I've been thinking of other sports that kids can do that have some cross over benefit to soccer, especially when it comes to "foot-eye" coordination. Sadly, hardly any sports work on foot-eye coordination. Most work on hand-eye coordination. Hand-eye: football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, tennis, ping-pong, lacross, golf, etc. Foot-eye: You have variations of soccer - beach soccer, futsal, indoor soccer; and then variations of other sports - kick ball, foot golf. The only true sport that I can think of is the very uncommon Sepak Takraw, which is basically "foot volleyball" and is common mainly in southeast Asia. So I was thinking of basically just playing tennis, but with the feet; that that might be a good way in the off-season to work on foot-eye coordination. There are many tennis courts around, so this sport would basically be free, and it can be played with just two people, as opposed to futsal or kick-ball, which need many people. I'm wondering why this isn't a common activity. I've never seen anyone do it but it seems to make a lot of sense.
The teams my kids have been with have played foot tennis a number of times. But I don't think it was before U11/U12.
Google up Jokgu. With U really littles it might be stopping a lot with only one bounce. I'd modify to allow the ball to go over a few times if needed, whether that's allowing multiple touches on a side as long as it only bounces once between each touch, etc.
My boys have been playing a version of this game in our garage since they were introduced at U9 and U6. I still remember the game and day my youngest first beat his older brother. In fact they played over the holidays this year, as always.
Yep, soccer tennis. With little kids even just lining up the taller 6 in cones, work up to going over 2ft puggs next to each other, then tennis nets. Bounce juggling is also good. Allow them one bounce between juggles.
This is something my wife and I used to play with our kid all the time. Not formally (although sometimes we WOULD use the local tennis court) but for example he and I would often go in the street in front of our house and just pass the ball back and forth, making a game of how few times the ball would bounce (once being optimal) before the return pass. ("Passes" here being high balls not on the ground, obviously). It was the soccer version of taking your kid to the front/backyard/park to play catch. Informal, laid-back, good parent/child bonding.
Jokgu looks quite similar to Sepak takraw. Looks like the net is a bit lower in jokgu and they use a ball similar to a soccer ball whereas sepak uses a rattan ball. Do you think these sports would benefit soccer playing (more so than other sports like basketball/tennis)?
I think squash (racquetball?) Court is the best when it comes to practicing movement (short steps adjusting to the ball position), foot-eye coordination and receiving/delivering.
Used a small wall as a kid and played all the time in school. Excellent for your first touch, weight of pass, cardio and it's great fun. Love it!!!
I bought a net that we can setup in the driveway. Now it's over 100 F so too hot. Hard to find the time. Lately he's been doing more baseball as a 2nd sport. I'm leaning towards this since low risk of injury with baseball. Basketball carries too much risk of ankle sprain. I think we need to also focus on speed. I focus mostly on technique but my kid never practices pure running and is just avg speed. So defenders often catch him on a fast break.
I know it’s a cliche but I suspect the old saying “You can’t coach speed” holds some truth. Your kid can work on lateral quickness, endurance, etc., but I’m not sure he can really learn to run much faster.
If he's not using proper technique, that might help. I was a manager for my college's FB team for three years. Within the first couple days, they were teaching the new players the "proper" way to run. These were players who were recruited for their skills. So I'm going to assume (and watching my kids, it's a safe assumption ) that technique could help.
you can definitely coach speed lol. It all comes down to form and technique as its been mentioned ad-nauseum. I've shadowed track coaches in Southern Louisiana and you'd be surprised as to what subtle things you'll learn about running faster lol
When my son took Speed & agility training, he worked with a (really nice) guy who had run track & field for Sierra Leone. He really helped my son improve aspects of his running technique. What he DIDN’T do was have my son run full sprints or laps or anything like that. Maybe I’m misunderstanding @NewDadaCoach but when he mentioned “pure running” I was thinking he meant having his kid (who’s rather young) run laps at a track and trying to work on making him simply do that faster. I don’t think that’s the best approach for developing a soccer player. If his kid was hoping to focus on track & field, then maybe yeah. But remember—he’s doing all this with the goal of helping his kid become a better soccer player. The “return on investment” of making his kid run a slightly faster 100 meter or so sprint might not be worth it. The reason I think this is because that coach I mentioned above was specifically training my son and a couple of his peers to help them improve AS soccer players. The guy ran Olympic trials—he knew what he was doing. And I’m sure if he’d been training them FOR track & field, he would have had a different approach. Because I suspect he understood that being able to run the fastest sprint you can is actually a different skill set than being a speedy winger on the pitch.
You can’t coach the ability to score goals or ‘desire’ to score goals or to always be in the right place .. or bravery Everything else you can coach