Rant about U8 Soccer

I haven't coached as young as U8, but these things seem pretty advanced for U8. A lot of tactical decision making.

 

Kids who watch and play a lot of soccer can pick these up naturally, and I'm sure Monkey boy teaches them well. But I still think u little coaches should be strongly told not to play positions because almost all of them will do it wrong. Monkey Boy and other competent coaches can just ignore it.

 

I agree that teaching positions is often done incorrectly, but I did introduce general positions--defense and offense*--when I coached this age for a few reasons. [* With my younger son, I had defense and midfield, because earlier coaches/parents/older siblings had taught a couple of the boys that offensive players didn't have to help on defense or even come into the defensive half of the field.] One was that the players wanted it--they had older brothers or favorite players they wanted to emulate--so they thought it was cool to claim the same position. Another reason was that we could then practice being a "defender"--learning not to jump in, kicking at everything in site, etc.--and they seemed to grasp defensive skills better when presented this way. [It also seemed to make the 1v1 games, etc., more productive.]

The biggest reason, though, related to the various personalities on the team. I wanted all of the players to develop, but the more dominant personalities would take over. On these young teams, you usually find 1 or 2 kids (I'll use the name "Andy") who are aggressive and will chase the ball all over the field, even if it means taking the ball away from a teammate. Then there are the timid kids ("Billy") who just stand and watch "Andy"--esp. since he is going to take the ball from them anyway. And there are the kids who drop back on defense ("Charlie") without being told because no one else is doing it. By introducing positions, I could encourage "Andy" to drop back, encourage "Billy" to go after the ball, and "Charlie" to move up to practice his offensive skills. I also encouraged "defenders" to take the ball forward and move into attack--I did have some kids who resisted going past midfield-- and all to get back to defend.

I never kept an individual in the same position throughout the game, so none of the players got mad that he didn't get to play where he wanted. As the boys got older and moved out of rec, some got picked for good select teams in large part because they were not one-dimensional. Interestingly, from one of my first teams (now older high school age), one of the "Andy" kids is now a wing back for a team that lets him get into the attack; one of the "Charlies" is a starting forward for an area premier team; and some of the "Billy" kids are still playing school and/or club ball.

 

Trust me, the kids don't pick up these concepts immediately. It takes a great deal of time, patience and time management (so you don't end up wasting too much time on these ideas). There are many good SSGs that help the players to recognize open space - most really only focus on players rather than the empty space at this age. It's best to start with 2v1 or 2v2 games as the players first learn to work with another player and then you can start increasing the numbers.

For instance, I introduced the concept of a diamond 1-2-1 shape at the beginning of the fall, but it took until 7 games in before the players were using the outlet player (defender) to recognize a pressure overload and switch the point of attack.

As for teaching players to be hold the ball comfortably, beat a defender and execute and accurate pass - these are basic skills that should be the focus for any coach at this age. If you're not teaching these techniques, then forget about positions or shape because it just won't matter.

Yes, there is a great deal of variation between the players I've had for 3+ years and those who are new to the team. I would hope that would be the case though, otherwise I've been wasting time on those players. The more experienced players though help the others because they can play with less fear -- it's not odd to see our striker running back to win the ball on the opponents fast break because the defender was pushing up-field.

Focus on the basics, but the least you can do is encourage the kids to watch professional soccer often so they can start to observe the movements of the game on their own.

 

Elite players at u8, should be able to make individual tactial desions all over the feild in relation to where the ball is."do I need to find width, depth? am i createing a good angle? As they get to u9, u10 now yes they should start to be able to understand tactical desions in relation to where the ball is and where theyre teammate is. My mate is in width on the right so ill make wdith on left to make a diamond or 2 options for player with the ball.

I agree with most of you here that players should be taught what roles are needed on the feild instead of positions. but i think they should be able to move or switch freely with anyone at any time , but im a bit dutch that way.

 

My first post in the forum. When I was coach for my daughters U6 and U8 teams, I taught them how do throw-ins and how to kick a ball. Once they got these basics down, we moved on to dribbling. Since there were essentially no fouls or direct kicks, everything was a throw-in to restart the game and it went out a lot. It was 3v3 or 4v4 depending on the number of kids that showed up to play and the conversation with the other coach. As for offense/defense?... there were no keepers and when I was the referee in the U6 and U8 games, I would not allow the coach to have "defenders". I corrected the coaches, I saw this as a coaching issue, not a player issue. In the U6 games, I never saw a defensive player in any of the games I coached. There is a reason it's called "bunch ball".

As for aggressive play, after I blew the whistle, I got down to the player's level and told him or her that we can't push/pull players or handle the ball that way. I then had the other team restart the game.

