At what age do you start your kids with soccer?

Actually, developing the other foot can be simple. I'm a natural lefty, my youth coach played me at right wing for 3 years, never realized I was left footed until I started playing 'keeper and punted w/ left foot.

That was a happy "mistake", helped me develop both feet early. FWIW for other parents out there.

 

I don't know about you guys, but my kids had soccer balls waiting for them in their cribs when they got home from the hospital! I mean, there's a serious lot of time there where they are just laying around ready to kick their feet at anything, so get them started with a ball!

Otherwise, my club starts at 4 years old (my second child starts this Fall), but the 4 and 5 year olds don't really play "soccer" games, just various fun activities which get them used to the ball at their feet and some other basic concepts. They might play a few scrimmages amongst themselves with real goals as well - 3v3 at most, though.

 

My little girls 3 and she cant wait to get in and play, unfortunatly they dont have anything for under 5's here either. My cousins little boy started playing where they live at age 4 it was the funniest thing I have ever witnessed. Cant wait for my daughters turn.

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I think they can get it earlier, I've coached under-10 kids who understand passing and positional play, and limited tactics. I have found two method REALLY help to keep the players interested, and are good teaching tools.

First - the "Grid" system, where you break up areas into 10 yard squares. Lots of valuable learning can take place, with maximum ball contact by each player and high physical/mental engagement:

close control work w/ the ball, small-sided work (1 v 1, 2 v 1, etc.). You can expand multiple grids to enlarge the number of players, but up to age 10 or so, your most effective work will be with small sides to promote skill development and keep it engaging for the player.

At the same time - progression.
First level is simply allowing player to focus on the ball to develop basic skill.
Second level, adds passive pressure (defender in vicinity, but no active effort to take ball away). This creates awareness of defensive pressure and need to execute skill w/ added challenge of protecting ball.

Third level, active defensive pressure (one on one). Add verbal assistance/direction to the mix so that player gets used to responding to verbal as well as visual signals.

Fourth level, adds teammates and opponents to develop tactical awareness of creating/denying space and working w/others (including giving/getting verbal direction in a chaotic situation). This requires the player to identify where others are in relation to themselves, and to evaluate dynamic environment. This helps a lot in on-field decision-making, and can bolster the player's three-dimensional thinking, which generally doesn't fully emerge until mid-teens.

There are a lot of activities (drills, games, etc.) that can be employed with these techniques that will provide excellent physical and mental challenges, and keep the player fully occupied.

It may be that none of this is news to you, but years ago it really helped me to hear from other coaches not just that these methods should be used, but how and why.

Hope this helps, and I look forward to others' feedback.

 

The sensible thing to do is test his motor skills before you start him on any sport involving a ball. If he can catch a ball, he's ready for football, tennis or what have you.

Kids over here start playing at the age of five generally but I feel every kid is unique. I will test my son the way I described because I don't want him to join a football club and hate it because he's rubbish at it.

 

In the Dutch school of football the emphasis for kids is on a) having fun and b) developing skills. Over here they let kids swarm around the ball and nothing's said about it, hasn't done Dutch football any harm! All kids get to rotate positions so that they can discover what they're good at, and training is mostly about learning tricks (which most kids love). Tactics are not a priority and neither is getting results.

 

I wish everyone had this attitude. I am coaching my kids U6 team. The games are 4 v. 4 (more often its 7 v. 1 ) with no keepers on a smaller field.

We had an excellent coaches training session with the local high school coach. His advice was simply make practice like a birthday party. Games should be all fun. If a kid stops on a break away and says, "wow. look at that cool car" it's ok to stop the game and have all the kids look at the cool car.

He showed us lots of "games" to use in practice that do many of the things Marininho said below. Gets them aware of the ball and space. Gets them aware of others on the field and how to move in a way to relieve that pressure. Always with each kid having a ball. No waiting in line. No elimination games etc.

At this age, he said "no passing drills." His theory was that about U8 they start to get the concept better.

So, with that background, the first week was awesome. The other coach was laid back and we had a nice 6-6 draw. I saw the things the coach talked about in action as my son would often get the ball, move to the outside away from pressure and then back to the inside as he got close to the goal.

Then week 2 . . .

My kids were playing during the warm up. The other team was in a rigid circle passing. The coach was yelling "move the ball. No hesitiation. Keep your spacing."

Then the game starts. He had players that barely saw the field. He had one bigger kid that played the whole game and scored 6-7 himself. After their third goal (which occurred because they wouldn't back up when I was asking them to and came by pouncing on a goal kick and knocking it into an empty net) this kid yelled at my team, "yea, we're going to bury you!" (I was acting as the ref at the time). I waited for their coach to do something or say something. Nothing. I pulled the kid aside and said, "listen, we are out here to have fun. No one is going to bury anyone. You should do your best and not talk AT the other team."

Of course the other coach got all bent out of shape.

The game ended. I think it was 9-1. I was fuming inside but staying level for my players sake. We went to the sideline and I noticed that they were not at all down. They knew that the other team scored more than them, but they had a good time playing. Lesson learned for the coach.

Now, I'm prepared to deal with asshats. At the same time, we are going to continue doing what we are doing as I really see them developing some skills just a month into the season. They are also having fun. Meanwhile, the other coach is probably sending videos to Bradley and his kids are probably contemplating tag football next year where there is less structure.