this is something where the child does not need to hear the conversation).

NEVER discuss any problems or complaints right after a game. If a parent comes to you with a complaint right after a game, make up any excuse that you can and get out of there. Usually, these complaints come after a hard game and a hard loss, when everyone is upset. Give everyone time to cool off – so that things are not said which are regretted later.

When you do talk to the parent, listen carefully to the parent’s problem. Be calm. Try to get them to see things from your point of view. If at all possible, lavish some praise on the child during the meeting (remember parental objectives). Try to verify their reports that the child is unhappy (for instance, some parents want their child to be the goal-scoring star, while the child truly is happiest as a keeper or sweeper). Volunteer to have a meeting with them and the child to talk about the situation. If the child truly is upset (for instance, he wants to be a forward, while you have rotated him to the back because he sorely needs to develop some defensive skills), talk about why you think that this is best. Usually you will be able to resolve complaints by open communication, and a calm approach to the problem.

However, some parents simply will not be satisfied, no matter what you do. This happens quite commonly with parents who were athletes, and ended up with non-athletic children, where it is easier to cast blame than to face reality about the child’s lack of talent. If it is clear that you are not getting anywhere, suggest that you set up a joint meeting with Club officials to talk about the problem. In the meantime, call the Club to give them a “heads-up” that they might hear from this parent, if it appears that the parent is truly irate.

If worse comes to worse, take heart that “parents-from-hell” tend to stick around for only a short time. Usually, you will find that they have been very unhappy with every coach whom their child has ever had – so they go back in the pool every season. In fact, don’t be surprised if, when you call the Club, you hear a large sigh come out of the phone – along with a comment of “Oh, no. Not them again.”

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A one page guide to youth soccer coaching

youth soccer coaching

Perhaps the most important ‘key’ to successful youth soccer coaching is this:

youth soccer coachingAlways aim to make the training sessions fun for everyone – including you!

But…you can only do this with the aid of careful planning. Always think about what you want your team to achieve in the long term as well as today. Have a plan.

  • It is important that your training sessions take the ages and capabilities of your children into account (click here for advice on how to plan sessions for young children) but most soccer coaching sessions follow this pattern:
    a warm up to raise the heart rate of your children, stretch their muscles and get them focused on the session;
  • a quick and simple demonstration of the skill/technique that you want them to learn**

**Don’t forget to ASK them what they think is the best way to pass or shoot or keep the ball etc. rather than TELL them why you think they should do it that way.

  • some fun games that will allow them to practice what you’ve just shown them. Play lots of SSGs – small sided games are better than 6 or 7 a side;
  • a small sided game (scrimmage) with no intervention from you to finish the session.

Don’t be tempted to adopt a ‘P.E’ style of coaching – while it’s important to plan your sessions be careful not to make them too rigid. Be prepared to adapt according to what you see and hear on the practice field. Above all, don’t be afraid to let your children play!

Don’t try to pack too much in – remember to allow time for discussion, setting up, drinks, arguments etc!

Don’t persevere with a plan that obviously isn’t working. Have a couple of tried and tested alternatives up your sleeve and work out what went wrong afterwards.

Don’t use drills that involve children standing in lines for more than a few seconds – they’ll soon get bored and bored children are trouble!

Don’t train children on your own. Always have at least one assistant, even if all they do is tie laces and fetch balls. There is also an important health and safety consideration here: who will look after your children if you have to take one of them to hospital?

Do treat your players with respect. They like you to listen and take notice of their feelings and opinions. Find out what they want from you and agree some clear ground rules. If you still have have trouble with discipline issues, read this.

Also, you must consider child protection issues, especially if you’re training a mixed group of boys and girls. I always have a female assistant if I’m training girls.

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Kids, football and failure

In 2006, when the Three Lions failed at the World Cup again and England was once more gripped by the inevitable heart-searching, analysis and post mortems, did anyone remember the words Sir Bobby Charlton spoke after the 1966 triumph: “The World Cup wasn’t won on the playing fields of England. It was won on the streets.”

