So I'm taking over a C team of u12/13 boys this Fall. Some have travel experience, most don't, some have never played on a team before, not even Rec. I got the boys together last week to have a look and was pleasantly surprised- not as bad as I expected, though I had been coaching girls for the past 4 years, so maybe their athleticism impressed me. Obviously the technical ball skill level was very low but I was surprised how quickly they were able to apply some possession based tactics (drop pass, switching the field, play the way you're facing, etc). Previously my younger teams would struggle with those concepts, these guys were doing what I asked in a matter of minutes. So I'm wondering how I should approach this season.. I usually dedicate a a solid 20 mins or so of every practice on ball mastery, foot skills but is it worth it with this team? Are they too old to learn ball skills, should I just focus on 1 and 2 touch passing and movement off the ball. Time is limited obviously, being a C team, the commitment level isn't that great. Or should I treat them like every other team, get the foot skills first and grow from there? I'm conflicted.
I suggest you evaluate the "Soccer Age" of your players and let that guide your training plans. If players are not soccer age 12 then teaching team tactics before fundamentals is not in the players' best interests. What is your job according to the club DOC? Is it to develop players for promotion to the B and A teams? (I suspect that winning competitions is the mission of the A and B teams.) They will never get there if they are deficient in fundamentals compared to the players on the B team. I expect that these players were placed on the C team instead of the B team because the A and B team coaches thought their fundamentals are weaker. Fundamentals are not just ball skills, but a lot more including principles of play. Think of the minor league baseball managers, who are judged on the basis of sending players up to the majors, not on how many minor league games their team won. Are you developing players or training a team to win a competition. Regardless of age, every serious competitive player works on improving ball skills. There is no age after which you stop working on ball skills. I don't see any sense in thinking about lost opportunities. The kids are 12. You can't change that. They are what they are. Make them better.
the more you can get them comfortable with the ball, I'd say the better. Young rec players tend to kick the ball away blindly when they are pressured, or even when they are not, they'll make a huge kick down the field to the other team instead of dribbling the ball or looking for a pass. Knowing what to do when you get the ball, or even when you don't, is a huge confidence builder, even if they decide never to play soccer again.
Thanks for the feedback, this is really good advice. For the most part, the current ball skill level is equal to a u9 team, that's why I'm torn. I could spend a lot of time on improving their ball skills but at this age I would like to get more into tactics, time is so limited. But I think you're right, I have to focus on improving the individual players so they can advance to better teams.
Don't drill and kill ball mastery in practice with this group. You can accomplish enough in 5 minutes. Just ask them to practice the ball mastery on their own. I know a coach who does exactly what you're describing, he gets them a basic foundation with foot skills but then almost everything else is rondos. They may even see the benefit of having improved foot skills by just playing possession games and work on it on their own. His basic methodology is: footskills 3v0 activities to work on technique and comfort (also working on losing your marker at this stage) 3v1/4v1 with passive defenders > active defenders progressive rondos (possess in one area and move it to another) functional rondos (players play in their on-field positions and try to build up, score, or recover ball)
my daughter's team was u8 last year and most of our passing topics, I taught within a positional/possession/rondo context. They became decent at it and never played kick ball during matches. It wasn't super smooth all the time because it was just a start, but they had games and moments when it clicked. I think it happens in fits and starts until the players stitch together the good performances closer and closer with practice. So these were 7 year olds with 7 year old brains. You have 11/12 year olds with 8YO skill but 11/12YO brains. I think you can make big gains. Our academy doesn't do things like spend the entire fall season on ball mastery. It's a mix of all the skill areas. So if the topic is dribbling/Change of Directions I might start out with ball mastery and 1v1, but group play and rondos phase of training, while more passing oriented, still get a lot of value from learning changing directions.
The advantage of SSGs (rondos) is that you work on principles of play (tactics) while working on technical too. I would start with ball skills work during the early warmup and then transistion to SSGs. On elessar's list I have used the first 3 exercises during warmups. For 12s I would include some dynamic stretching.