Over all, I never kept score for any of the U6 or U8 games I coached or ref'ed. I would sit down on the grass after the games, get the kids to huddle around me and asked them two questions, "Did you run? Did you have fun? then I said "Then you've won!". I told the parents during the first meeting of the year, I don't keep score and the kids are here to have fun, running in the sun and playing with kids their own age, learning the skills of kicking the ball and how to do a real throw-in. I feel the competitive kids will gain the skills but that most kids below u10 don't have the social skills (to be team motivated) or fine motor skills to do complicated dribbling and ball handling.

 

This is an important point. Most of the apparent conflicts in opinion about training for specific age groups on this forum can be explained by whether you are training exceptional versus ordinary players.

And in practice coaches adjust their training based on an evaluation of the individuals being trained. This is a strength of training in the US in the past. I hope that we don't lose this strength for the next generation as we try to set training standards for player development. We don't want training based on a test instead of training based on evaluation of individual performance.

 

I completely agree that a coach needs to evaluate the development of the players and gear the training toward where they are at currently.

However, I disagree with the notion that average players below U10 do not possess the motor skills for complicated dribbling. Ball mastery and then more complicated ball control skills are the best things to focus on for this young group of players.

I have a U8 team right now and all of them worked up to the point this fall of being introduced to a Cruyff turn for instance. They have gone through mastering small touches and control, moving up to fakes and turns, now up to more complicated turns and control moves. We're not talking about the select few top players here, it's all of the players on the team working up to this point. No, they haven't mastered all of these aspects of controlling the ball yet, but we're talking about 7 & 8 year olds here. Those that I've been coaching for a few years now are further ahead of those who just joined last year or at the beginning of this year, but the consistent focus on ball control has helped them get up to speed.

I do agree though that the social skills of players in this age group isn't to the point yet where they can be effective with a group of more than 2-3 players. We are able to get good combinations between 2 players, but it's rare to see 3 players working together well. I have had a group of three 7 year olds combine and work together for a game, but these were the exceptions out of the team.

When it comes to U10 players, the focus must first be on the individual. Once the players are comfortable holding the ball and controlling it in traffic, then they are ready for partner play. It will take some time with the partner play before they are ready to start working in groups of 3, and slowing increasing from there.

 

Agree. I'd also add that the focus on throw-in's and kicking at the U6 and U8 levels is misplaced. As Monkey Boy says, the emphasis should be on developing a competency in individual control of the ball, e.g., dribbling. A throw-in is a skill a 12-year old can learn in ten minutes, but you'll spend an inordinate amount of time teaching it to a 6 or 7 year old, time that could be better focused elsewhere (and for U6, there shouldn't be throw-in's anyway; restart with a kick-in or a dribble-in if you have the choice; and as for U8's, refs shouldn't be strictly enforcing throw-in's per the Laws). As for kicking, my experience is that it is physiologically difficult for a young player to display proper technique, so again, it's waste for U6's. That's not to say that when you're coaching U8's you can't work on certain things (e.g., location of plant foot: watch a young kid kick, and watch where the plant [non-kicking] foot is; invariably, it is behind the ball, and the kicking foot is "reaching" for the ball, because kids kick the ball in their natural running stride), but the emphasis shouldn't be on kicking and certainly not throw-in's--it should be on dribbling.

 

Out of fairness I would like to point out that techguy did not say he emphasized throwins and striking. Only that he started there and then switched to dribbling.

He even explained why he started with throwins (to avoid delays during restarts). It isn't fair to blame him for the league's choice of format for matches.

Obviously kids want to score goals so learning how to strike is high on the player's "fun to do" list. A decision to teach that early needs no further explanation.

 

Thanks for the spirited comments.

In my comment about throw-ins, it didn't spend a ton of time but I did have the girls do them. Many other coaches didn't do them at all. They left it up to ref to correct them... but that was not practical for u6 games.

Another factor the influenced my coaching style was that the players did not have dedicated weekday practices. Each weekend, the team was scheduled one hour for practice and a game. The first 30 minutes was practice time for the team on one half of the field, with the goals and corner flags in place. The second half of the hour was a twenty minute game against another team, with a single referee. I always did my substitutions to ensure every player got as much playing time as possible, regardless of the player's decision to be a daisy picker or not. I felt they would come around eventually. That being said, I never forced a player to play or stay in. If they flipped out and had a fit, I would sub them out or play short until they got their "mommy kisses" and were over their tantrum. For the U6 teams, positions were not even discussed.

 

My bad, then. He said: "When I was coach for my daughters U6 and U8 teams, I taught them how do throw-ins and how to kick a ball;" and "I told the parents during the first meeting of the year, I don't keep score and the kids are here to have fun, running in the sun and playing with kids their own age, learning the skills of kicking the ball and how to do a real throw-in," and from that I inferred that his main emphases were: (1) have fun; (2) learn how to kick; and (3) how to do a throw-in. (1) is great, but (2) should be subordinate to ball mastery (dribbling, receiving), and (3) doesn't even merit a mention.

I know that at U6 and U8, I don't tell parents that their kids are going to learn to kick and throw. I tell them (and apologies to those whom I stole the following from):

The ball is an instrument, and the goal is to teach the kid how to play his instrument. You don't take an aspiring musician and, without training on his instrument of choice, have him play with the symphony orchestra. Same thing with soccer; the player needs to master his instrument before he can progress to playing effectively with teammates. I want to get the kids past the point where, when they have the ball, and a defender or defenders are closing on them, they just stand there, thinking "Oh crap, what do I do now?"

 

Nice!

 

We have two different teaching philosophies. I don't like the comparison at all. I have played with thousands of musicians. I also played soccer with someone in the National Symphony, but I have never played music with anyone who had played in a symphony (excepting only the most amatuer of small town organizations). In music almost every teacher will get the new student to play a recognizable melody at the very first lesson. Scales are important, but so is playing music. When I studied percussion with a traditional African master, he always played too. It was his means of instruction. I studied music in a public school program. I don't think much has changed. Beginners had group lessons.

To me soccer is first and foremost a game. Every practice I run, and every other youth coach I know, includes a game of some fashion.

 

USSF (among others) has dug deeply into intertwined subjects of child and player development, very apropos to this discussion. Their work was put together into a "Best Practices" book, available here...

http://www.ussoccer.com/coaches/resources.aspx

Well worth a read, especially the first 20 pages or so, when you are a "littles" coach. It is well written and an easy and interesting read.

Have fun!

markb

 

My son is playing futsal this winter. There are a few more skilled players but for the most part it's similar to our outdoor rec U8 league as far as foot skills and motor skills.

It is night and day from our outdoor league. There is physical play but it is nowhere near the stuff I saw this fall with the hacks, pulls and shoves. I haven't seen a single swing at the legs (intentional or not) so far, nor any arm shoves and maybe the occasional shirt pull. It's just been shoulder charges and shielding type of stuff.

One thing I've noticed is that the atmosphere there is very relaxed. Other than clapping after a goal, or the occasional "Good job!" there is very little chatter from the parents during the game. I don't know whether it's due to educated parents or apathy because they don't see it as "proper soccer," but the kids are left to play. There are only two formal teams playing and the rest of the kids like my son are formed into teams on game day. The skill improvement and creative play and fun from the kids has been amazing to witness.

I almost wonder if the charged atmosphere on the sidelines in our outdoor league from coaches and parents getting sucked into the "we versus them" team aspect has more of an effect on the overly rough physical play than I once thought.

 

deleted: sorry.

 

Good message here for us!

have fun!
markb

 

In my observation, a definite "Yes". I've run several U-little programs where we randomly made up teams on game day (and, as a consequence, no scores or standings kept). Take the team-identity piece away, take the significance of a win away, and the only thing a parent can do is... cheer for their kid! You end up with a much more relaxed, fun atmosphere for everyone.

 

When I coached both u6 & u8, I never kept score. I didn't see the need and the girls never cared. I was focused on the kids needs.

 

Plus I'd guess if a coach and/or parent is vocally pressuring their U-Little player to do more than they can physically or mentally at that stage, a natural response may be to do the hacks, pushes and pulls since they can't do the speed or skill things to counter it and have no other option in their mind.

 

my group of u8's this year learned to pass to each other quite well in a way they would not have in different teams each week. I know that's not a priority at this age but its nice to see them learning how to get open and make space for a pass.

 

Exactly. My "backs" would hang out in front of the goal sometimes, too. I'd told them many a time not to do that, but some persisted.

I'd wait until a ball was cleared out by the other team. EVERY TIME this happened, I'd point out that if they were up closer they'd easily be first to the ball. That's how I dealt with it, in the context of the importance of being first to the ball.

It's about shape. You don't want to OVERemphasize it that age, obviously, you don't want the kids thinking too much. But setting them up in a diamond (for example) at the beginning of practice, as a warmup, and having them run in that shape left, right, up, back, can be a good way to spend maybe 10 minutes on this, total for the whole season, and get alot out of it. At that age, they'll still chase the ball a heck of alot, they won't act like foosball players stuck on the rod. But it gets them thinking about where they fit in among all (at that age) 8 players on the field, which is useful.