Passive aggressive much? Following your logic then, newborns should be diligently practicing their juggling, right? I mean, since there's no lower limit on the age when juggling makes sense in your world. If a kid under the age of 9 has endless free time and has already exhausted the more useful activities, like dribbling, passing and shooting, then by all means have at it with some juggling practice. But for those who actually have limits on the time they have available to spend on soccer, my recommendation would be to focus on activities that provide more bang for your buck until you reach an age where you can find some success with juggling. For some, that age will be lower than for others, but for the vast majority of youth soccer players, spending a significant amount of time juggling before the age of 9 is quite inefficient. For coaches, I think it makes sense to take a small amount of time teaching the kids below the age of 9 the proper juggling technique, but I would not devote significant practice time to juggling until around 9 years old.
One of my grand children is 6 and he can juggle. Not a lot but he can even do it while moving and watching tv. But he plays every day with his friends. Ever park has an I closed field open to the public. They are even filling in grave yards and make I go more fields. Most people in Berlin are cremated it true. You will see it yourself if your still coaching when your own kids are not playing anymore which I doubt.
To summarize, I said that, in my opinion, juggling was not an efficient use of time for most kids before the age of 9, keeping in mind that we are in a thread about U8 soccer and not a thread about juggling per se, and the question was whether a group of U8 novices should focus on juggling in practice, not whether an elite player should focus on it. You responded to the effect that I did not understand the importance of juggling. I then clarified that I fully understand and appreciate the importance of juggling and only quibble with when it should be a focal point of development. You then responded as follows: In that one simple sentence, you do four inappropriate and off topic things: (1) you again make the baseless accusation that I do not understand the importance of juggling, (2) you label me as a parent rather than a coach, (3) you throw in an appeal to your own authority as, presumably, someone who has "played the game seriously" and (4) you level an ad hominen attack on me as being one who has "never played the game seriously." I again attempted to focus you on the question of when juggling is important rather than whether juggling is important and you then responded, as quoted above, with an incoherent anecdote of a six year old who can juggle (yet, as you admit, not a lot), as if that helps your point at all. (I will even concede, for the record, that ALL six years olds can juggle "not a lot," and I contend that does no harm to my view that 9 is closer to the age where most kids can actually find some success with juggling.) And then, naturally, you resorted to another ad hominen attack on my character with your little "which I doubt" statement, implying that my coaching motives are somehow less pure than those of yours and others because I coach my own children. (If I recall your story correctly, by the way, you tried coaching one of yours, but he preferred karate. Mine actually like soccer, which I guess is a flaw of mine in your view.) You have made no attempt to debate the point that is up for debate, i.e., what is the right age at which juggling should be a focal point of player development and -- stay with me because this part is equally important -- not just for the elite player, but for the masses, since I've already acknowledged that there of course are outliers that any of us can find on YouTube. If you have an opinion that the typical youth soccer player should focus on juggling before the age of 9, I'm cool with that. I don't begrudge you or anyone else the right to believe that. My opinion that the correct age is 9 is just that, my opinion. But to keep focusing on whether juggling is important rather than when it should occur is unhelpful, and to keep launching side attacks on my character is much more telling about your character than it is about mine.
@dcole I suspect the coaches that do focus on juggling use it to inspire playing outside of the coach's contact time. Juggling progress can be measured objectively by counting the repetitions. So I think the coaches use juggling as a teaser, but I think of it as homework. I think the better approach is selling the game, not juggling. As I suspect you do too.
Totally agreed. As I have said above, I think taking some time to teach proper juggling technique at the U8-U9 age range (so 7-8 year olds) is both appropriate and helpful, especially since it has spill-over effects on other aspects of technique. The approach I use is to have the kids sit down in a circle (so they can all see each other) sitting on their butts with feet on the ground, knees bent and arms propping them up behind them. I get in the middle in the same pose they are in and demonstrate a locked ankle and ask that they do the same. Usually maybe 2-3 out of 10 can do this immediately, which was surprisingly low to me the first time I experienced it. I then go around to each of them and test to see whether the ankle is really in the locked position with toes pointed. Once everyone has that as good as they are going to get it (which, for many, is not very good), I go around the circle one player at a time with a ball and drop it down toward each player's dominant foot and have them volley it up to me. I point out the ones that are doing it right and the ones that are not. Even the ones with properly locked ankles usually cannot keep it locked during this volley exercise and instead unlock and flip their foot into a flexed position when they make contact, causing the ball to shoot at themselves rather than up at me. I point out what is happening so everyone can see (without shaming anyone, of course). But I've come to recognize that a surprisingly high percentage of kids this age simply physically cannot perform this movement, so I do not dwell on the point with those who can't do it. (These same kids struggle with striking a ball with a locked ankle, so going through the process is helpful for identifying which players suffer from this. It usually sorts itself out by around age 9, which, not coincidentally, is when I find most kids can start having success with juggling.) After the "on your butt" introduction, I have them progress from "drop, volley, catch" to "drop, volley, bounce, volley, bounce, etc." But note that the volley, bounce technique is very hard to do on bad grass surfaces. Much easier on a hard surface or artificial turf. I usually only spend maybe one 20 minute session on this in a season, and maybe just once at U8 and again once at U9. At U10, I spend more time on it when the returns on the time investment are higher. Kids also don't much like doing things they are physically incapable of doing and I have not found frustrating the kids to be helpful for their development. But I totally agree that one of juggling's best virtues is that it can be done all alone. For those rare kids who work on their own, it's a great thing to focus on, provided they are physically capable of locking their ankle and are able to juggle with proper technique and find some success with it. I find juggling with the toes while feet are flexed to be totally unhelpful and even counterproductive, so I would actively discourage that, personally. Incidentally, juggling is also a great thing to have the kids work on when they show up early and you're still setting up cones and whatnot. If nothing else, it lets you see which kids can do it and which kids are still flummoxed by the dreaded ankle-lock.
@dccole- I'm pretty much seeing exactly what you're describing with my daughter's U10 group, which consists of 20 girls that are mostly U10 but a few U9 and even a couple "old" U8's. The U10 girls are nearly all capable of locking their ankles and can juggle with their feet. The U9 and U8 girls struggle to lock their ankles and get frustrated trying to juggle before practice. They're able to use their thighs to juggle, but struggle to get past two touches with their feet.
It's already been mentioned, but avoid teaching them defending at U8. Kids generally don't have the patience at this age and want the ball as much as possible. Attacking topics like dribbling, 1 v 1's, shielding, turning, small combination play (2v1 & 2v2) and finishing should make up the bulk of your sessions. It is far harder to learn how to master the ball than it is to learn how to defend. My B License tutor said that he could help anyone become better at defending, but not necessarily at attacking. After a study visit to Ajax 3 years ago, the only thing they told their U8's in regards to defending was to get the ball back as fast as they could. That despite having 6 hours of practice with them a week.