It was street football that created those World Cup icons – kids with their backsides hanging out of their shorts, kicking a bald tennis ball about with their mates for hours on end, learning how to play and how to love it.

Speaking as a youth football coach for twelve years, unless we can revive street football, or something very like it, I believe we can kiss goodbye to world supremacy in the beautiful game, because football’s not beautiful for our kids any more: it’s ugly.

In a world where children can no longer play outside without supervision, parents and coaches have taken over, and the competitive drive adults bring to the game means that youngsters no longer have time to fall in love with football, to play for fun and thus to truly develop their skills.

The late, great Alex Stock, manager of QPR & Fulham got it spot on when he said about the modern youth game:

Everywhere I go there are coaches. Schoolmasters telling young boys not to do this and that and generally scaring the life out of the poor little devils. Junior clubs playing with sweepers and one and half men up front, no wingers, four across the middle. They are frightened to death of losing, even at their tender age, and it makes me cry.

Those street-bred footballers Bobby Charlton spoke about had fewer distractions than modern children. They weren’t kept holed up indoors by parents terrified by traffic and the possibility of predatory ‘strangers’. Kids in those days not only played football but climbed trees, rode their bikes, built dens and explored their neighbourhood. The self-confidence, social competence and risk-taking skills these experiences bred made them better able to enjoy their play.

In street football, every child in the neighbourhood was involved. You might have the embarrassment of being the last to be picked but at least you played, and if the game was too one-sided and lost its fun, ‘Billy the dribbling wizard’ swapped with ‘two left feet Larry’ to make it even. Children also learnt to play in different positions. You might be in goal one day and playing as a striker the next. One thing for certain was that you got a complete football education.

You also played against older kids, and if you couldn’t match them physically, you had to use new technical skills and insight in order to compete. Children learnt from each other.

Today’s children learn from the grown-ups. Without the freedom of the streets, their early experiences of football are organised, supervised and coached. They have no real say in what happens, and they don’t have time to develop and learn. Today’s children learn from the grown-ups. Without the freedom of the streets, their early experiences of football are organised, supervised and coached. They have no real say in what happens, and they don’t have time to develop and learn. Just as there isn’t time any more for families to make a proper meal and sit around the dining table together, there’s no time for coaches to waste developing children at football.

Development is long term and takes years of patience, but in today’s ‘win at all costs’ society coaches need success now, so they pick the biggest kids and get a giant to whack the ball up field as hard as possible to an even bigger giant who wallops the ball in the back of the net. 10-0, we are the business and the other team is c**p!

Watching the youngest age groups play today is like watching a Premier League for tots. Seven-year-olds with David Beckham haircuts and the latest Adidas boots pull on their ‘Dudley Tyre Care’ sponsored shirts and raintops sponsored by ‘Boothroyd, Cripps and Pottinger, Family Solicitors’. They totter up and down the pitch in front of a full house of mums, dads, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, grandparents, second cousins and all.

This enthusiastic gathering can become very rowdy and explodes into sheer ecstasy when their team scores, but rarely applauds either goals or skilful football from the opposition. What do the children learn from all this? Not that football’s a beautiful game, that’s for sure. They learn you’re a hero if you win and go home with the Man of the Match trophy and a Mars bar, your dad telling you how one day you’ll play for England. But if you lose you’re a villain – and it’s a frosty car ride home with your dad analysing every mistake.

I once watched an under 9s game where one team had the coach and assistant coach standing by each goalpost continually barking orders to the keeper. Meanwhile, a parent on each touchline ran up and down shouting other instructions. When they won a corner at the other end their coach hollered “Wait” and trundled the entire length of the field for a minute’s discussion, cupped hand in the ear of the poor flustered corner-taker who knocked his corner kick straight out.

