Oh I'm not saying freeze method is wrong. This would just be an additional tool in your coaching tool kit, so to speak. Think of it as if you only gave feedback/coaching/instruction during frozen moments then you're instruction time is very limited unless you stop the action often, in which case the scrimmage becomes choppy and you start to lose the effectiveness of the scrimmage (diminishing returns). But you don't want to be providing running commentary either, not saying you do. My style is as follows: mostly in-progress with positive comments, then during natural stoppages we rewind, and freeze moments sparingly (for just really important points).
I hate to even ask this as I don't believe this age group should have them, but since we have to play 7v7 w/ GK, any ideas on some basic training for U8s who want to try goalkeeping? I don't want to spend a ton of time on it in training, but to just give them a base.
Basic footwork: side-stepping to get to a point while keeping shoulders square. Set position: getting on balls of feet and settled when shot is coming. Basic catching: diamond, W, and inverted contour.
An easy, obvious, exercise for footwork, catching and basic positioning (and can also be used as a warmup before games) Stand on the penalty spot (using full field references-you can adjust accordingly) with the gk in the goal. Talk about being centered etc. Start them playing the ball with their feet only- roll it at them and to either side. Coaching points- attacking the ball, getting to the ball as quickly as possible, getting behind the ball, etc. Then have them use their hands- hustling to scoop up the ball. coaching points- still get there as quickly as possible and get behind the ball. add appropriate catching techniques. Move yourself from side to side and talk to them about positioning keeping it VERY BASIC. You can then add shots as appropriate, backing up, mixing them up reminding them about positioning and gettign to the ball quickly. You can even run at them with the ball or shoot on the run. The idea is to get the player moving their feet and getting behind the ball. Good goalies have their feet do most of the work. Young players tend to stand and lunge rather than move. I like this as a warm up too because it gives you the opportunity to spend some time with an individual, reinforcing a few quick points and boosting their confidence- especially the kid who is nervous and taking their "turn" in net ( Start Rant-which EVERY player should do- nobody should be a GK at this age and you should be able to organize it subtly so that -if you are worried about this kind of thing- your "star" is on the field when you need him/her and your weakest athlete is not in the goal against your best opponent- rant over) I know this is very basic but the key is to start the process with feet only- gets them moving and confident. Next step is to convince your league of the idiocy of GKs at U8! Good Luck
I agree with some of the posts above. To me, a U8 gk can be very effective if they simply come off their line when a through ball gets through to pick it up or kick it away, don't let rollers get between their legs, stop everything that's hit at their center body mass. Anything more than that is house money, particularly on the girls' side.
The hardest thing at this age is to get them to use their hands. For 3 years, they've had fans screaming "Don't pick it up". Now, when they're in goal, their first instinct is to kick it rather than dropping a knee and picking it up.
We had a. Girl voulenteer to be in goal for our first game and she was awesome. She made big saves, good service out of the box (one of those throws lead to a great goal) but she made one mistake. She grabbed the ball just outside of the box which gave the opposing team a free kick. Didn't lead to anything, and all I did was told her why they got the kick and that she's doing great. The goalkeeper we had the second half spent most of the game daydreaming but that was ok because I've been trying to get the girls to defend as a group and they did just that. I'm proud of all of them for how they played and I would have been just as proud even if they didn't win. But I wanted to thank everyone for the advice and tips on here because having your help made a differencein how I ran practices which showed in their gameplay and attitude. So thanks a lot guys.
No, but it is too early to expect much. Getting up to a couple of controlled juggles is the biggest leap.
I don't "teach" juggling. I teach receiving. I use juggling as a warmup and as an introduction to receiving. Not trying to belittle juggling, just emphasizing that I am teaching soccer. A very common warmup is small group juggling: take a few touches and pass the ball to another player. Use multiple balls to increase the challenge. Juggling is great fun. But since juggling is something that can be done solo, I don't want to spend time that could be used on group activities on it.
Once a season, I spend maybe 5 minutes on juggling. Then I offer the girls a lollipop or something on gameday if they (for example) complete a total of 25 touches that week while juggling. Then the next week it's a different solo skill. The idea is that I take 5 minutes, but ONLY 5 minutes, for the kids who are going to play with the ball outside of practice, who really like the sport.
