I'm dealing with U9 Boys. No slide tackles (or leaving your feet) allowed. My challenge is I want to improve individual defensive skills (and I've been an attacker throughout most of my playing days) but I'm obviously dealing with young kids. What tips should I give them?
Here's my two cents... At U9 the single most important skill you can start teaching them is ball control. Dribbling, passing, receiving, etc. Most of "defending" at this age is taking control of the ball when the other guy makes a mistake. Spend the next 2 years working on developing as much pure ball skill as possible. From a defensive standpoint, don't do any more than some basic 1v1 stuff. Stuff that you'll actually do and be teaching as a by product of teaching them 1v1 attacking. Then at U11 and U12 start working on 2v2 and 3v3 defending -- the pressure, support and balance stuff. At U9 and U10 there won't be any that have cognitive ability to comprehend something like balance in the defense and there will be very few that can conceptualize support. By the way, my experience is not as a player but having coached my son from U8 thru U14. He's now U17 on a nationally ranked premier team -- where he's an outside back and a very good one. One of the reasons he's such a good outside back is that his natural instincts make him a good defender and his ball skills make him able to control the ball in tight spaces. He's also the only defender on this team that has assists as his passing is very precise. All I ever taught at the younger (U8 thru U11) ages was ball skills and attacking. That was based upon the advice of a former ODP coach who helped me get started and whose son was on my U8 team (my first coaching experience). I firmly believe my son is where he is now because of all the ball skills we worked on in his youth rather than trying to spend ANY time trying to teach any team tactics or defensive systems, etc. Those came later starting in their U12 year but not really being much of a focus until U13 & U14.
The first thing to work on is teaching the boys to stay in front of a defender and not always run in stabbing at the ball. A good defender will stay in front of an attacking player and force an error and capitolize on that error when the time comes. Teach to stay in front, move thier feet and force the attacking player to move in a direction that is andvantageous to the defense (i.e. away from the centor, or toward a help defender). One major point that young kids can learn is that they should close fast and then slow when they approach the attacking player. Meaning they should sprint until the get within a few yards and then come under control and front the attacker. Run drills where they pair off and one man dribbles and the only goal of the defender is to stay in front of their partner, don't let him go by (don't make any attempt to steal the ball at all). That will do for a start.
I agree with kevbrunton. The best thing you do for your team is to stress basic skills. All the strategy and tactics in the world won't help if your players can't trap, pass or make basic moves with the ball. It's the base they have to have to be able to do the things they see on TV. Defensively speaking I think that at that age (it's been awhile since I coached boys that young) it is just as Kev says, its about "taking control of the ball when the other player makes a mistake." There isn't a lot of strategy, there seems to be a lot of one vs. one play with a "star" or two for each team that impose their will on the other team. So by teaching a player how to defend one v. one, emphasis on not stabbing, leaving their feet, or over running the attacker, and also stressing looking for the right oppurtunity to take the ball away you will be giving them the tools they need to excel at that level and also you will be giving them the base to build on for the next levels of play. I'm glad they don't allow slide tackling in your youth league, it's seldom executed properly and I tell my players that it is the last resort of a beaten man. (Not always but this is often the case).
I definitely agree with the need/value of stressing ball skills and control. And in terms of tactics, about the closest we've come to that (on either side of the ball) is to talk about position discipline and movement off the ball--so they actually do some passing. I appreciate all of the tips about individual defense. So far, what we've tended to do (which fits in well with the control/technical development) is a lot of 1 v. 1 work and mini-games. If you've got any particular drills which you think work well for building individual defensive skills with young defenders, I'd like to hear those as well. And thanks again for the tips.
Thanks for the advice. I'm coaching a modified school team (mostly 12-13 year olds with mostly rec experience) and this is good. Focusing on solid defensive play has been our theme for the last week or so. I've finally gotten them to not stab (mostly) and keep themselves square. But they still have problems getting out of position. They close fast but don't slow down to contain. That takes a lot of work to drive home. Good luck!
one thing I did with my U10 this season that seemed to work well was doing the above drill without a ball. The offense was to score by running inside the net. The defense was to block using his body. there could be no contact. This helped them in their distancing and understanding of the need to delay. It was also easier to coach them on position. Became very obvious that turning their hips was like opening the gate. I did this in progression with one offensive player coming in from 30 yards out and the defender coming from the end line. Then I added another defensive player starting five yards behind the offense toward the touchline coming in for support. Then we went back thru using a ball.
Actually I was very pleased with the entire practice.We usually start very practice running coerver moves from touchline to touchline. With this practice I paired them up and while one was practicing his cuts the other player practiced his defensive footwork (no tackling). They would go to the other touchline and then switch. Then I hd them run several switching roles as I blew the whistle. Game Day results were improved defensive positioning. They did much better staying between the ball and the goal and not over commiting. There was a slight improvement in second defender support. The one result I didn't expect was I had to beg them to make a tackle! So I think this would be a good practice with some slight modifications.