New season: thoughts from first two sessions

[basilides]

Hi All,

Just finished the second training session today with my new team. It's an AYSO league, U8 boys, 5-a-side, 6-player roster.

First session:

Had the kids do 1v1/2v1 games as they were arriving. Quickly turned into semi-random takeing turns to kick from the goal line, but it was just to keep them occupied while they were all arriving. Next time, I'll have them do 1v1 line soccer instead.

Started out with some light chaos dribbling, then a game of Pirate (steal the other's balls) to test their aggressiveness and ball control. Agressive yes, but control not so much.

Then we did a keepaway: three cones in a triangle, defended by one defender, the rest trying to score in the triangle. Result: They all bunched up on one side and shot into the defenders legs again and again... towards the end, some of them tried to move around the defender, and I did see one or two non-accidental passes in those 10 minutes!

Last, we did a SSG: three goals on each end with an older kid outside behind one of the goals in which they can't score. This was to test their vision. Results: It took a while for them to get that the outside kid was the reason of their denied goals... after that, they actually started to look up, before deciding which goal to attack. Or at least some of them did...

All in all, they all said they had fun, and they all ran a lot and had a lot of touches. And I got a first impression of what to work on.

Second session:

They all arrived pretty much simultaneously, so no need for 1v1 games this time. Warmup was 'crossing the square', starting with all on the same side and no ball, then with balls, and finally having them criss-cross the square, encouraging them to look up.

Then we played 'Bang': No dribbling, only passing to move the ball forward, and no tackles allowed. Result: They didn't get it! They kept tackling (sometimes crazily) and they didn't move once they had delivered the ball. Not a single goal scored in the first 8 minutes... Seeing that it didn't work, I let them play normally, but introducing an end-zone from where they must score. Play flowed well after that.

Finally we played the 'Parma game': small goals distributed on the field, same player can't touch the ball again immediately after scoring. We started out just passing through the goals in pairs, stationary and all, conting how many they could score in 30 seconds - just to make sure they understand. Results ranged from 23 to 1 goals! Anyway, they sort of got it and once they started playing the game, they soon figured it out, and we had a quite enjoyabe and fun game going.

At the end we played Pirate again. The kids always love this one!

All in all, I see a lot of areas to work on here: Ball control (shielding), dribbling, vision, defensive basics,... And they're having fun so far, so I might have a chance to actually get them to improve