I got the idea for this thread from a thread regarding an article by Andrea Canalas of observations at the youth soccer level, which thread turned somewhat into the specific rants/musings, etc. of certain U7 coaches, myself included. So I decided to start this thread as a forum for simply stories, anecdotes, rants, problems, etc., from your current coaching sessions as they happen. No general philosophizing on what's right/wrong with youth development, or youth clubs, etc., just the sort of talk a few youth coaches might have over a beer following practice. There might me some good ideas offered, or funny stories, or just "been there, done that" moments. I'll start, with a little background. I am head coach of my son's U7 team. He was with the club last year, which I observed, but at that level they ddn't have formal (or even informal) soccer games. Just skill-training games. And he is my oldest, so I have little experience with the whold youth-soccer-club gig, let alone actually coaching practices or games. I didn't even play youth soccer (I don't remember back that far, whether there was a youth league then - probably but my parents didn't get me involved) - only rec. adult soccer for the past decade or so, where I have tried to "coach" my firm's teams. So yesterday was our first practice, and we have a game on Saturday. The one problem I'm going to mention (I have many others), is that one of the boys on my team didn't seem to be able/willing to run. At all. He's somewhat chubby, but not obese. But he had this pained/concentrating look on his face all practice, and never seemed to take more than a step or two at even jogging pace. I asked him a couple of times whether he was alright, and whether his feet were bothering him or anything - each time he said know. I don't believe he's every played before - maybe he wasn't used to the cleats - but I would think if that was the case, he'd have said "yes, my feet hurt". But he was literally just shuffling around the field like an old man. One of my assistants noticed it and mentioned it to me today as well, so I wasn't imagining. The worst thing is that his father is the other assistant coach (I don't think his father has much familiarity with the game either), so it's going to be akward figuring out how to get this guy involved. I'm really wondering what's going to happen with this kid on Saturday. I don't know that it will affect the game much, since at this point these guys are just swarming the ball, and one less player in the swarm probably won't change the dynamic much.
Norsk, are we allowed to comment on prior posts, or will that drag this into the realm of ranting about youth development? I say that because I had one of those anti-athletic kids on my team last year, a girl who just couldn't run more than 15 yards, and she was heavy and she toe-poked the ball all the time. Playing small 6 v 6 games at U10, I play a 2-1-2 and "park" my least athletic kids at forward. She played lots of forward... And lo and behold, I got her back this year and she's developed a real nose for goal and she's still toe-poking, but she's getting a good leg rotation and getting all her weight behind her kicks, and she's a real force. Some of this development is all her -- her drive to goal and her aggressiveness -- some might be the fact that we've got an all-girls league this year and the slower pace allows her to come into her own, but she is night and day from where she was last year. It's just amazingly heartening to see. The point obviously, is that kids all grow and change at different rates, both physically and in their appreciation for the game. This kid could be lumbering for the next three years, hit a growth spurt and his game could change. Of course, if he's having that much trouble running, then think of how much good you're doing getting him out and about. Of course, the challenge for us as coaches is to love and enjoy and thrill to the exploits of our least talented kids. Last spring I coached at the Y and had an 8 year old girl who is the best player I have ever coached and I marveled at her play and dream about having the chance to coach her again. But everyone loves Sammi, or will when they get her, the key is loving and appreciating the kids that no one else loves (in the soccer sense here) and I wish you lots of thrills to this kid's baby-steps. You started the thread, Norsk, now you've got to tell us how he does next week.
Will do. And I don't mind alluding to other discussions, or threads. As long as people try to keep it applicable to the various current topics (and by all means, this isn't meant to be merely MY journal - believe me, I'll post here often, but Ill be just as happy hearing other people's stories).
Hmmm, a bit counter to my experience. The least athletic of my kid's U7 (OK, actually it was spring U6) rec team immediately quit after the first season. Seven years later, they are still poor athletes and do not do any sports to speak of. The most athletic of that team have since moved onto other sports, except for my kid, and they remain quite athletic and very involved in sports. The middle kids are still in the middle. To my knowledge, none have advanced into the top group athletically; a couple have become significantly heavier and have slid toward the bottom group. Some of them are quite involved with sports, some a bit, and some none at all. I'm all for growth & development, but I also must admit that the worst part of U6 soccer was seeing the unhappiness of the bottom-tier athletes, in particular with dealing with parents who were pushing them to "keep at it" in the hopes that they would join the mainstream. The kids had a pretty good sense that they weren't going to make it, and they were relieved when the season ended, so that they no longer were forced to participate in something that taught them that they were inferior.
