I've seen a bit of soccer coaching now from several seasons of rec coaching and watching my sons' club coaches. Now watching my son in a rec basketball league I see some interesting differences. From this experience (very little I admit) it looks like the youth basketball coaches are much more clear on exactly the roles each player should be doing. Most of the teams it looks like each player gets quite direct instruction on what they should do on offense, defense, and each transition. I haven't seen any soccer teams in my rec league or my son's teams that have had this kind of precise structure and roles. have you all seen these differences? Is it due to a a difference in the games? Which one do you think works better at the younger ages for soccer (< 12 or 13?).
When I coached U10 and U12 soccer, I used JV basketball as a model. That is not to say that I treated the players like teenagers, but rather used that example as to how to organize exercises and practice sessions to teach fundamentals on and off the ball. Bottom line is in all youth sports, coaches are supposed to teach fundamentals. On this site I used basketball as an example of how to develop a full season training plan. Coaching is coaching, but dribbling a soccer ball is different than dribbling a basketball. In both sports, coaches cannot teach what they do not know. What I have seen sometimes in youth sports is a coach who does not know how to play give instruction on tactics with the purpose of winning games instead of teaching fundamentals to the players. It is sad because you end up with players who are told to never leave the immediate area in front of the goal and never given a chance to learn to play. The life lesson taught is to avoid risks and never take chances because they are "inferior" to the other players. The kid's experience would be so very different if the coach knew how to teach them fundamental skills. Of course you sometimes see coaches who know how to play treat the players the same way, because they either do not know how to coach or do not want to coach all the players on their team. It is debateable as to which of these situations is the more pitiful. As to your specific question, I teach defense with specific movements in response to specific cues. I don't teach how to attack with specific movements, but rather as decision points with alternative choices. Generally with young kids this means teaching them movements off the dribble. At the youngest age the basis for the movements is combination play in pairs. By the time they are U14 (12 and 13) you hope that they have progressed to passing combinations in groups of 3 or more (1st, 2nd and 3rd runner off the ball). But at every age and level, soccer in its most basic form is a series of 1v1 matchups. So there is a lot of similarity to the subject at every level, while the skill level and speed of play varies a lot. At the JV level, our coach did teach specific positions and offensive plays. Also players were assigned specific positions, but this was the 4th year of the basketball program in the schools (after 7th, 8th and 9th grade teams).
From my experience as a rec player in both, I would say that youth basketball was much more scripted. Bear in mind this was 15-20 years ago, but every team had a set of plays to run on offense. On defense you were man to man majority of time. Sometimes a zone might get used. I don't know if you can effectively script plays in youth soccer. You can cover fundamentals and touch on principles, but getting an entire orchestrated movement from 8+ 11 year old kids at the rec level isn't realistic in my opinion. Plus, how many 11 year old kids can catch a ball vs how many can trap a ball? I would imagine that even in a 5v5 rec soccer league there would be more breakdowns in execution just due to kids not being able to trap a ball. For reference I coached a rec U11 team (11v11 league) and had a hard enough time just getting 2-3 players work together effectively. I was always ecstatic just to see a give and go, overlap, etc.
From what I have seen, tactics get taught early in basketball to the detriment of skill development. This is what we are trying to get away from in youth soccer, where coaches teach the kids tactics that allow them to get easy baskets (or, in our case, goals). Youth basketball coaches also tend to exploit the simplifying rules of their playing format in precisely the ways we are trying to get away from in youth soccer. For example, they often have a "no defense in the backcourt" rule, so the coaches will set picks on the defenders who are trapped waiting for the dribbler on the half-court line, blatantly taking advantage of a rule that is only in place to make the game simpler. Similarly, youth soccer coaches take advantage of the fact that U-Little games are played without goalkeepers and instruct their players to shoot (and/or kick the ball aimlessly upfield) from 20 yards out in order to get "easy goals." These are rubbish tactics that are completely unhelpful once the kids advance in age and the only reason to employ them is to win games. Youth basketball should take a page from modern soccer coaching and spend more time on fundamentals and less time on gimmickry.
I would have been ecstatic too, but never saw any combination play at that age. With U10s and U12s I trained the simplest combination play: a give and go. In a match I never saw one, but I think it was because the other teams played bunch ball so there was never a tactical problem that a give-and-go could solve. (It is a technique for penetrating past 1 defender, not a pack of 5 to 10 kids running at the ball.) What I saw were generally square passes and longer diagonal passes (around the bunch but sometimes over the bunch into space), and I would get excited if they made 2 or 3 successful passes during a possession. The key was good support off the ball. The kids could win the ball with high pressing (and depth to sweep up the balls kicked over the forward line) and penetrate repeatedly. Bunch ball lacked balance so there was a lot of space until you got near the penalty area. So generally we possessed the ball and served balls into the box until we scored. Sometimes the forwards scored off the service, but more often off second and third balls. You could never stretch the defense in a normal fashion because they did not defend normally. You just played "keep away" to avoid the bunch chasing the ball while you penetrated. Because of liberal sub rules, the bunch never tired of chasing the ball all over the field.
From my limited knowledge of the basketball coaching—they suffer from a similar problem of producing players that are good enough. Not skillful enough, can only play one position, can't play man to man defense.
The big difference is time outs and mimicking what they see on TV. Basketball has tons of natural stoppages and time outs for coaches to "joystick coach" every bit of minutia about their team and players. They see pro and college coaches stomping and screaming on the sideline and emulate that. Soccer from U9 on up is at least 15-30 minutes non-stop each half. Kids need to be taught skills and principles of play due to the lack of stoppages and time outs. It's why you hear of players having "Soccer IQ" because they in effect "coach" themselves on where to go and what to do in a given situation in a game without coaching input. It doesn't stop coaches from trying to joystick coach, but it's much less effective.
no times outs in soccer. you can give instructions while they are on the field but if they are looking for the ball and running around they are likely to zone everyone out, including the coach. much harder to retain possession of the ball in soccer as well, you can't stand there and hold the ball. I train my players on the different positions we use and what the rolls are every week. every week I tell someone they are to play up on offense or support the offense or play forward and they are like "how do I do that?" apparently many of the kids I get assigned to were relegated to doing sweeper duty by their previous coaches and only know how to play defensive positions and yet, incorrectly.
Apples and oranges. All sports have similarities, and they are all different too. Soccer is actually more similar to American football, and rugby. They are distant cousins of each other. Eleven players a side, attacking, and denying space, etc.
My son as a kid won a CYO basketball champion ship. This is what they did they work the ball to the kids who have an outside shot they shoot. My kid was a forward he looked for offensive rebounds he tried to put those in. They also had three kids good off the fast break. They lose the ball player closest to the ball pressures the ball. That is like soccer. Every one else get down the court and most important get their hands up right away. Opponents miss three players hit the boards for defensive rebound. Then out let to three players forward not my son and two guards. They only lost one game that season to a team with quick hands in the middle of the season. When they faced them in the playoffs no holding the ball keep passing to someone had a shot they blew that team away.