So we had our first official practice the other night. 4v0/3v1 ball mastery 1v1 back to goal 6v6 SSG I was surprised how well they did in 3v1 and how poor they were at the ball mastery portion. I mean they looked so uncomfortable using the outside of their foot. I've decided to use July as a technical boot camp, then when Aug rolls around we'll get more into the possession/tactical drills. First game isn't until end of Aug so we have a bit of time. I'm excited to train these guys, should be a fun year.
I am a firm believer in always ending a training session with a period of unrestricted play. Players of all ages love it and look forward to it.
At this club they do an open play one night per week over the summer.. It's great. They divide the kids up into 5v5 teams and assign them to small fields- no refs, no coaches and no parents.. It's fun to watch.
Author Doug Lemov says to strengthen areas of strength instead of focusing on dwelling extensively on weaknesses. I'd give it a, "I'm really excited about how well you knock the ball around and we'll keep working on it in practice. If you spend time working on ball mastery out of practice you'll get even better (at the possession part of it)." maybe, find a way to motivate them to do that on their time so you can focus on the positional stuff IN training.
Unbalanced keep-away games (Cruyff called them "rondos") are great for teaching players about space (another way to view the principles of play). I always followed up by adding goals to the keep-away game. Makes it easier for the player to see how to apply what they learned about space to penetration. The games require players to apply technical skills to solve game-like tactical problems. It is a two-for.
Over the past few years I've taken a little bit of everything and have really started to shape my coaching "philosophy". Some parents love that every year is different and others absolutely hate it. There's a lot of ideas out there and over the past few years I've tried to put in a little bit of everything just to see how it goes. One thing that I've done that I think has worked has been US Soccer's new initiative to start and end with open play. While it sometimes looks a little disorganized and many parents are not happy that they have a coach who doesn't "coach" I've seen a big difference over the past few months. Kids are definitely more comfortable in tighter spaces and in a SSG aren't given the option to play the simple ball and get out of jail free. RCA I've also added directional rondos based on a recent recommendation and have seen that carry over into the SSG. We still do ball mastery and always have a focus for the session but I can say that the 2v2-5v5 for 10 min in the beginning has made a big difference in their comfort under pressure and is now the base for the introduction to playing possession this coming fall.
I BELIEVE the intent of play-practice-play is for the grassroots ages. I think U12 and definitely U13 moves to the "progressive" session plan model. There are a lot of ways to teach the game, one not more valid than any other. In Finland their school teachers (even elementary age) have master's degrees and, I believe, the school system wants this and encourages each teacher to run his/her own system based on what their beliefs on pedagogy. I think soccer in America could use something like that—educate coaches so they can develop their own system and philosophy and keep refining it. We're too broad a nation to have one umbrella philosophy. Keep developing your philosophy!
Training session # 2 with this u13 C team was last night.. Started out pretty good but the end of training 6v6 was pretty bad. 3v1 15min ball mastery 10min ping pong passing 10min 4v4v4 25min (field is 3 grids, 4v2 after you complete 4 passes send a long ball to the farthest grid) 6v6 15min the gaps in their ability is crazy.. This one kid perfectly executed a rabona during the 3v1 (don't ask) but was unable to perform a simple step over during ball mastery. Anyway, the 6v6 (4 goal) was just dribbling down dead ends. Wide players not being wide enough, no support, etc. I was think of implementing a 3 touch rule and maybe designating one player on each to to face the opposite direction, so they always have to play square or drop passes..
The 4v4v4 is a bit chaotic at times (other times, they do really well). My suggestion would be to simplify. One of my favorites is a "Continuous Rondo" (kinda like what you have going). Two adjacent grids with 4 players in each grid. Red team and Blue team. Red team starts with the ball and Blue sends one defender over to Red's grid. He will try to win the ball and play back across to his teammates, then Blue sends a ball over to retrieve it. I'd let them get really really good with 4v1 then progress to 4v2. You want to encode success before raising the difficulty level. Right now, from your video, I see them struggling with technique (getting the ball out of their feet) AND the defensive pressure. You can also "game it" a little and tell defenders to dial down the pressure to, again, allow their teammates to encode success. And they'll get the same in return. At times in 4v1, I'll step in as the second defender and "defend" at a walking pace so I can simulate pressure without inducing panic. Transitioning successfully to the scrimmage (6v6) is the Holy Grail. I've had my boys teams really struggle making that transition, because they feel that the scrimmage is their "reward" for training and that what we were doing before doesn't apply to the scrimmage. So I always have to work to change that mindset and make them understand that the positional stuff is exactly what the end product should look like. One strategy is I build up to it: in a 30x20 two goals at either end, we play 6v3 large rondo, six passes and you can attack the goal. If defensive team gains ball back they can score on big goal or linking 3 passes. If the team with 6 players sees about 80% success (scoring goals) we add players to make it a 6v4.