My son has pretty flat feet and doesn't run well. He shuffles. But it's gotten better since I have had him (I wish every day, but in all honesty, about 3 times a week) run up the (13) steps for about 10 minutes. (With short rests, of course.) He'll do it about 15 times altogether. It teaches him to pick up his feet and knees when he runs. Now I see more and more sparks of him running like a normal boy. Makes me feel good. Might suggest that to the dad. The key is, RUN up the steps. Not walk.
My son was the second to last athletically on his U6, U7, and U8 teams. On his U6 team, he didn't care. We put the emphasis on just having fun. I paid for that attitude for a while, i.e., it was hard to motivate him to be competitive after that. (I think all of the kids are still playing sports, I've only lost track of two of them.) At the end of his U8 year, he decided he wanted to improve - he got tired of his team mates taking the ball away from him. He started to learn to dribble and to shield the ball from his team mates. We went to a new team for U9 (after two years with the old) and I was really happy to see him in the light of new kids. He was easily one of my better players - note I didn't say athelete. At the end of that year, he really pushed himself in 1-1 competitions against the best pure athelete and most conceited attitude I've ever seen in an 9 year old. He hated that other kid for mocking him in drills. And he loved showing him up at the end of the season. Now at U10, I see a bit more determination out of him. He still likes to moan about practice, but he will stay late, he will forget to ask how much longer, and he does get better. Has his body shape changed? No. He is still just as small and just as thin as ever. I think he is developing a core of confidence. He can get frustrated at times about the boys who are early developers, those for whom things seem to come naturally. But he has found that with a small amount of focused practice daily, he can do better than those who rely strictly on raw ability. In the context of this thread, I would say that you have to stick with your players. You don't have to be their coach every season, but you need to encourage them to stay with the game. Sometimes you do need to pass a player to another coach, you might not have the right attitude for their style of development. My wife is always amazed at how I don't dwell on the negative during a game, instead I focus on what the player is doing correctly. But on the flip side, I don't have that killing touch mentality.
I've always had a kid each season "make the jump" each season. Athleticism is athleticism, and you don't lose that. But last year one of my girls on my co-ed U10 team learned how to start thinking about the game and moving without the ball, taking snapshots of the game. She didn't get any faster, or even more aggressive, she just started being the right place at the right time. I'd played her at the beginning of the season as keeper and midfield (7v7) but by the end of the season she'd moved to forward and had a pair of hattricks just by being in the right place at the right time. I don't think she's playing this year (her dad has three girls and wants someone to hunt with, so she's taking a firearms safety course on Saturdays) . On my Y team, I had one kid, who was the team cut-up, and it took him about 5-6 weeks to figure out what the game was about, and by the end of the season he was as aggressive as anyone in the league. I've always seen kids change "strata" as it were. My daughter is not one of them, and I expect this to be her last year of playing as she is finally aware that she's just not very good, so this progress obviously has very little to do with me. Norsk didn't want this thread to turn into a bashing developmental programs, but I still feel we start too young, because if kids are thinking they are not good enough at age 7 or 8, JohnR, then I think we are doing something wrong. I didn't start playing soccer until I was 9, in a league until I was 10 and seriously until I was 11, and I was All Met in the District my senior year.
That's worth a shot, though it's not that he shuffles when he runs ... he shuffles instead of running. My boy loves to shuffle his feet (on purpose) around the house if he's wearing slippers or something because it make noise, but he's still doing it quickly, and it doesn't affect his normal running. But this kid's shuffling was just strange - like a convolescent looking for his walker. I'm curious to see what he's going to be like over the course of the season. Another funny thing was my own son at practice - after it was all over he dribbled over to me as the parents were heading back to their cars and asked: "Can we have free play soccer now?" That probably stemmed from the fact that he was the worst offender with regard to dribbling past the field boundaries and keeping on going. I think he would have stayed there until it was pitch dark if I let him.