If you can properly teach U8's any skill in one 5 minute session I applaud you -- although I find it highly unlikely.
Shit, I can teach juggling in 5 seconds. "Keep the ball off the ground without using your hands." It's up to them to put in the time. How to shoot free throws? "Bend your knees, follow through with your wrist, and end on your toes. Now do that for about 500 hours and you'll have it down pat." If you ask nicely I can tell you how to teach a kid to swing a bat in about 10 seconds.
Hi Guys I was hoping some of you might be able me, I have just started coaching 7-8 year olds and looking for some fun drills to for training. I started coaching them last saturday and it was chaotic, I have also have 9-10 years olds and these was a much better session(easier to coach) as they listen to what they are told to do. I'm used to working with 12-15 year old and their concentration span is so much longer than the 7-8 years. The problem is that the skill ranges from barely able to keep the ball to those who have decent technique(its an after schools classes), switching between two langauges and some are not so much into football, they just wont to run around(but i think this is an opportunity to change that and get them into football). The easy option is to just let them run around like lunatics but the footballer in me wants to teach and improve them and have fun (ala "the mighty ducks" Anyway, any fun drills for u7/u8 would be great??? Thanks in advance Damo (Sorry for the long post)
Hi folks I was hoping some yous might be able to help me, Last saturday I started two training sessions, one for U7-U8 and the other U9-U10. The U9-U10 went well but the U7-U8 was a bit of a harder. I have not trained U7-U8 (usually train from U13 and up) so I was probably not prepared how short their concertration span was, the other problems is that the skill ranges from pretty much not being able to kick a ball to players with good technique, switching between two languages and finally some of the kids are not really into football yet(its an after school football course). The easy option would be for me just to let them run around but the footballer in me wants to improve them and get them to enjoy themselves and get into football. Does anyone recommend good fun drills for U7-U8 that I could try out this weekend? Thanks in advance Damo
Read through this who thread first. General tips though, as you noticed the attention span is short. Therefore have your practice really well laid out with very little transition time from one activity to the next. Make sure your activities involve every player with the ball for at least half of the practice. Don't have kids waiting around to move - they get bored and a bored 6-8 year old is very difficult to keep in focused. You'll find that your weaker players progress the best through the individual work with minimum to no pressure. This is a huge stepping stone to get them comfortable. Conversely, the better skilled/experienced players progress the best during SSGs or scrimmage - they are ready to apply their skills. A good mix of both is necessary for a mixed group, which is common at these ages. Try breaking up your practice into segments, such as warm-up, individual activities, group/teamwork activities and scrimmage. Then fill out each segment based on the number of practices and your goals for the season. For example, one of my goals with a U8 team this year is to teach them the 1000 touches drill (http://www.walsh.edu/pdf/1000TouchDrills.pdf), so I'm working through the various skills as a part of our warm-up activity. I've split the skills up to work on different ones each practice, building up to the doing them all by the end of the season. Good luck!
Really helpful thread, thanks. Here's a quick idea I had for my next practice with my U8 team, and I wanted to see if it's too ridiculous: We do a 4-on-4 scrimmage with a twist. I'd use cones to divide the field into thirds, lengthwise. That would define "wings," in adult soccer terminology. One player from each team must stay on each wing. We'd rotate players so no one gets bored sitting out on a wing. (Also, we'd have subs, so my player who says "I'm tired" every five minutes would get a break.) I know I can't expect too much by way of team tactics at this age, and I've always been amused by U7 coaches who seem to think they can teach actual formations (I actually thought two coaches on one team were going to argue the 2-2 vs. the 1-2-1 one day) on gameday. But here are the points in favor: 1. At least it gives players some sense of getting open by getting away from the typical rugby ruck that dominates ULittle play. 2. It's not just a scrimmage -- it's a passing exercise. And I've been really frustrated with the cumbersome passing exercises in all the manuals and sites ("Put the ball 2.243 meters from Player X, and have him strike the ball toward Player Y, who then maneuvers though three cones, bounces the ball off a nearby tree and passes to Player Z, who recites a multiplication table while passing the ball to Player A. MAKE SURE PLAYERS ARE USING THE LEFT FOOT!"). This is a far more practical passing exercise. By the way, I'm also borrowing the idea from earlier in the thread of having a semicircle in front of the goal in which players cannot intrude. I've spent two years trying to convince certain players that they can't be goalkeepers. That ought to help.
