U12's do absolutely no possession drills at training. My daughter comes from a program where all they did were possession drills so her passing and movement is excellent. However, her current team cannot possess the ball surprisingly because they dont work on it. No rondos, no unbalanced possession games nothing, nada, zippo. Isnt that a major red flag at U12? Some parent on another team actually wore a GoPro on his head during a game. I asked him to send me the video and it was ugly even though we won 3-2. The kids just kicked the ball away as soon as they got it it was UGLY.
If you can find another club. I went through something similar a few years ago due to a last minute switch and felt like my daughter lost a year of progress.
Left prior team abruptly and needed somewhere for Spring. Daughter enjoys being one of strongest players on the team and its been great for her confidence. not sure its a long term solution as the quality isnt great. We stepped up in competition for the Spring and it wasnt pretty Saturday.
Use this fall season to observe all of the teams you play against to see if that’s the environment you want your kid to play in. Has your current coach explained what he wants to team to look like/what his philosophy / playing style is supposed to be? Direct soccer isn’t pretty. But teams that are good at it and do it with a purpose aren’t the evil empire that lots make them out to be. But if the team has a big girl in the back that smacks it to the fast girl up top all the time- that’s a bit different.
My kids play in Texas, and we have been fortunate enough to find clubs that take pride in possession soccer and teach it from an early age. My younger son is now 8, and that style is ingrained into his team. It's not the easiest method to teach because (particularly at the younger ages) your team will concede silly goals and will lose games. It takes guts to play short on goal kicks and keeper distributions when the kids are 6 and 7, but repeating that over and over again will build skills. If possession soccer is not taught at your current club, then it may be too late at u12. It won't change without a major change in how the coaches teach. You can install rondos, but the teaching points have to permeate every activity. You should hear "don't just kick it" or "who are you playing with" and "don't waste it" "play back" "play the keeper" and "keep it on the ground" constantly. You may need to explore other club options if you want your daughter to play this style.
I actually hear complete opposite of what you describe. In fact all i hear is "shoot it" and over the weekend this poor thing got screamed at by our coach for playing it backwards "we need to go forward stop playing it back". She was surrounded by defenders and did the right thing to maintain possession.
I tend to think it can still be taught at later ages -- a few kids who'd never played that way were added to my son's U15 team last fall and the coach drilled into them. It was rough the month or so, but they all eventually developed at least some ability to play out of the back, play possession, ... By the end of the spring they were a really solid group (and, naturally, were broken into four pieces as some headed to high school, ...). But I agree with the second sentiment. I don't know all of the context, of course, but that coaching sounds really discouraging.
If it were me, and I'll be there soon enough (hopefully my kids will continue with soccer)...I won't join a club until I go watch certain clubs train and/or play. I'll watch them at various age groups. It's important to have an educated evaluation of each club before committing.
I think this is excellent advice for anyone who has multiple options and needs to make a choice. Getting answers on cost, commitment required, travel, coaching styles, etc. is the only way to make a truly informed choice about the right fit for you kid. I don't think it really applies in this instance since it seems like his daughter needed to find a place to play in a tight time frame and sometimes you just take what's available and evaluate if a change is needed for next year. But I think a lot of parents and players would be happier with their choices if they took the time to honestly evaluate the options rather than default to the perceived "best" or "most serious" club in their area.
I believe this is the most important advice for parents - Watch/Have child train with the team AND go watch a game or two. In my experience every single club tells parents they focus on Love of the Game, Playing "good' soccer (Not just kickball) and making the kids both better players and people. You need to see it for yourself in training and a game. You can ask other parents about their child's happiness and get a realistic answer but I have experienced multiple parents mirroring what the coach/club tells them about playing Good or Possession soccer only to see the team play and hear the coach yell "send It' every time a ball comes to the defender. (I think coaches figured out that parents are aware that yelling 'boot it" is a bad thing so now these coaches yell "send It" instead.
We played in a tournament last weekend against a pretty reputable club. Their coach literally yelled "CLEAR IT" every time a defender had the ball. It was horrible. I didnt play soccer but have done a ton of reading and research over the past few years and am 100% certain i can coach a team better then most coaches i have seen.
Appreciate the comments @SpiceBoy and @jvgnj. There's all too much complaining about situations, but to me it's simple to do more educating of ourselves. I know not everyone is as "good" as others in doing the research, but it doesn't take much. We have our kids in swim lessons, I guarantee you I won't be taking them back to two different swim locations because they have NO IDEA how to teach kids swimming. No curriculum. No idea of where kids are and where they need to go. Just handed a checklist each swim session of what they want to do that session. Most clubs are similar. Coaches have little direction. They have no idea where kids are coming from or where they need to go. Coaches believe they are better than what they actually are and think they should be coaching a certain age or certain level. As parents, we just need to do a better job educating ourselves and families before we get involved in something that we may hold with more value. With the two swim lessons, while they were terrible for instruction, my kids got to get in the pool, meet new kids, and did enjoy it. The new swim place is much more expensive, only 1-2 other kids in their class (more direct involvement with instructor), and we can see their growth/confidence in the water instantly. I'm taking my kids out of a $60 youth soccer training. It's only 6 weeks long. I never once paid THAT much when I grew up playing at their ages for a whole league. This is just a babysitting the club is making several grand off of in hopes of keeping those kids in their club in the future. Kids just run back and forth. Sit. Get drinks. Repeat. Very little instruction. 12+ kids per coach (that's untrained). Extremely poor. They don't even get the chance to get to know other kids, so take away the socialization opportunity. In the end, if we (as parents) did more educating of ourselves and preparing of our kids, there'd be much less dependency on club and their coaches.
That's really not good. I use possession drills to coach movement and support off the ball more than anything else.