Besides running up steps (which the player can do on his own), you could incorporate drills designed to get their feet up of the ground. Have a warm up period where they have to skip, run sideways, carioca, high stepping, etc. Make them ones where the emphasis is on getting correct form and not on winning a race. If you make it a race, the kid might not want to do it since he already knows he won't win a regular race. But if you can incorporate the basic movement patterns into something he can do, then you've given him a progression to start running. At that age, I also use 5-10 minutes of a drill called "Do what I do". I spend a couple of minutes challenging them to do things with a soccer ball - like head it, knee it, etc. I then have them each do a challenge. You'll get kids who say kick it the highest, punt it the farthest, etc. As the season goes on, I try to do simple combo plays. But you can also do non-soccer specific things with this - place the balls out 1-2 feet apart in a line. Now, hop over them, leap over them, hop and do 180s, whatever. Trick this kid into running by giving him fun things to do. Mention to the AC that 5 minutes a day at doing these types of activities will boost his son's confidence. Heck, mention it to all of the parents - it might improve the entire team.
Another bit from Tuesday practice. I have a set of twins on my team (actually, their father is a buddy of mine, and the boys are close to my son). Perhaps he did it to mess with me, but the father dressed them in identical shirts for practice (we don't have any set uniform for practices), leaving me clueless all night long as to which one was which. Needless to say, I'm going to kindly "suggest" to him different outfits next time. There were a few brief moments of emotional break-down by one of the twins, when we tried to put a pinnie on him during a certain session - I think I might need to speak to his father about that as well, and see how they deal with seperation anxiety when I need to split them up during scimmages, etc.
And when you get the uniforms, give one of them a "square" number and the other a "round" number. 7 and 8, not 6 and 8. Twins are unique individuals and appreciate being called the correct name. Certainly not "Twin" as I heard on the field this week.
Game 1 down. We got clobbered, but I've tried my best to make sure neither the team nor the parents care, since all that matters is individual skill development. And I saw improvement throughout the game, so I'm encouraged. And furthermore, we scored the last goal of the game, and I told them that's what mattered! Also, the reasons we got clobbered are easily dismissed, in my opinion: 1 - they had two players who clearly have been playing for some time, and probably have older brothers, to have developed such good skills for that age - we have no one in that category on our team. And one of those players didn't much look like he was still 6 years old, size-wise. 2 - Their team always had one or two (usually those better players), hanging out in the penalty box whenever our goal keeper was trying to distribute the ball or take a goal kick. The bulk of their goals came from that sort of poaching. Given that this was the first time anyone had every played as or with a goalkeeper, I thought that was something the coach should have put a stop to immediately (presuming the coach didn't tell them to do that himself - I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now). 3 - The coach also took those good players as the game went on, and turned them into sweepers. Granted, he might have thought he was doing us a favour so they didn't run up the score. But what we was really doing was taking advantage of the fact that few if any kids can dribble with close control, and letting his sweeper destroy any attacks by our team. And as the game went on, my players were getting better at defending. They didn't score much at all in the second half. 4 - Oh, and twice their keeper used hands way, way, way outside the box to stop an attack. I'll let that go as a 6 year old just not understanding. But still, the cynic in me wasn't happy about it. So, back to practice, and continuing with dribbling, passing, shooting and defending. I'm not going to start playing a sweeper, and I'm not going to teach poaching or other such tactics. And hopefully by the end of the season, all my boys will be better individual players. And for those of you who are curious, the "shuffler" seemed to run a little easier today - but I now think that it's more a general lack of athleticism (partly due to being overweight). We'll work on it.