I once watched an under 9s game where one team had the coach and assistant coach standing by each goalpost continually barking orders to the keeper. Meanwhile, a parent on each touchline ran up and down shouting other instructions. When they won a corner at the other end their coach hollered “Wait” and trundled the entire length of the field for a minute’s discussion, cupped hand in the ear of the poor flustered corner-taker who knocked his corner kick straight out.

The next game I saw was an under 8s. The team came out for a 30 minute warm-up which would have exhausted a crack team of US Navy Seals, involving running around the pitch, shuttle runs, sit ups and press ups with not a ball in sight. The substitutes weren’t used as, according to the coach, the game was too close, and the kids were all kept in the changing room for 30 minutes after the game for a debrief. (The coaches had their initials sewn onto the front of their tracksuits. One was WR and the other ST. Use your imagination as to the missing letters.)

There’s also a growing problem with violence among parental supporters. Last season I attended a league meeting where an official from the Wiltshire FA warned clubs about the disintegration of standards. The previous season 15 youth games across the county had to be abandoned because of problems on the touchline. In one summer tournament we attended, a referee got his arm broken in the scrum. The FA have been doing their best by issuing codes of conducts and courses for clubs, but it’s very difficult to change a culture with bits of paper.

If we want to breed winning footballers again, we need to give the game back to the children. In 21st century, traffic-infested Britain, street football may be a thing of the past, but at least we could try to provide something equivalent in a safe, fun environment at children’s clubs.

It’s all a matter of backing off as coaches and letting the children play. In small-sided games, such as 4v4, the game can be the teacher and different types of goals and features can put emphasis on different skills and insight. To the children it is still just a game and most importantly fun. They need to learn to solve their own football problems on the pitch, to work it out for themselves before we give them the solution.

Parents, coaches and kids need to work together. Grassroots clubs should have pre-season meetings with the parents and children to discuss rules and agreements so that everyone understands what their contribution is. In the club I coach at we’ve had fantastic results using this philosophy.

We’ve found that by putting the children first and making it their game, they’ve not only had great fun and developed better as people, but they’ve also developed a passion for football. What surprised us most was we also saw almost instant results on the pitch. The kids expressed themselves, had no fear of failure (no one shouts at them) and they played with imagination and skill.

We’ve also seen improvement in the less naturally gifted children who would have been thrown on the scrap heap years ago by many ruthless coaches. It’s as if the kids are back on the street again, everyone playing with smiles on their faces, watched by beaming parents and coaches.

Maybe, if this message can spread, we could rear a generation of footballers who play with creativity and without fear, who solve their own problems on the pitch, and who enjoy the game. Footballers who play to win, instead of losing through fear.

Paul Cooper
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Throw ins

Everyone in your team must be able to throw the ball in. Don’t opt for dedicated throwers.

In youth football (soccer) nearly 70 per cent of throw-ins are foul throws and the ball is lost to the other team. It seems young teams might be better off kicking the ball out of bounds and stealing the ensuing throw-in.

To reverse these odds, every player on your team must be prepared to execute a proper throw-in and get the ball into play almost immediately. A sudden restart can catch the defence off-balance and greatly increases the odds of keeping possession, and offers a chance to get behind the defence and make a run on goal.

The basic technique:

1. Hold the ball behind your head. Your hands should be behind the ball and the fingers spread so that your hands look like the letter ‘W’.

2. Stand a few inches behind the sideline with your feet together and about a shoulder width apart – I advise against taking a run up or having one foot behind the other. If your players do this they will almost certainly lift their back foot off the ground. If that happens the ref will call a foul and give the throw to the opposition.

3. Scan the field – where are your players? If you throw the ball to them will they have time to control it before an opposing team player closes them down?

4. If you need to throw the ball a long way it helps if you bend your back as the ball is released.

5. A throw in is a pass the same as any other – so be accurate and don’t throw it too hard.

6. Immediately look to support the receiving player.

7. Be decisive. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to find someone to throw to. Try to throw the ball back into play as quickly you can.

