Best Method to Teaching U-8 Soccer (New Ball vs. Traditional)

Who was the great inventer of "The New Ball Method"?

So a throw in is beyond the ability of a 7 year old. I don't think so. It is just a restart when the ball goes off the touch line. Most important thing about a restart is to hold possession.

"I concluded that my child's dribbling is much more advanced than the other kids on the field. He's was more creative and willing to take on one or more defenders when he had the ball."

He got this way from playing the "new Ball Method" sorry doubt that.
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As we all know at least most of us know that a position is merely a starting point. From there you should attack space and when your team loses the ball you defend space. Does it matter who is playing at a position as long is someone is playing in that position? Doesn't matter.

Is it necessary that every psition is filled by a player? No depends where the ball is then it might matter.

"New Ball method" wow what a concept the inventer is truely a genius.

 

I think you're getting at two different points, since you raise positional awareness as the alternative, which I don't think is the case. We (U7) don't play New Ball, but we also don't spend any time teaching positional awareness on throw-ins, goal-kicks and corner kicks, other than basically telling them to get it to their own players and not in front of our own goal. I doubt that those stoppages create significantly less time in playing than the New Ball concept.

On the other hand, many coaches DO spend a significant amount of time teaching and enforcing positional sense at this level, but for all aspects of the game, not just restarts - and the potential damage they are doing is probably going to be evident in your system as well.

 

I never heard of this before but I'd imagine the reasoning behind it is that it will stop the coaches from spending any time trying to teach the kids set plays at U8's as doing so won't help them win games anymore. I always hated to see teams score off other team's poor Goal Kicks at the young ages.

For U8s I'd say this a good thing. But I'd guess it would depend on what the coaches who would normally spend their time teaching set plays do with that time instead.

 

There are a couple of coaches in my kid's U6 league who spend literally half the time alloted for the game trying to position players on a throw-ins, which they end up throwing to the wrong team anyway. Doesn't answer your initial question, but I can see how "New Ball" would possibly be an improvement to that situation.

 

To answer your question more directly I'd say this: As far as the game itself impacting the kids' skill development I don't think it'll make too much of a difference. The difference will be whether this changes how a lot of the coaches practice at U8. If the U8 coaches stop working on set plays during practice and instead spend that time working on ball handling skills it'll benefit the kids skillwise. If the U8 coaches instead take that time and spend it on teaching positioning and passing it won't make any difference whatsoever skillswise.

 

The main objective is just to keep the ball in play longer. Ball in play longer =more touches = better skill development I coach ice hockey too and we do it there as well with younger ones. After a goal or when the puck is tied up we just toss another puck and off they go. No standing around setting up for restarts/faceoffs. The game keeps moving. Since results shouldn't matter at this age it also lets the coach balance the game out a little.- ball in to the kid who has not touched it or towards the attacking end of the team that is struggling.
If, as an added benefit, it keeps micromanaging coaches from impacting the game, all the better

 

As a long time soccer player, I think it is a great idea. The time it takes to execute a throw in is a total waste of game time and drives me nuts (U-6 girls last year). I won't get started on the no-heading rule. Like kids head the ball all the time in U-6.

 

The new ball concept is one of the best things going for players development. Not only is the ball in play much more often but you also can enhance play by moving the ball away from packs or getting less aggressive kids involved in play. Every U-little soccer league should use it.

As for development, I know of at least 4 teams that have been at one point ranked #1 in the country where new ball was/is the method used for scrimmaging when they were 8 - 14. Sure beats having some novice parent repeatedly stop play because little kids are not correctly doing the one thing the referees understand which is the throw-in. One other thing, there are rarely any formal positions in the scrimmages until they are teens so as you might imagine, I don't think positioning at U8 isn't terribly important.

 

I see that a lot in my U5 games and I was guilty of it too before taking my first state certification course. We played New Ball during pre-season training but we have to play throw-in/goal kick/corner kick during official games.

This past Saturday the other coach was doing the "take each kid by the shoulder" method and place them on the field like the plastic, molded NFL players on the old vibrating-field football games. It took forever. They weren't going to stay there after the ball was kicked in anyway.

I simply point to a general area and ask the team to come there and spread out a little. Then I pick a kicker/thrower and tell them to kick in their general direction.