What I noticed from the clip was that the players in possession were not solving tactical problems by movement off the ball. In the early stage of development, that is what I want to see. Regardless of the plan, I adjust exercises until the movements appear that I want to see. Different players require different adjustments. So the tinkering process doesn't stop. One size doesn't fit all.
Started practice last night as usual with 3v1 then after 5 mins went to a 3v1 with transition.. After completing 4 passes in the first 5x5y grid they would send a pass to an awaiting attacker in an adjacent 5x5 grid and continue the 3v1. Drill worked very well and I got to play to make up the numbers which is always fun. Skipped the ball mastery. Put a 3 touch limit on the 6v6 which definitely helped in making them get their heads up.. Going to send out a video on our 4-3-3 formation this week, they are new to 11v11 since they are u13 and next week we'll start our building from the back drills.
Thanks for updating this thread. I think the progression week to week really gives me a sense of what you're doing and their progress. I think a lot of threads die because it doesn't evolve from the OP. Ball mastery: At certain points in the season, I feel that I can do 5 minutes and be done with it. Really, we should be transitioning this to something that is done outside of practice. Work on individual stuff outside of practice and team stuff in practice. Doesn't really work out that neatly in the real world. Long way of saying that "I'm glad you had the guts to cut out ball mastery from practice" 3-touch: I had a coaching mentor say that "there's no such thing as 3-touch". Meaning we shouldn't run a 3-touch restriction. Either 1-touch, 2-touch or unlimited. Not saying this to criticize. More as something to consider. For me in 2-touch, first touch controls/sets up next pass and second touch sends it on it's way. A different mentor told me that 1-touch is a modified receiving technique—instead of controlling it close, you control the ball to go far. I love double rondos. The 3v1+1 is great. How is getting them to play Possession soccer translating into the scrimmage?
I agree with you completely on ball mastery but these guys won't do any skill work at home, some don't even own balls which blows my mind. My girl teams would love ball mastery. We would put on music and dance with the ball for 15 mins, it was great. I think girls and boys are very different in this aspect. Girls, for the most part, enjoy to be taught, boys would rather figure it out themselves. 3 touch is really 2 touch for these guys- you have to spot them a touch because they have no touch at this point- we're getting there.
Ball mastery: agree. That's why I haven't been brave enough to part with it in practice—they won't reliably do it at home.
exactly. that's how my middle school teams were. it sucked because a few of the kids had the skills down. i wish i would have thought to let those guys skip out of the ball mastery and just go play while the rest of the team worked on the foundations. that may have given the other kids some incentive to practice at home instead of using time in training to work on basics like that.
It's another reason we fall behind other footballing nations. Have a colleague who played for Newell's Old Boys, grew up in their youth system. They took you on because you were already a good invidual player. In training, they could predominantly focus on team concepts because they didn't have to teach how to move the ball around with diff. surfaces (and other basics). According to him, all their training was rondos and positional games. He doesn't drill and kill ball mastery either, whether or not his players have it down or not. To him the team game is more important. Not my view, but hard to argue with his on field product.
I'm thinking of doing a double rondo like this. Two adjacent grid.s 4v2 in one. Empty in the other. Team of 4 makes 3 passes and plays in a teammate into the empty grid and continues back and forth. Goal is to learn to penetrate behind defense and against a restraining line in a situation where there is no target player in the adjacent space.
This is why I say that elite soccer is self selecting. Tryouts are just a demonstration of how much a player has done on his own. Just 10 minutes a day invested in ball mastery work will in a short time (six weeks) create a skills gap between the dedicated and the apathetic player. Hours of unorganized play is great too, but skills develop faster through deliberate practice. One of the benefits of music lessons is teaching young people the need for, and benefit of, deliberate practice.