If you want your team to take quick, effective throw-ins you have to practise them. They won’t happen otherwise!

The easiest way to do this is to demonstrate the right technique, then play a small-sided match. Every time the ball goes out (even for goal kicks and corners) the game is restarted with a throw-in.

Make sure there’s a lot of movement from the players on the pitch and the throw is taken as quickly as possible; if the throw isn’t taken in X number of seconds give it to the opposition.

Take advantage of opponents

While teaching players to get the ball back into play quickly hardly seems like rocket science, simple things done correctly at the U-10 level and below are extremely effective. Marking off the ball is one of the weakest areas of youth football, and a quick-thinking player can take advantage of opponents not only during the run of play, but on restarts as well.

Don’t go for designated throwers

Some coaches rely on one or two players to take all throw-ins. We’ll call them designated throwers. The designated thrower is the most exhausted player on the field. The designated thrower is required to sprint up and down the sideline, or even across the field, to take a simple throw in. Most adults would soon collapse under such a pace, but it is routinely required of U-10s with shorter legs and smaller lungs.

Let them all throw it

All too often, when a ball is knocked out of bounds upfield, a quick-thinking forward prepares to toss it back in play, only to be halted by her coach. “Why can’t I take the throw?” protests the confused forward. “Because you’re not a midfielder,” yells the coach. “Only the midfielders take throws.”

Five tips for quick throw-ins

Quick throw-ins increase the chances of your team scoring goals.
Make sure every player on your team knows how to take a throw-in.
Don’t slow the game down by calling for a designated thrower.
Throw the ball towards the opposition goal “down the line”.
Don’t stop players who are first to the ball from taking quick throw-ins.

In touch with the ball

While a quick throw may lead to a great scoring chance or two, the impact of this tactic goes far beyond the win-loss column. In age groups where games may last only 50 or 60 minutes, too much time is wasted just putting the ball back into play. Young players must touch the ball as much as possible.

Teaching tactical awareness

Coaches who emphasize quick throws also play an important role in teaching tactical awareness to their opponents. Teams defending against a designated thrower usually have at least 20 or 30 seconds to drop back behind the ball. Casual defending against sudden restarts will not work.

Take time and teach skills

Since skills, experience and endurance are limited at the lower age groups, young players should never be asked to do the impossible. Coaches who truly care about preparing young players for a higher level of play should take time to teach every beginner how to execute a proper throw-in.

Once that is accomplished, throw the ball back on the field and let the kids play.

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Position or team shape?

How many times have you heard a coach or parent call out “John, remember your position!” or “John, you’re supposed to be playing fullback!” during a game? How many times have you done it yourself? I’ll plead guilty right away. Sometimes it seems like coaches (and some parents) are obsessed with getting the kids to play position. Is this ok or are we making unreasonable demands on the kids and as a result spoiling their enjoyment of the game? Remember, in AYSO, the game is for the players, not the coaches or parents. The short answer is that there is no short answer, but in this note I will try to cast some light on the matter, and perhaps help you see the issue of playing position from a different perspective, that of “team shape”.

First, the answer depends a great deal on the age of the kids. I would expect that by 12-14, most players understand why positional play is important and what the field positions are, but I would not expect everybody to succeed in translating that into actual game play until 14-16. In contrast, at age 5, I would expect no understanding and no interest at all in playing position. Obviously sometime between ages 5 and14, coaches are expected to teach positional play and (we hope) that the players will catch on. The key question is when and why? My belief, based on many years of coaching this age group, is that we generally try to do this too early, and that this is the root cause of a lot of the sideline shouting on the subject. Sadly it sometimes also leads coaches to teach bad habits that become a liability in later years.

