Going from 7v7 to 9v9, the field is bigger. For a striker, on a pressing team, this is a lot more running. I can see my kid getting tired. The games are a also a bit longer. So I am going to focus a bit more on running. I'm thinking of timing him in the mile and 2 mile. Or maybe the 1/2 mile and mile. Maybe he's too young for 2 mile? Another thing is that, even if you have very high skill, if you lack endurance, your skills turn to mush after some running. Because you're just tired and your legs are jello. So I feel its best to work on both skills and running in parallel. So this is the plan over the next 12 months. Running Dribbling skills 1v1 skills (for winger) Striker skills (finishing, volleys... and hopefully the bicycle kick! because that's just badass... but it might take him a couple more years to get the confidence to do it in a game.)
Are you asking or just telling us? Distance running is terrible for soccer. You should be working on short sprints and core strength. There is never a time when you run a mile straight in a game. It is short burst followed by light jogging and movement. Leo Messi walks the majority of his game, he just doesn't stop moving.
Gonna agree with @bluechicago above--distance running is really poor training for soccer. Used to play indoor with a dude who quit playing because he was training for a marathon and he said the fitness/training needs for soccer vs long distance running were so different that rather than compliment each other, they were more likely to cancel each other out. As noted above, running for a long time at a steady pace in a straight line has zero applicability to playing soccer. Also--your kid is very young, and he's clearly very active. Building endurance shouldn't even be on your radar right now.
Going to 3rd in general distance running is not the right training, with the caveat that if you think he's going to play in HS, you probably want to start doing the mile the summer going into 8th grade, then the 2 mile the summer going into 9th grade, so that he is ready when his HS coach has the "leave your cleats at home today lads.." week. However, since he's 10 moving to u11 based on the 9v9 size, and from all your other posts he seems like an active kid, I think it's a waste right now. Work more on the soccer skills, especially outplaying and passing with both feet. Nobody is going to move faster than the ball and if his team is competitive, someone should be available to recieve a pass. If you insist on incorporating fitness testing...maybe get a baseline, check midseason, end of season.... You'd be better of with things that measure sprint/walk/sprint. LIke, spring the lenght of the field , walk halfway back, sprint the half, walk full field, sprint the length. There are a ton of variations on this. Also say, sprint 20 yards, 90 degree turn sprint 20 yards, gently backpedal 20 yards, sprint 20, walk a 90 degree turn in the other direction, sprint back to orignal start etc...change directions, work in rest periods. Google is your friend, there was an old coaching forum that went away you can probably find at archive.org that had some good contributions for soccer specific tings vs the mile/2mile/beep test.
Its not about running a mile. Its about getting your lung capacity up high so you can have great endurance. This helps the mind think more clearly. If mind is foggy in soccer, mistakes happen. Messi can walk. But a lot of his teammates are running more. It also depends on the coach. Messi isn't the one constantly pressing. But most U11 coaches will want their kids to press a lot. Anyways... When I was a high school player... pre-freshman year... I was a chubbby out of shape 8th grader. Total couch potato. We had to run our asses off. I lost a lot of weight. And my endurance eventually became good. And this was a very good feeling. It is an empowering feeling to be out there and able to run, to press, and feel like you still have a lot of gas in the tank. It can help the team win. It's quite valuable. When your opponent is tired, but you aren't... guess who's winning the ball We did a lot of other exercises to build leg strength. You need good legs and good lungs to do well in soccer. If you have good skills only... then it won't matter much... once you are winded... 1) your legs are tired and 2) your mind is foggy... and this makes it hard to execute on your skills. So, you need both skills and endurance. Try playing for 60 minutes in 100 degree heat. (now do that 4 times in 2 days)
I'm not talking about a marathon. Running a mile is very different than a marathon. Soccer players should definitely be able to run a decent mile. I had to run a lot in high school soccer and it became very empowering to me during the games because my endurance and stamina became high. This allowed to perform better in the games. No doubt. 100% If you don't improve your stamina to a high level, then trust me, you will be a step behind. You won't be able to perform a high level, under high pressure, on a sweltering day, during a tournament weekend. Going to a bigger field, you have to run more. So the endurance must increase. Soccer is skill + endurance If you only have one then you will fail. You need both.
Fair point about it only being a mile not 26.2. As @CoachP365 pointed out above, that's High school, and there's no reason to start worrying about that now. Your kid is 10, almost 11. He's a few years ahead of the point where this will be an issue.
I was sharing an ephiphany I had. For a while, I was on the train of only skills matter. But, when playing myself, I realized that many times I would get winded, and at that point, your skills don't mean a whole lot. If you have to stop and catch your breath... it doesn't matter if you have the best skills in the world at that point. So what I realized is that you need high skills, but under the context of high stamina. You need both. So will train my kid in both. Before I just focused on skills with him. I'm not saying stamina is more important than skills. I'm saying something like, your skill application will be capped by your stamina. If you're just playing a friendly pick up game, then stamina doesn't matter too much.
Its an issue which I witnessed over the weekend. Bigger field, super hot. He's doing U11 and frankly its pretty competitive at this age. What you don't want, is for a kid to feel negative because he's running out of energy too quickly. It's a confidence boost if you have stamina.
