I'm coaching youth soccer up to age 12... I know the game and everything that has worked for me through the years... here's what I'm trying to do I would like each and everyone who reads this to give me your insite and wisdom PLEASE... What makes Brazil and Mexico such awesome ball skilled players?????? I want to develop kids with thier abilites but I'm clueless on HOW??? I need your help.... anythiing will be a help.. Thank YOU!!!!
I coach U12 and we've had some success this season. I'm not sure how much is due to the coaching, but here are some ideas off the top of my head... 1. Kids in the US don't get enough time with a ball at their feet. All the running they do for fitness should include a ball. 2. Don't make them wait in lines. 3. Don't make them sit for lectures. 4. Don't overload them with advanced tactics or strategies right away. Start with the basics, watch for signs that they're getting it, then move on. You'll know when they're not "getting it" and that's where you spend your practice time. For this age, thinking off the ball seems to be something that usually needs work. 5. Give your drills names. Seriously... this was something I learned a couple years ago. If you tell them "we're doing a 4v4 posession drill", they zone out. If you tell them "we're doing a drill called Cops-and-Robbers", they pay attention and are stoked about doing it. You can always explain the key points "on the fly", as they're doing the drill. This probably works up to U13/U14 or so, depending on the names you come up with. 6. Correct them during drills if they're not doing it well... but do it constructively. 7. Never belittle a player. Never allow them to belittle each other. 8. At the end of every drill, ask THEM to tell YOU what the drill focused on and what they learned. Point out things that they may not have noticed. 9. Teach them to communicate effectively. They often want to just call the name of the person with the ball. So now the poor kid with the ball has 5 people calling out his name. They need to tell the player with the ball something useful when he/she gets the ball -- man on, time, turn. And if you're a player who wants the ball, don't just call their name -- line, inside, wide, cross, drop, throught, etc. 10. If you get someone who's distracting others or causing a disruption, send them running a lap or two (with a ball). Don't let them argue with you about it -- they run or they leave. Make it clear that nobody gets away with wasting your time or the time of the other players who want to practice. The bottom line -- be firm, be fair, and show them the respect you want to see returned to you. You'll earn their respect if you show that you want to "work with them" as opposed to just "talking at them". Once you establish your coaching philosophy and the rules you will enforce, write them down. Tell the kids at the first practice, as you're introducing yourself. Have a parents meeting after that first practice and make sure the parents know where you stand as well. Good luck.
Wow! insight and wisdom, I am not so sure of these but as an opinion I would give some credit to the basketball court version of the game they play with a smaller, heavier ball and keep play inside the lines known as Futsal. If you take the kids indoors NO rebounding it off the wall work in tight spaces, it is incredible the cordination they are FORCED to achieve to maintain control. Minimal space is needed to keep the ball close and under foot. This game encourages the ball movement you seem to admire as do we all. To develop the feel a thousand touches gets you started a million gets you good Good luck
Well I played for 3 years in a brazilian team, and in that time I had 13 years old, so we used to have special practice to improve skill and technique... we also had tatical practice, phisical practice, game practice, plays practice, set pieces practice, fundaments practice (like crossing, shooting, passing, marking, dominating the ball, conducting the ball) and many other kinds of practices... if u wanna know more about those practices just ask dude...
Dribbling Skills In addition to the comments mentioned above I will add two items that I noticed while in Spain - 1) Juggling - They take it seriously over there. Before the game, many teams arranged their kids in circles and had juggling sessions. The ball would stay up as long as a minute, passing between many, many players, before touching the ground. For a U10 game! You'd never see that level of juggling skill on a U10 U.S. team. You also see juggling on the playgrounds. When the kids have a ball, they're not necessarily just playing 2 vs. 2 or shooting. Sometimes, they do hackysack-style juggling contests. Don't see that in the U.S., either. 2) Soccer tennis - Foot skill games like soccer tennis are an accepted part of Spanish youth soccer from a very young age. In the U.S., I haven't seen many older-age practices, but I've seen 100s of competitive team practices at U11 ages and lower. Have never once seen soccer tennis used as a practice tool. Final note - I agree that indoor soccer can be a superb tool for honing dribbling skills, assuming that walls are not used.
A lot of great ideas here some of which I've used in the past (especially soccer volleyball and tennis). However, the idea that the indoor wall shouldn't be used for dribbling pratice is a little short sighted, imho. Dribbling starts with a great first touch, preferably with speed. What better place to work that than an indoor arena? Give yourself a wall pass around a defender (or cone) and explode into space of that first touch through several more defenders (or cones). It seems to me all great dribblers have great touch... the first, through their last. The rest is vision and balance and I'm not sure you can teach balance (I'm sure someone can using weights, but I don't think I could have with a U11 team). Vision will come with lots of repetition under game pressure. In summary, anything you do that helps a player's touch will go a long way to making them better dribblers.
I think the issue with indoor with walls is that it simulates situations that are almost the opposite of outdoor play. For example, we teach players to use the touch line as an extra defender. But who hasn't played indoor and been in a situation where your defensive positioning would have been great had you been outdoors--only to have a player use the board for a pass to him/herself while blowing right past you. As far as things you can do to improve touch, numerous have been mentioned. I like to start and end practice with a short time of air dribbling. This can be done in pairs, small groups or even as an elimination game. (Make sure that you have something for players to do after they are eliminated.) This is also something that players can do on their own, and it will greatly improve a player's ability to control the ball. Further, you can give this to parents who want to help their players improve but who don't have soccer skills themselves. Have the parent serve the ball to the player, who returns it in the air via head, thigh, foot, etc. (I saw a video featuring Micheal Owen. He had someone serving him the ball like this, starting with easy service and return and progressing to hard service with controlled return. Amazing touch.) I don't think anyone has mentioned one-touch passing. Any player who has good control should be a good one-touch passer. One-touch passing can be done in pairs, trios or with one or two players in the middle (be careful that your middle players apply pressure but don't stab at the ball). Finally, have some type of scrimmage every practice. You can reward different skills you have worked on (individual dribbling, one- two-touch passing, etc.) The bottom line is that to have the type of control that the players you mentioned (Mexican, Brazilian) have, your players need lots of time with the ball and lots of touches--more than you can provide in practice.