Anyone who has watched 11-a-side (or even 7-a-side) at the 6-8 age is familiar with the “swarm” – everybody chasing the ball and nobody playing position. In contrast, you may also have seen players standing in fixed positions on the field, especially defenders standing on the edge of the penalty area. Which mode of play is more fun? Since the kids will chase the ball if given the chance I think the answer is the swarm. It is obvious which is better exercise. You might be surprised that I also believe that the swarm is better at developing soccer ability. But isn’t it important that the kids learn to play position? Certainly, but not until it is necessary, and definitely not at the expense of developing the basic instincts that a soccer player needs. If I had to pick the most important characteristic of a good soccer player, it would be “hustle” – the desire to win the ball, get open for passes and deny opponents space to play or receive the ball. These abilities can go a long way to make up for pure soccer skills. Every coach loves a player with hustle! Yet it’s hard to teach, especially if the formative years are spent standing around playing position!

Playing position only matters once the skill level and mental development of the kids has risen to the point where it makes sense to them and is also actually useful in the game. This happens rather later then most people think, not usually before the age of nine in average kids. Defensively, the need to play position arises once the opposition can kick the ball a long distance or can dribble or pass out of the swarm and break away. In either case it becomes more important for the defensive team to cover the strategic areas of the field. As defensive abilities improve, the offensive team has to pass the ball to find open space and try to isolate defenders one-on-one. This requires that the players spread out and stretch the defence. Once players mature enough to loft the ball thirty yards or more, as happens between age eleven and fourteen on average, good positional organization becomes very important, both offensively and defensively. But playing position away from the ball requires mental maturity, putting team before self, something that also only develops in the early teen years. Fortunately the game moves much faster at this level and frequent changes of direction and location of play occur, so that participation is ensured for everyone, even when playing position. This is simply not the case in the younger age groups and playing position often literally means no touches of the ball for long periods. This can’t be right for young players.

If you watch a top-level game, you will see that the players position themselves so that the team as a whole has a definite “shape”, with the players generally spaced evenly in that shape, so as to cover the whole territory. As the game develops, players are constantly adjusting their positions relative to one another and to the actual play. On defence the shape contracts in an attempt to deny space and put more players near the ball (a kind of swarm!). On offence the team shape expands to try to create space and break the shape of the defence. What you will hardly ever see is a player standing still. Players are constantly in motion, fine-tuning their position, covering for their teammates and compensating for changes in the opponents’ strategy. The offside law plays a key role in encouraging a compact shape on defence. By making it illegal to for an opponent to receive the ball in an offside position behind the defence, the law encourages defences to push towards their opponents’ goal and limit the space for their opponents to play in. This is another reason why teaching defending players to stand on their penalty area is wrong – it allows the opposition to freely use the space between the half-way line and the penalty area without the risk of being offside and develops a bad defensive habit that is hard to break later.

Team shape is what I concentrate on when introducing positional play. More than anything else, I want the players to “stay connected” as a unit and not break into separate groups. I want the whole team involved all of the time, so I am always encouraging my defence to move up the field to at least the half-way line when we are attacking. Sometimes my team will give up goals on breakaways that might have been prevented by having the defence on the penalty area. That’s a small price to pay for teaching the right long-term strategy and having all my team involved in the game.

Many of the difficulties of teaching positional play are made worse by playing too many players on a team, because this increases the “need” to assign them positions in an attempt to avert the swarm. The right answer is to adjust the number of players on the team to the development level of the players! AYSO National is committed to reducing team sizes in the younger age groups and we are in the forefront of this process in the Palo Alto region. In 1998 we introduced the 4-a-side program for the boys Under-7 age group and it has been very successful. It has many benefits, not least that teaching positional play is a non-problem by design. In the 2000 season, 4-a-side was extended to both the Under-8 and Under-7 divisions, and 7-a-side was introduced for the Under-10 and Under-9 divisions. In 2002, the Under-9 divisions switched to 5-a-side, as the jump to 7-a-side was too much for many players. The gradual increase from 4 to 5 to 7 players allows coaches to teach the beginnings of positional play, without becoming overwhelmed by the complexities of 11-a-side.