My kid is playing way more soccer than I ever did. He's playing year round, what is that like 40 games. Anywho... just imagine Big Red... try to imagine you have endless stamina... and you know this... and you step onto a soccer pitch... how will you feel in that moment? you're gonna feel damn good, like bring it on baby! I'm superman!
Big Game time. Your kid gets into a sprint... 5 yards, 10 yards, 15 yards, 20... 25 yards! now he has to make a play... but his legs are tired, and his mind is foggy... the only thing he can think is "i wish the coach would sub me out, I need a break" If only he had great stamina! Do you want your kid to think: "I need a sub" OR "I got this!"
Too much baseball man. If he is playing soccer only, you wouldn’t be worried about stamina. Baseball is the biggest time waster of a sport. Half of the time you are sitting around doing nothing.
Most normal, active 10 year olds shouldn’t need to do extra running. Obviously, all kids are different, but generally speaking, starting a 10 year old on a fitness regimen is more likely to cause one of two things to happen - either burn them out or get them injured. In my experience, a 10 or 11 year old decent soccer player can pretty well handle a full 7v7 or 9v9 soccer game without a sub. My son didn’t really start serious training (off the soccer field) until around 13 or so.
You want me to stop the baseball? That's probably not even possible without starting WW3 with the mom. Plus if he's having fun that I don't want to stop him. Baseball is a good sport for kids. Esp age 9/10/11. Let them build friends and create memories. It's not like its golf, where there is no running. In baseball practice they run. In the games they have to sprint base to base. So its not a total waste. I was not a fan of baseball until recently. If your kid is pitching you'll probably like baseball. That's where the action is. Pitcher vs batter. There is always action. But yeah otherwise it can be a lot of standing around. One cool thing about baseball is that every kid gets to do offense equally. You don't get that in most sports. They each get their time to shine in the batter's box. They get a chance to score. It would be like PK shootout and every kid gets a shot.
If a 10 year old is playing in a "normal" league then perhaps you're right. But the competition my kid is playing is the top kids in the state. 9v9. Try doing that in 100 degree heat. If you are playing above average competition, you need above average stamina.
Piling on-- long distance running isn't the answer. Soccer stamina is very different from long distance running. Soccer is about quick sprints and recovery to make the next movement/sprint. I'm not a sports scientist but I think soccer stamina is tied to general fitness. I agree with the other posters that for kids your son's age, this is not a big deal. But it is why when I run my practices, the players are generally moving for the almost the entire hour. That gives them the fitness they need for games. Adding my own experience from playing soccer a couple of times a week, I have more stamina then most folks I play with and I'm not a runner. I am a hiker so my fitness level is pretty high (my vacation this summer included 150 miles of hiking over about 10 days.)
The best practices my soccer son ever had (with the most-experience, highest-level youth coach he ever worked with) were essentially constant movement, and like you say, the fitness needed for soccer was built into the drills, scrimmages, ... And that team was fit with a lot of guys who could easily play full games without subbing.
I think I've said this in another thread, but the high school coaches' love (and it seemed like most or all of them) of the timed 2-mile was always a head scratcher. I always assumed it was a means to cut the kids at the bottom of the pecking order. Or maybe a nod to the reality that you might not have a team full of kids who can really play? Re field size, my son's coach when he first played 11v11 on big fields opened the season by having kids hit a lot of long passes to each other in pairs at every practice to try to build up some ability to hit a ball with some force beyond 12-15 yards, switch the field, ... I got the impression he was surprised how few of the kids on that team could do it (most of the kids were on the small side, my son being one of the few exceptions). It made sense to me at the time, but I'd be curious if another coach would agree.
Yeah, I’ve never fully understood the fascination with the timed mile/2 mile either. Now, the beep test, that I understood - and the kids hate that a whole lot more than the mile.
Yeah, I mean running a mile isn't that much. They probably run that or more in a soccer match. But that's not how training works. For example, if you want to get good at your touch, you don't just do a few touches, because that's all you do in a game. No, to get very good, you have to do many hundreds of touches in a practice, a few practices a week. For stamina, you don't just only do exactly the same running as in a soccer match. If you need high soccer stamina, the way to build it is to train far above what is needed in the match, then when you pay the match, it will be easy. Am I making sense? Like, when I took calculus in college... the test was easy. Why was it easy? I'm not particularly smart. It was only easy because to prepare I did a ton of practice questions. Far above what was required for homework. If I had only done the bare minimum then the test would have been hard. But I went above and beyond and did many reps, and this build brain math muscle that made the test easy for me. Another example, in baseball, the left fielder might only get one or two fly balls to him in a game. So should he only take one or two fly balls in practice? Will that make him good? No, he needs to take many more than that in order to get very comfortable and skilled at his position.
I think a competitive soccer player should be able to run say at least a 7 minute mile, maybe 6 if its a very competitive program, for HS at least. If not, then probably not gonna cut it. Not if I'm coach. There shouldn't be a reason a soccer player can't run very well. Running is important in soccer. If you can't get to at least a sub 7 min mile, then you just won't have the endurance, and be able to tolerate the cardio pain needed at a highly competitive level. It's a good litmus test.
It's @NewDadaCoach He has a talent for asking us while telling... and telling us while asking... Haha no hate! I do enjoy your discussion starters