goal kicks

[seeker]

I need some help with my goalkeeper’s kicks.
As he has a lot of trouble with them, of the floor and out of his hands.
The ball does not go very far and most of the time the other team will get it and then attack again. Have tried other tacking goal kicks but not much better.
They are u8s and there first season

[Val]

For U8s (and U10 girls for that matter) I have my keepers throw the ball out as if they were taking a free throw. At this age, I hope you're rotating players through the keeper position, and working on punts is time consuming given you'd only have a day or two for each kid, and it may be something that young kids are just developmentally not ready for. So the throw-in mirrors something you've already had to cover in practice.

And as for goal kicks, I do specialize a bit and have the kids with the strongest legs take them. I didn't get around to working on striking a set ball with my U10 girls until the last week of the season.

[James Buckley]

I have a good under 11 goalie who was never allowed to take his own kicks, as he wasn't very good at it. This happened before I took over and I had to do a lot of work to fix this crazy approach. Firstly if he likes playing in goal and is good at it then he mush practice and develope the technique of kicking the ball. Here are some basic techniques I found helped a lot. 1 Get him to decide where he wants the ball to go, dont just kick it anywhere (put targets, quite close to goal, to aim for). 2 Get him to kick out of his hands, using his laces with toes pointing down. 3 Follow through with kicking leg ( it should be pointing at target when kick is completed). 4 Progress to kicking off the ground, again using laces strike th ball centrally and underneath, ( a good trick is to get him to imagine the ball is sitting on a few matches and he must kick them away). Move targets further away as he improves. Finally be patient, he is young and it may take some time for him to get it right, but keep at it and who know he may become your Country's keeper in 10-15 yrs!!

[rils]

Originally Posted by seeker

I need some help with my goalkeeper’s kicks.
As he has a lot of trouble with them, of the floor and out of his hands.
The ball does not go very far and most of the time the other team will get it and then attack again. Have tried other tacking goal kicks but not much better.
They are u8s and there first season

Dead balls
1) get him/her to crunch his toes in
2) strike through the ball
3) give him/her a focus point to work on ie the valve or logo on panel
4) get him/her to have vision to kick aim it at a higher focal point
5) practice makes perfect and we have kids that can float a ball up to the half way line and just beyond - but not consistently under pressure

Drop balls
1) practice on your own with him/her

If he likes it in goal and is good and you want to work with him why bother to rotate?

[Jerzy]

Originally Posted by rils

If he likes it in goal and is good and you want to work with him why bother to rotate?

Because the kids are under 8, meaning that they're still new to this game of soccer and he risks being pigeonholed and missing out on his chance to develop the rest of the skills of the game. As well as you don't give kids other chances to play keeper. Just like kids shouldn't be consigned to getting stuck at fullback or being told to "boot it" whenever they get it, they shouldn't be stuck at keeper.

[James Buckley]

I agree, no one should be stuck in any position in underage football, but if a players likes a position including goal then shouldnt we encourage them and help them to develope the necessary skills required for the position.
I always let our goalkeeper play outfield whenever he wishes during the end of training fun games, I also make all other players switch positions during these fun games, but I still get him to practice his kicking and ball handling skills at every training session.

[rils]

Originally Posted by James Buckley

I agree, no one should be stuck in any position in underage football, but if a players likes a position including goal then shouldnt we encourage them and help them to develope the necessary skills required for the position.
I always let our goalkeeper play outfield whenever he wishes during the end of training fun games, I also make all other players switch positions during these fun games, but I still get him to practice his kicking and ball handling skills at every training session.

Yes this is excellent - its about keeping kids happy and developing them - what do u guys do with players that want to play in specific positions and then you rotate them in a match situation and their confidence drops - is that the right thing to do? ie putting defenders into forward positions or reverse?

[ian.curry]

I've coached at under 8s upwards and have always had pretty much specific keepers etc. If a kid wants a go in another position then I'll try to give him that opportunity to see what he can do. Generall though, we as coaches tend to be able to see their best position early on - I have had a number of players go to different clubs to play a different position and ended up playing back where i had them initially.

[lanesra]

Originally Posted by rils

Yes this is excellent - its about keeping kids happy and developing them - what do u guys do with players that want to play in specific positions and then you rotate them in a match situation and their confidence drops - is that the right thing to do? ie putting defenders into forward positions or reverse?

Yes, soccer is supposed to be fun, and when you have players who like being keeper, yes, they should play there. And I'll grant that keeper is a real position, and being that it offers a completely different skill set than playing the field, kids will react differently placed in goal. But it seems to me that we are seriously buttonholing kids (and ultimately over-coaching) if we talk about "our keeper" on a team of U8s or U10s.

Back to your question, though rils, the OP mentioned U8s, so I think that if kids have too much positonal sense at that age, we're doing something wrong. The whole point of smaller sided, grass roots coaching, is getting kids to stop feeling like they are a striker, they are fullback, and to give them the chance to play a lot, touch the ball a lot, and work on their first touch and movement. If you are playing 3v3 or 4v4 there's not a lot postional work there, and even with larger 6v6 and 7v7 games, yes, kids should be rotated so that they can get over that fear of playing out of position.

[seeker]

thanks guys