Your first game sounds a lot like my coaching experience with a U-8 Rec team over the last two years. It will get better eventually so keep at it. My team last year didn't have any dominate players and all of the 6 year olds were "young" 6 year olds. Most weeks we were OK defensively but we couldn't get many shots off and we only scored a couple of times all season. Instead of "playing to win", I chose to keep rotating the players between offense, defense, and keeper and things seemed to get worse as the season went on. I attribute that to the other teams playing and practicing their players in the same position week after week...of course they appeared to get better, their kids only had to learn one position whereas our kids were learning to play everywhere. This year I have 4 kids back as 7 year olds and a whole new crop of 6 year olds. It's a Fall Rec league and we didn't play between seasons. The 7 year olds know where to go and what to do this year and the 6 year olds are learning from the 7 year olds. We still don't have a dominate athlete on the team but we're dominating possession in every game and getting plenty of shots. Not many of the shots are going in but the kids are close to putting it all together. I do a lot less "coaching" during the game and I don't feel near the frustration this year even though we're 0-2-2. I'm still rotating the players through all of the positions even though both losses can be attributed to it.
Unfortunately, there's some truth in the statements above. Natural athleticism and aggression goes a long way in youth soccer. Some kids have it and some don't. On the other hand, one of my returning players this year shocked me with his improvement. Last year he was as bad as they get...he wasn't athletic, he had(has) ADHD and the medicine wasn't working well (his eyes would roll back in his head if he couldn't play keeper when it wasn't his turn), and his attention span was practically zero. He took about a third of my attention at every practice. This year, his meds are working and his attention span is much better. He has developed some dribbling skills and he looks up to pass. He's not a bad defender but he'll still require a lot of luck to score. On good days, he's a middle of the pack player...he's never the worst on the field like he was last year. While I don't expect him to be a top player, it's great to see the improvement and to see how much better he feels about playing. If he can make that big of a change, there's the possibility, however remote it might be, that any kid can make a jump to a better level. It's a mistake at the youth/rec level (U-8 in this case) to only focus on improving the better athletes while the poor athletes are weeded out with minimal playing time.
Interesting thread -- new member, here (hi, everyone). Just for some background, I help coach my daughter's co-ed U7 team, and they have been together for the last year. She is actually a U6 by a few days, but plays with the U7 team to be with her classmates. The interesting thing that we've observed is that there are two distinct groups on our team: group (A) are the kids who are really interested and stay focused on what the coaches say, are starting to "get" the team concept, spread out on offense (frequently) and will pass the ball if they see an open teammate (sometimes). Group (B) are the kids who aren't really aware that they have teammates and just want to chase the ball around. It's been really effective to put these on the field as two different squads as much as possible. Group A has a couple of players who are really good at finding open teammates, and therefore they score a lot of goals via passing. We generally have to make them pass the ball to all of their teammates before they score a goal (this is a 4x4 league, no keepers) to keep the score reasonable. Group B just doesn't get that part, yet, although we are hoping that by mixing them in with Group A one at a time, they will start to "get it" (because Group A usually will yell at the ball hog to pass it). Foot/ball control/other skills are about even across the two groups, and the main difference seems to be attention span. Has anyone else tried something like this? Our trial-and-error approach to splitting the team into groups to work with seems to indicate that everyone gets more out of practice and games when we do it this way, but I'm wondering if there are things we are overlooking? Thanks -- JSD
It won't let me start a new thread in the Girls forum, so I'll have to ask here since it is a U7 question (sorry if this if too off-topic): I mentioned that my daughter is playing slightly up an age group (is a U6 by a few days, playing with a U7 coed team). She is a real soccer freak (practices every day by her own choosing and loves it), which really suprised me but I'm not going to complain about it. Based on the girls I've seen play the last year, she is in maybe the top 25% or better of girls in the league (despite playing up), and is certainly one of the hardest workers out there and very self-motivated. I am wondering if it will be better in the long run for her to play with the boys for as long as possible, or to switch her into an all-girls league? What are the benefits of each path? She sure learns a lot from a couple of the boys who are really advanced for their age (have older soccer - playing siblings), but I worry about her getting injured even though she is extremely tough and bounces right up whenever she gets creamed. She's taller than most of her female classmates despite being the youngest, but some of those guys are much bigger... any thoughts? Thanks - JSD
I saw pretty saw much the same thing with my daughter's travel team over a five year period. The ranking on speed and athleticism that I made at the first practice they had as U8s is pretty much the same as would be made today. Intriguingly, however, there is one exception. There is one girl who was among the least athletic the first year who every year improved a little relative to the rest of the team and now rates as one of the best players. She plays forward. I wouldn't say she is fast over 40 yards, but has become quite explosiveness in her first two or three steps. It is interesting to speculate how she became such an exception. One is her dad is British and played the game a lot himself and I know he has spent much more time working with her on her game away from her team's practices than most of the other parents. Second, she has a sister a couple years younger who is an excellent player. They have a lot of backyard sessions. Third, she had some baby fat as a seven year old that she has shed. The point is that while I agree with JohnR's basic conclusion, now and then an exception comes up to remind us that there are late bloomers out there.
