I would love to see a video on their 50 passes. Were these mostly in the negative space and East to west passes?
Our girls who open the field and play in the back as much as up top lost to a scrappy team from Wisconsin recently. The team was just a bunch of fast runners who powered through. We lost 2-3 but were light years ahead on skill. It happens. One of the problems with development is that you have a larger spectrum in terms of talent. Therefore such a team may take longer to develop an overall consistent style of play when compared to clubs that focus and compartmentalize top teams from lower end teams. In the end - the 2-3 years of developing that consistency pays off in generating players who will go on to college soccer and some even beyond.
If you can get the lead then it is fine to use the back space and make horizontal passing in the back. When your a head kids and adults get impatient instead of jamming up the space close to your attacking goal. They will try to force the back to pass. That is when you give the opponent what they want. They left space up top you can pass to. So now you can through pass or hit less clogged up space. That is what Bora did when he was our national team coach. It was called Bora ball. It works it works best when your a head then you can go up by two instead of by one.
We don't play to get the lead - we play to give kids exposure to the game as whole which means moving kids around up until u12-u13 which is when they will run into DA/ECNL. At that point we may lean to being in the lead but that's only through the style of play and training from practices, futsal and so on. Never just to get in the lead to try other "stuff".
Passing in the negative space does not accomplish anything on attack against a packed defense. You can do it all day and build up your completed passes statistics. If that is all you want to do. But never say like the other guy said that you were the better team. Because you might not be.
I've seen lots of teams play a fast paced scrapy ball and beat much better teams. The difference is in the short sightness of the coaches. The scrapers will likely make for fine high school players while the other team will send player to college. Long term understanding of the field and positioning will go further then running, kicking and plowing through.
You know what's funny. Once that kid plays in college he might have to change the game he was taught or the coach will find a player who will play his way good or bad.
I think you are missing the point... By teaching the entire field - moving players around and so on, you are created players who can perform well in college combines - with other coaches/players and in different positions. Those players will be ore able to adapt to change then the scraper who was told to long ball, double cover and shoot. The problem is, by moving and essentially starting player in newer positions - in effect to get the experience and build confidence, you may put the team at a disadvantage in terms of winning. From u6-u12 I have no problem with that.
Indeed, who recalls the record of a U10 team? Teaching the players to play multiple positions, passing in every/any direction as the situation demands and learning how to see the field are more important than winning any game. The DOC/coach should ensure a team is properly placed in leagues and tournaments, any team consistently losing is in the wrong tier. One coach in our past used to say a .500 performance is indicative that the competition level is appropriate for the team in any one season.
I've been coaching the same group of 2006-born kids since U5, through to current U11. Some turnover, but a consistent core, and essentially the same team all the way. In the beginning, I focused entirely on skill development. When we started playing on a larger field with keepers at U9, I demanded that the kids play possession soccer with no clearances under any circumstances and building everything out of the back. All goal kicks were short, all keeper distributions were short, etc. I also rotated the kids though all positions, including keeper. I kept this up all the way through this past fall (i.e., fall of U11). We lost a lot of games to teams that are not nearly as skilled as we are. Gave up a lot of goals directly from our own short goal kicks and as a result of long punts and goal kicks by the other teams. Especially when heading was abolished in the spring last year, we really suffered at the hands of the long ball teams. If you scored the game based on great soccer plays (amazing dribbling moves, lightning fast wall passes, etc.) we would win by a landslide, but on the scoreboard not nearly so much. I'd say that in our five outdoor seasons on the larger field with keepers (two U9 seasons, two U10 seasons and fall of U11), we were about .500 in terms of wins and losses. This spring U11 season, I've taken the governor off the kids. They are now free to play the ball long whenever they feel it is appropriate. My keepers will roll the ball out if they have a man open and nothing on downfield, but they'll rip a punt if they see that it's on. Same thing with goal kicks. We've even worked in a few orchestrated set pieces that have worked really well. The kids have the skill to play short and combine with each other, and playing the ball long when it's on keeps the opposition honest and forces them to try to shut down both the long and the short options, which opens the field up a ton. I've also started giving the kids more time at the positions they are best suited to and stopped forcing kids into positions that they rarely find success in. So far, we are 4-0 this spring. We still focus on development in training sessions, but we are playing the games to win. Was U11 too early to take the focus in games off of development? I don't think so, for several reasons: 1. While I see the importance of forcing a short game early to allow the kids to develop the ability to execute in those conditions, once they have developed the ability to play short there is less reason to force it. 2. It's important to develop the sense for when to play short and when to play long, so why not have them figure it out now? 3. The kids were getting sick and tired or getting beaten by inferior teams. They knew we were losing because we played short all the time and were predictable. The other teams knew exactly what we were going to do and they exploited it. 4. The kids were getting sick and tired or playing positions they were ill-suited to playing. It just wasn't very fun anymore. 5. None of these kids are going to be pros, and only two of them have a legit shot at playing D1 college soccer, so how long do they need to keep playing on Sundays for development's sake before they can start playing to win? They have seven years of youth soccer left. Time to play to win in my book.
Without saying something as obtuse as 'every situation is different' I would suggest it is really hard to compare what to do from team to team and player to player without a lot of context on who, where and when. We're in Region 1, which is strong in my son's age group. He has played with a lot of guys who will be playing D1 soccer for the next few years. With that as a bit of context, I'd say 20% were really good at U11 and the rest just developed into the best players. Growth spurts and focus reduced the impact of outliers and then we could see who was truly a good soccer player versus just a good athlete versus just more mature than other boys. You'll see teams dominate at u12 - u14 based on size, speed and aggressiveness. But the teams that dominate due to only those things eventually start to peter out when they face teams that are fast and skilled. Slow teams are doomed. Another thing you'll see starting at U16 are teams with 4-6 kids who clearly hit the weights. They will push a lot of teams around until they play teams that are more skilled...all of that muscle is easy to carry when you are resting on the bench ahead 4-0 but hard to carry around for 6 miles when you are losing 2-1. In the end it boils down to some god given speed and agility, some inherent competitiveness and drive and a whole lot of skill developed by training and playing the right way.
Quick growth spurts hurts more players then it helps. It makes them have less control of their bodies. It makes them more aukward then before their growth spurt. You get more cases of Osgood-Schlatter.
The philosophy of our coach (he runs the U7-U10 boys team is to only worry about skills. We don't really worry about the score at all until U10s and even then it isn't front of mind (at least for the coach and most parents. The boys always know the score, of course). For our U8s, if they get up a few goals, coach will make it that each player must touch the ball and do a skill move on the ball before someone is allowed to shoot. We get some really bad losses early on but once the boys get the skills over the years, you can see how much better players they are. Some teams will have 1-3 skilled players but it is rare that the overall skill level for each kid is better. I think this type of philosophy is great for the kids learning and will be very good for overalll Us soccer (especially if it is used widely).
I think at that age and older they should always do skill work. But while they are learning they should also learn at least some soccer sense. When I learned the game tactics were very simple. Try to beat your first defender first then look to pass. Beat your first defender that also creates space for team mates. But you have to work on things that will help you to beat that first defender. I was a back if you lose the ball to that defender your team is in trouble. We had a drill called the gauntlet where a defender would come at you from different locations. Get good at it it helps raise the players confidence that no matter what position you play you can still beat that first defender.
Depends on the kid. Some are driven by competition and winning and losing drives them to get better. They learn the skill work on their own time to win, not because of drills in practices. Some you can drill the skills into with expensive training. There isn't a one size fits all solution.