Let them play or.......

[pinoromeo]

.... try teaching them how to play well.

[lanesra]

This is like the This or That game I started in the off-topic forum...

I think U6s are all about letting them play. Round here, you see the field and there are two coaches per team yelling at the kids, herding them, and there are only 4 kids per team. Seems way too involved for me. But when the kids have spent a couple of years playing soccer, then when they get to U8s you can focus on getting them to space out a bit and look to play with someone else. Before that, soccer is still pretty much parallel play. I'm not really much of a fan of U6 or U7 soccer though.

[Cookie]

Originally Posted by pinoromeo

.... try teaching them how to play well.

TEACH them technique, but let them work out the rest (positions, when/when not to pass etc.) for the first year or so. if they spend lot's of time learning good technique (control, first touch etc.) then they will benefit in the longer term. Once you allow them to practice BAD habits, it will take you years to coach it out of them!

Remember, practcie makes permanent so make sure what they are practising is good habits..........

[Cookie]

I took on a new bunch of 5 year olds 18 months ago, and whilst trying to make all of our coaching sessions fun and exciting, the underlying theme was always technique, technique, technique. With a few assistants drafted in, we emphasised (and reemphasised) making them feel good about receiving the ball and being able to pass. Receive & pass, receive & pass, week in and week out (but through lots of different and varied games so as not to become too boring).

I could ask any of them now, 18 months on, what are the key factors for receiving (at different heights) and for passing and they would, to a player, give them back to me in logical order! But rather than learning them through repetition in their heads, they actually understand what to do in practice, and although we have a fairly young squad (mostly made up of summer birthdays) who are quite small in size in comparison to most teams, I feel we will be a match for most.

Whilst most other teams have already been entered into leagues at U7, we have just continued training and now have these boys and girls for two sessions a week. They will be unleashed on several tournaments this summer when we aim to have a bit of fun with them, and although I have no idea how every other team has developed playing 'league friendlies' every week and enjoying the match exepreince, I'm pretty confident that my lot will be dusting down those trophy shelves in their bedrooms.

To have a team of six year olds who know how to tackle, are comfortable on the ball and who very quickly understood the benefits of passing over dribbling into the pack will hopefully give us the edge over most other teams from the summer onwards.

I'm also taking them away for four days in May to a major tournament run by 'Sports Tours' so it will be a good bonding experience for the children, and also nice to have the parents away together where we can have a few beers and discuss the team or individuals away from the stresses of everyday life.

Anybody else looking after a young age group? How are you getting on developing your players?

[Hamburger Hill]

Welcome back Cookie (I'm hoping you might have 2mins to reply to my thread I started on my final Internal Assessment!!!

Anyway back to topic...my youngest is 5 and is starting this coming Thursday!!! I was planning on dusting off all my old "fun games" folder and doing much as you suggested covering all the techniques.

What in your experience worked well? Is there anything you would avoid?

Also a daft question - what size ball did you use? My under 9's use a size 4 but I was planning on picking up some size 1's?

[ian.curry]

At mini soccer we used size 4's - in fact kept size 4 up until u12's. I did however train occasional with a futebol de salao, a size 2 bal with restricted bounce. The difference this actually made was hard to see to be honest, but I'd use it again for the fun element.
As is well known, if you can do it with an orange, you can definitely do it with a football.

[Jerzy]

Over here across the pond, we play way too soon with a big ball. At the local Y last spring we were given size 5 balls for U8 until I threw a fit and made them equip all the U8 teams with 4s. We typically play size 3 up to U6, size 4 up to U11, and size 5 beginning with U12.

If I had my way, I'd extend the range a bit: U8s with a size 3, U10 and U12 with a size 4, and U13 and up having a size 5. This is what US soccer federation guidelines call for, but I've never seen U12s with a size 4.

[Cookie]

Originally Posted by Hamburger Hill

Welcome back Cookie (I'm hoping you might have 2mins to reply to my thread I started on my final Internal Assessment!!!

Anyway back to topic...my youngest is 5 and is starting this coming Thursday!!! I was planning on dusting off all my old "fun games" folder and doing much as you suggested covering all the techniques.

What in your experience worked well? Is there anything you would avoid?

Also a daft question - what size ball did you use? My under 9's use a size 4 but I was planning on picking up some size 1's?

I believe the rules of mini-football in the UK suggest that a size 3 football is used from U6's-U8's, then the U9's-U14's use size 4 before it goes to full-size from U15 upwards.

Spend as much time letting each child have a ball at his feet, they can't touch it enough times! I made up a great warm-up game called driving school when they first startedas 5YO's. