I wish you were king of US Soccer. I've been pondering the same things lately. 4v4 is too many players when they are not at a level of brain development conducive to cooperation. Any but the top top players at this age (of which I haven't seen any in my rec program) are still overcoming the ball, can't really expect them to pass. So the 4v4 kills space for the dribblers because of the mob and it benefits the early developers. Again, we need to abolish "teams". Later developers need to be matched up with other players of similar ability at this age. At 6U 4v4 this weekend, 2-3 girls out of the 14 there got the lion's share of touches on the ball.
I agree with what's said here. At what age would you consider it best to form teams and have formal games?
In the 2v2 model, winning teams move to the next field to the left for the next game, and losing teams move right. After a few games, the teams sort themselves into relatively even levels of competition. I think that's brilliant. I haven't looked at it closely, and I don't have much experience with 8Us, but I would think around 8 or 9 would be more appropriate to go to 4v4, and then gradually increase numbers and field sizes until you get to 11v11 at 15U. 13s and 14s get lost on a full size field, and 22 players with 1 ball isn't a good ratio if you're wanting everyone to improve technically and tactically. It depends on the level of players though. Our 14U rec league players could probably benefit from playing 5v5 on a smaller field so they get more touches with fewer players complicating the game while a competitive 14U travel team will do fine playing 11v11 on a bigger field.
I talked smack a lot about Play Practice Play before, but in essence it's what I'm doing now. A free play session at the beginning of practice is really useful from a practical standpoint, because with a 5:30 PM start time, kids are being hustled to practice by their parents sometimes just on time or a little late. It's tough for them. The play let's them get to, well, playing and helps me manage the session better as we can hold off instruction until we have everyone (or a solid number)
18. Only because by that point in the development cycle (stage 6) you are training how to win matches. At 16 (stage 5) it is appropriate but not "best". Scrimmages controlled by the coach are a good training vehicle.
Just finished listening and that was a great episode. Lots of knowledge. It's good to hear that, basically, the youth age groups "don't matter" in terms of being any kind of predictor of how they will be at age 20 and beyond. It was good to reaffirm that what I'm doing for my own kids, by letting them play other sports, is a sound approach. oh and I also like that approach where they play quarters and sub players in only at the end of quarters—extended play periods, everyone plays 75% of the match. I love the idea of extended periods, forces players to think and let the ball do the work and marshall their energy levels.
Yes! Unfortunately we can't get most of our rec coaches to prepare a written line up so trying to get them to plan for four quarters is a non-starter. I do like the idea though. No subs between quarters so you can't jerk a kid off the field when they make a mistake. We've all seen that wayy too many times.
I started doing this with my youngers for a similar reason, but also so that they wouldn't ask "can we scrimmage?" every second of practice. I often make it 1v1 or 2v2 with decent spaces and puggs, they love it.
Same: I don't hear "can we scrimmage?" anymore either from my u10s. I set out vests and at least two play areas with PUGGs so they can go 4v4.
I think you have u6's and u10's, so starting with small sided games is okay, but what should coaches of older kids do? They need to stretch a bit don't they, or is that an outdated concept? thx!
Nah, not outdated. Older teams should be doing FIFA 11+ warmups or something like that. PPP is mostly for grassroots particularly for the really young ones.
Standing in a circle doing static stretches for 10 minutes is out. Dynamic, full body warmups are in. We do 11+ followed by an on-the-ball warm up with my 19Us. There are versions of 11+ for younger kids as well.
Had 2-4 at practices last week during spring break. Was a shock at first but went well by the end. Obviously take it a bit slower than you would, they're gonna get tired quicker. Talk to them a lot more, take time to know who they are. These kids are gems because out of everyone missing practice, they still [want to] come. Treat it like a private session i.e. many touches on the ball, maybe you throwing the ball to the kid and them trying to volley back (or if U6, a simple 1-2 leading to goal perhaps).
We ended up having a lot of fun, I think. 4 showed up and we just played games: bulldog, freeze tag, red light/green light, kick the coach, 1v1 and 2v2. I loaded up on games and just let them dictate when water breaks would be since it was the first really warm day. I think we went about 5-6 minutes at a clip.
Million thanks for clueing me in to the Way of Champions podcast. Great content. Latest one hits home as it's about, how we (coaches) kinda suck at talent identification and the pros/cons of early specialization. The other episode that I really liked was the interview with the Belgian FA director of youth development.
That's essentially how we warm up our girls (11-13 year olds) prior to practice and games. I was wondering if you let kids older than 10 years old arrive and start with small-sided games, or is it best to have them wait for the proper warmups?
Warm-ups have several purposes and increasing the range of motion of joints is only one purpose. Even though very young children are limber and physically don't need to stretch, there are other reasons to plan a warmup. Warm-ups boost performance and reduce the risk of injury. Whether you plan it or not, the first 15 minutes or so of activity will act as a warm-up until the body and mind are physically performing at full capacity. More importantly is injury prevention. In adults it takes at least 15 minutes of activity before the knee joints are at full strength. I would not bet that children are different. Even for U10s, I included stretches in the warm-ups to two reasons. The dynamic stretches were also working on running technique and my objective was to teach the kids how to stretch and create lifelong good habits.
11YOs+: highly unlikely that they suffer a major or minor injury if they start playing without a warm-up. Not saying it won't happen. So, just do a quick warm-up. But it does kill the play-practice-play model. Although, if they had a long(ish) drive to practice or the temperature is cool getting their core temp up first won't hurt. One thing you could do is have the Play area set-up and then have a separate area where they do a quick warm-up with you. In my case, I set-out pinnies so they grab a color as they come in and join the game(s). In this scenario, they check in with you and you give them some warm-up movements before joining the game.
@elessar78 Rondos can make great warmups as long as you hold down the intensity level of the small side and keep the area small so passes are quick and technical rather than explosive. Juggling is another activity that has no explosive movements.
We do a version of the 11+. But I’ve been wondering a bit lately about the static vs dynamic warm up. Injuries for young athletes have increased quite a bit of the years. Especially knee and ankle. I know that people attribute this to overuse, single sport and more females playing sports. Has anyone tried to argue that the static stretches we did back in the 80s but actually be helpful? Or some sort of combination of dynamic and static?
I haven't read the research myself, but my understanding (from the derivatives I've read) is that static stretching doesn't help prepare your muscles for a workout as much as just stretch them out. That means they lose some of their elasticity and the ability to do the explosive work of playing soccer. That's why static stretching is out of favor. I'm not aware of anything that shows a correlation between the shift away from static stretching and an increase in injuries, but who knows where we'll be 10 years from now...
A NYT article cited a study that said all static stretching does is increase pain tolerance (doesn't actually make you more flexible). My physical therapist disagrees. Again, who knows what the truth actually is.
I am the least flexible person EVER. Even as a high school athlete that stretched (static) nearly every day, I could never touch my toes. But I was very rarely injured with the exception of contact -broken fingers/nose/conucssions/etc. And the occasional pulled muscle. I had one buddy who was always hurt and had several knee surgeries. But he was a really big kid but his strength to weight ratio was pretty low. I was 5'10", 160 and he was 6'4" 225 back then. In the weight room I was stronger in almost every type of lift than him. Is Yoga considered static or dynamic? That's about the only thing that has ever worked to make me even a little bit flexible.