Just to share my personal story...I have a memory of being one of two boys from my first grade homeroom to run in the 50 yard dash at the school field day, and finishing middle of the pack. I was big but not huge as a first grader. Anyway, I stopped growing (not literally, but darn close) and a few years later developed a heel problem, which intermittently made it terribly, terribly painful to run, and that messed me up. On my little league baseball team (granted, we were a great team) I was the slowest or 2nd slowest kid every year.) I really developed a self-identity as a slow runner. Fast forward several years. When we were timed in high school baseball tryouts, I was one of the fastest kids. And when I played intramural sports in college, at the competitive level, I was always one of the fastest guys in whatever game I was playing.
my husband was supposed to be the REC(u7/u8) asst coach for my daughter's team..he blew out his ACL instead so i am the replacement coach..LMAO!!! 1/2 way throught practice we had to have a cartwheel and handstand break!!! they were doin it on their own and not paying attention so we got it out of their systems. isn't it funny how tired they are..until practice is over and they can do what they want?? Rec is so different from travel.
My daughter also one of those exceptions -wanted to play U6 soccer because her brother had always played soccer. But, with a July 30th bday she was the youngest kid on a coed team, she hated the uniform that didn't fit, hated playing in sleet and snow (spring soccer in KY) and basically just stood around on the field, if the coach could get her out there. Now, at 13, she's picked field hockey instead of soccer, but she is one of the fastest and most aggressive girls out there, definitely an athlete. Don't write off those 5 year olds yet!
I don't understand the mentality of a coach who tells 5/6 year olds to camp inside the goal area. Does not losing a game at this age make them feel like good coaches?
I'd really love to go up to them after the game and say "Congratulations, you must feel proud in your intellectual superiority over a group of 6 year olds, which enabled you to develop a tactic capable of capitalizing on their weaknesses."
Does this happen a lot? We had our first game of the season today, and the team we played against used this tactic. It wasn't very effective -- we play 4x4 (co-ed) at U7, so it takes away 1/4 of your players to just stand around most of the time. I also saw U7 and U8 teams (all 4x4) on other fields doing this, and we were one of the few that didn't. I mentioned to one of the U8 coaches I know that it didn't make sense to me, and he retorted that it is very important to teach the kids positions at this age (!? I'm pretty sure that I don't agree with that.) About the game: We had faster kids today, and that seemed to make most of the difference in the game. It was actually pretty one-sided, and so we tried to have our kids make at least 2 passes before trying to score. Throttling them in this way didn't work so well (they pretty much ignored the instruction -- when a fast kid got the ball, they took off toward the goal and usually scored on the breakaway despite the poor lone guy in the goal. Not that all goals were of that type, though - we have some attacks that got everyone involved, which I was really proud of). They did really well on their spacing in practice the last two weeks, but when they actually were playing in the game they reverted back to chasing the ball in a pack a lot of the time. At least they didn't try to kick it away from their own teammates! Regards -- JSD
Yes, it happens a lot. It is what I hate about that age. As you mention later, if you can get all of your team on the ball, you can easily win. I had this discussion today with my U10 son about the U6 team we coach: "If we can get them to play together with the ball and not bunch up, we'll be doing great." He couldn't parse the sentence. The first part sounded to him like I was saying play follow the ball. I replayed the words in my mind and agreed. I told him I wanted shape (in this case a triangle) in both offense and defense. I didn't want to tell them that one was playing defender, I want them to learn to keep the basic shape and play the game based on the situation. We get one practice a week and we formed the second week of the season. So, I've been focusing on foot work first. I plan to introduce the triangle and not get upset if they don't use it in a game. Coaching this U6 team is a lot easier now that I've done it once. I've got my son helping me because the kids like seeing someone near their size and I'm tricking him into learning more about the game.