At younger ages you dont need a warm up so more time can be spent on the ball. IMO, you plan a practice to keep all kids engaged and having fun. Because if they are having fun, they will get way more movement and touches in anyway. If that includes a foot race, got for it.
I heard/read somewhere that if you want to have your team jog around the field to warm up, no problem, but why not have them do so with a ball at their feet? That just sort of stuck with me. I'm not sure improving a 5yo (or 6yo) sprint time (with no ball) is really that helpful to their soccer progression. Being able to go fast WITH a ball? Yup.
The situation was: there were several kids who were extremely slow or who would not run at all while on the field. There was a girl who was very passionate about playing and really wanted to score and would cry when other kids scored and she didn't. She could dribble. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that she was just too slow. If you are very slow then you're simply not going to be able to score, as the ball will be taken from you. So I could have just done nothing to address her slowness or I could try to fix it. The only way to fix it in my mind was to improve her ability to run. She could only dribble as fast as she can run. Make her run faster and she will dribble faster and have a higher chance of scoring. At this age speed plays a significant role in scoring. But yes most of the kids (6 out of 9) were decent runners and did not need to do running drills per se.
I agree, the problem arises when you get a kid on your team who hasn't had enough of that "unstructured physical play". What do you do then? You're right - it's on the parents. Not much I could do other than try to help her get better at running as that was the specific thing holding her back.
Not true. It's not uncommon for kids to have improper running technique. Watching a kid run around with with floppy T-Rex arms drives me absolutely crazy. Unfortunately, most soccer coaches either don't care about running technique or don't know what proper running technique is. Which is interesting since a half-step of quickness could make the difference between an elite vs. average player. First step, like first touch, is critical. Coaches and parents on here try this...line your kid(s) up for sprints with both toes on the line (which is most likely to be your stance on the pitch). Say ready, set, go. Likely 100% of the kids will take a step backward to push off before they go forward. It's instinctive, but it's wrong, and the kid has already lost a full step to a kid that steps forward first. I fall into the no Lines, Lectures or Laps category at soccer practice. Nothing in soccer mimics jogging a lap. I guess short sprints are OK on occasion and maybe beep testing when they get older. However, if the kids aren't getting the cardio from your practice activities (don't like the term drills) you're doing something wrong. But please make the effort to correct their running technique.
To reply to the OP..... Let your lad enjoy his snowboarding. As for crossover with football, it's a form of exercise that'll allow him to develop movement and muscular strength not normally associated with football, so it's all good. Best of all snowboarding is brilliant fun. If you're worried he's not getting enough football over the winter break then invest in a pack of cones and encourage him to work on technique. There's a million and one individual exercises that he can practice on youtube that will bring him on massively. Don't sweat it. Give him a break. Encourage him to play with the ball for 15 mins a day (more if he's keen). He'll be fine.
My daughter is a really good 11 year old soccer player and even better snowboarder. I don’t really care about the correlation between soccer and snowboarding, but there’s a certain element of life success gained by an 11 year old girl being confident enough to rage through the terrain park hitting rails and jumps or pointing it downhill through the trees.
Just to be clear I have nothing against snow sports. I have skied and snowboarded a lot myself. I was concerned because my kids mom insisted taking him boarding on Saturdays which would mean he couldn't play indoor soccer since they play on Sat. So I was just trying to find a silver lining in the fact that he would have to miss out on soccer for boarding. (But I have discovered that the U8 games for indoor are on Sundays, so next year he can go snowboarding on Sat and play soccer on Sun.) It's not a big deal anyhow, I think a break here and there from soccer can be good. Yes, I was overreacting as I thought that if he had to do snowboarding over soccer every year that that would hold back his advancement as he got older. The confidence building is a great point.