Funny on the formation concept, I started a thread a couple weeks ago about a bad experience at our youth academy. On night one of the season my nemesis gathered everyone together and started talking about positions and formations and which players do the throw ins, etc. Needless to say the 4,5 year olds were clueless and it was time wasted not getting touches. I see nothing wrong with your proposed session other than I would add a fun element to the wing person. I use concepts like treasure island or candy land, whatever so it makes getting wide something fun. As much as I hate introducing things like that it really does seem to elevate the sessions. Have fun! As for juggling, it has been my experience that the players that develop a fantastic first touch doing various exercises always are the best jugglers almost effortlessly. Developing a good touch with all body surfaces seems to work the best for me. I used to insert a few minutes here and there for juggling and got tired of seeing bad juggling and players chasing balls or punting it, etc.
Not ridiculous at all. It's lane soccer. I do it with the field divided into thirds, or sometime just in half. Another space-oriented game we use for U8s that they love is Swedish Handball. It's basically netball. The person with the ball can't move, and they throw it using proper throw-in technique to a teammate, then they throw it until you score by tossing it to a teammate across the end line. The opposing team can't steal the ball from the thrower nor defend the thrower directly but they can mark the receivers. It helps teach kids to move to get open and to space themselves away from the one with the ball. I like Swedish handball because it teaches spacing relative to the ball, instead of a location on a field.
Honestly, not a big fan of 4v4 in lanes. I tried something similar and spent more time explaining to them what they couldn't do rather than what they could. Hope you have better luck. Otherwise, I had a lot of success when they played 1v1 and I would step in as a neutral player - the girls knew they'd get the ball back if they got to an open spot or I would send it to an open spot that they could go get it. Then you can even play 2v1 then 2v2. Just saw equus's reply. My kids LOVE handball, too. Now if they could only catch the ball!
keeping with the sectioning off trend going on here, I liked "the midfield game" which teaches the defenders to move up the field a little... use three different colored cones to mark the sidelines (two colors would probably work as well, as long as the midfield is separated somehow). The defenders must move up into the midfield before their team score in order to get maximum points. It also works the other way around if you have a kid that won't move back to defend when needed. It took a little explaining, but it's been worth it. As far as lanes go, I sometimes put a lane near either touch line where each team can have a player who must stay in those lanes and no other players can go into them, which teaches them the beginnings of crosses.
That's a pretty good idea. My advice would be not to be too much of a stickler about going a bit outside of the "wings." I coached a really good girls team the last couple of years, U7 and U8. The "tactic" we ended up playing that worked well, in that it was simple, spread the field, and was sort of organized, was to have one girl play the back HALF of the field, one play the front HALF, one the left HALF and one the right HALF. I wasn't too much of a stickler about being precisely in a half of the field, I mean, I wasn't pointing out a "mistake" if a girl got 5 yards out of her half. (The biggest problem, usually, was the player playing the back half wanting to guard the goal. I told 'em that the field is the ocean, they're the shark, and they're supposed to eat up anything that comes into the ocean.) I didn't want to discourage girls going after the ball, after all. I just wanted some semblance of organization. It worked nicely. If the other team played like a swarm of bees we always had a passing option, and if the other team didn't play like a swarm of bees, the girl with the ball wasn't getting crowded by her teammates so she had space to dribble. (That's actually a big problem at U8 and especially U7, girls "defending" their own teammates.) I never could get (most of) the girls to "cross" the ball when they ended up in an offensive corner, but other than that, I was very happy. It took a fair amount of trial and error, though.
Tried it. Oh my goodness, what a horrible sight. The kids didn't get it. Once they figured it out, they all complained. "I don't WANNA be on the wing!" We won't be doing that again.