I think New Ball gives them more touches per game and some flow to the game. If we have to do it the other way, in one sense it can help in that they get somewhat familiar with the laws of the game, i.e., out of touchline = throw-in, defense kicks it over endline = corner, offense kicks it over end line = goal kick so that it's not as foreign to them when they get into the older divisions.

 

I think it's a good idea to speed up the game. It drives me nuts how much time is wasted on re-starts - it can be a significant portion of the 16 minutes my daughter plays in U-6 games.

One question - is the new ball thrown to the team that didn't kick it out? At least that might give players the sense that they should try to keep it inbounds to prevent the other team from getting it.

 

I didn't know anyone was using that as game play alternative but I love it.

I have been running practices for u6-u8 like that for a number of years. It keeps the game moving and kids constantly adjusting to the flow of play. I like to move the ball around quite a bit. The faster/stronger players are always on the ball when it goes out but when I throw the new ball in I throw it away from the action to the weaker players and suddenly they have the ball and are to the races. The better kids are on the chase and everyone plays more.

You can teach throw-ins and restarts in 5 minutes its more fun and better for them to be on the constant move.

 

I didn't think about it when I initially posted (not enough sleep, I guess), but we do run our U6 practices like this a lot of the time. When we get to "scrimmage time", we'll start them off in rapid games of 1v1, then 2v2, and finally 3v3. I'll keep all the balls on the side, and whoever is on the field plays until (a) someone scores or (b) the ball goes out of bounds. It moves very quickly, so although there are kids waiting in line, it is only enough time for them to catch their breath before having to get onto the field again. Coach controls who gets the ball on the restart, just as you say. Work great.

I've wanted to do this with the U8s as well, but their head coach would rather have them practice throwing the ball back and forth to each other for 15 minute blocks of time.

 

Hey, were you scouting my practices last season?

And yes, it does work great for U8s and U10s.

I also like having other adults shagging the balls for us. If they are nice about it, then they can serve them in for a change of pace.

And lines are okay if they serve a purpose. With the 1v1s, they get a mix of fast action and a quick breather. When you get up to having more kids on the field than 1/2 of each team, it gets more interesting. You have to stagger the kids and they have to get used to quick recovery times.

I prefer this type of scrimmage game for soccer fitness over wind sprints, suicides, etc. You can easily get their production up.

 

I use the "new ball" method with my U6 team.

Its a whole lot easier to scream stop, or blow a whistle and throw out a new ball. That way, they are playing more and running more rather than waiting for Johnny to come back from the ditch with the ball and then arguing with Jenny as whether he/she gets to throw the ball in.

There's plenty of time for learning throw-ins and positioning. I'd rather have them developing their foot skills and their hearts.

 

Yeah, that was me, the U8 tactics stalker!

Actually, they were pretty high on this at the coaching course I went to. I was sold on it when the "demonstration kids", who were a randomly pulled together bunch, were getting after it (in the 1v1, 2v2, 3v3) at both the U6 and U8 levels. The time they spent "in line" was down time to catch their breath (which they needed). They were having a blast.

 

This is some of my boy's soccer highlight in 2012, he was 6 years old then, It was our first attempt creating a soccer video, because some of the opposing coaches suggested and we always get commended of his soccer ability. can someone critique it, we're not sure if he's good enough to play for a club. He's equally good with both left and right feet. He's 7 years old now, he got a little faster, and his shooting got more powerful.

 

Wow - this was an old thread. I took a quick look to see if there were any interesting topics and thought someone was promoting a some type of fancy soccer training ball. Obviously not, but I figured I bump it up to the top because it is a concept I quickly adopted for training sessions the first time I saw someone use it over a decade ago. With younger kids "real games" and "training games" shouldn't be all the different. You want to get kids more touches and you want to get them to learn to think. With the new ball the coach can strategically play balls to either reinforce or introduce coaching points or areas of development.

 

You can run training games at any age like this. Instead of having a single 1 v 1 you can have multiple players going and instead of 3 v 3 you can have new groups of any number going. Top clubs don't have their players standing around. They want to constantly keep them active and engaged during training sessions. The lines serve as recovery time much as you suggest.