Is he on the older side of the age bracket or younger side? It's amazing what 6 months will do at that age.
My niece got some harassment for wearing a Crew jersey to school (I'd get them stuff out of the Garage Sale) due to the colors--she's from a western suburb of Cleveland.
3-4 year olds. He is turning five at the end of June. He plays FIFA, watches soccer weekly, and he plays soccer in our house with his two goals everyday. The lady directing the meeting was talking about how the "goals" are a long end-line. I have been trying to keep Markus from doing headers. She also mentioned moving those kids up a level, but I am not sure how that would work when the head coach's kid is that kid. I had thought about talking with someone about "moving him up" initially, but I will just wait-and-see.
How long is the season? A couple of months at a lower level probably won' t make much difference one way or another--at least to the kids. Other parents may be a different story (even though results mean little at that age).
This seems to make this recent article from US Soccer relevant. https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...s-us-soccer-introduces-bio-banding-initiative
Heh. This “season” will certainly teach Markus to take it a bit easy on the other kids because he is fast, built like he were on the LeBron James diet and weights, coordinated/athletic, and he controls the ball well. The head lady mentioned making “special” rules for the really good teams. I think that might be our future for this spring. He is so sweet hearted I doubt he will mind.. that much.
I think that is what I will most likely do. The suggestion was to make a rule about how many passes you needed to make before you scored another goal.
This is actually a new one I found while looking for passing games; it's got a pretty good list of games to play in practice. http://www.coachingsoccer101.com/drills.htm
Not sure where i found that one. A quick search online isn't coming up with a good diagram, unfortunately. How I do it is I put all the balls inside the center circle. Then the kids are split up into somewhere between 2-4 teams in the corners of the field* inside a ~4x4 yrd box, i.e. their bee hive . They have to race one at a time to the middle, grab a ball and dribble it back to their hive/base. Once the first person gets a ball back into their hive the next one goes. Team with the most balls at the end wins. Preferably 2-3 kids per team. The more extra balls you have the better. Good to teach them to use a pull back when the get a ball from the middle, and to emphasize controlling the ball when dribbling back to their hive *assumes you're on an appropriately sized field like you would typically use for U5-U7 4v4 games.
Here are some things I do with my U7’s. These diagrams are all made by me using the tools on the US Soccer Digital Coaching Center. $25 well spent on the online 4v4 Grassroots Certification If you ask me. 2v2v2v2 4 teams, 4 Goals. Everyone is constantly attacking, defending, and transitioning from one to the other. All the kids are engaged the whole time (very important) Air Hockey It is soccer where you take away some of the pressure. You make a small field and players are only allowed on their own half. They work on shooting power, and long shot accuracy. On defense they are developing positioning and shape skills. Minesweeper Two boxes with space in between. Two teams and a time limit. Place balls in each area and each team’s job is to clear their area by playing the ball into the other team’s box. This improves reaction time, ball tracking, and defensive clearances. Sharks and Minnows “Car Lot” Two boxes with space in between. The space between the boxes is where the sharks lurk. Players start in one box and have to cross the shark tank dribbling the ball without losing it to the sharks. 2v2 Duels Smaller fields where players play in 2v2 battles. Works all skills and you can rotate teams or players quickly. At this age it is all about getting them to think and react to game events.
First practice/game went really well. Thanks again guys. We did the treasure game, and the kids loved it. Next week I am going to try the cones/monsters game. I think their favorite was where I let them all do a free for all shootout with me as the goalkeeper. They loved that.
I co-coached with an old teammate who was a goalie. We used to let them all shoot on him--I'd go last, and usually hammer it home to the chorus of "how did you do that". Made the kids much more amenable to coaching.
We did a variation of Minesweeper last week and it worked rather well. I just used the center circle and had the 2 teams stay on either side. The beehive one looks interesting...
I am going to figure out how I want to post a video from yesterday. Talk about passing! Most kids want to take the ball all by themselves for as far/long as they can. Markus facilitated about 5-6 passes between his two teammates before he scored (3 v 3 in this league). I am not sure if I would believe it myself (and I was on the field as the coach/ref), but I have video evidence (thanks Tim!). I was a proud mother. As we drove into the park, Markus said, "I am proud of you mama for being my coach." These experiences are really a small slice of heaven. As I have already mentioned, you guys rock for all of your input.
Funny thing. I actually lose a lot of sleep thinking about coaching my daughters U8 team. But I have no desire to stop. And look forward to start coaching my son in when he's ready.
I did one like this, based on the US Soccer grassroots training. My girls LOVE sharks and minnows. The problem is a number of them... how shall i say this... easily get dispossessed to become sharks. So I have had to come up with ways to play variations or similar games where most of the girls keep playing with the ball instead of it always being the better/faster girls always with the most ball time. This was one. "Killer Whale" from the page I linked earlier was another. But I will probably be stealing a couple of the others... thanks!
Yeah I don’t let them just become sharks. They run from side to side a few times and then I have the sharks pick someone who hasn’t been a shark yet and they switch places with them. That US soccer training thing was actually more useful than I expected in terms of the video modules. I did it to get access to the software for planning, but I have definitely stolen a number of things straight from those videos! Biggest thing that makes a difference at that level though is just keeping all of them playing and having the opportunity to switch from offense to defense constantly. I see them thinking and reacting so much faster on the field in games, and it was immediately after I implemented stuff from that class.
So how do you do this. Can any team score on any goal? Does each team defend one goal and can score on 3? Or does each team have 1 goal they can score on and defend the other 3?
They defend their goal and can score on any of the other three. But all the other variations work too. The point is making them constantly transition between defense and offense. Also encourage them to dribble not just good the ball every chance they get. I have also thrown in a second ball, and made it larger. if you feel like they are not getting it, or not all are really participating you just go back to small 2v2 games. It is all about getting repetitions in real game like activities. The one thing I really despise at any level is where is see these big long lines of players who one at a time get to dribble the ball and shoot on the goal. Sometimes there is a defender, but even then over 75% of the tea m is doing nothing at any given time. Get all the kids playing right away, find ways to constantly have them manipulating the ball through dribbling, shooting, clearing, tackling, etc... It seems like common sense, but most beginner sides don't do this, and the benefits of each player being active with the ball at each practice and right before the game is enormous as well as immediate.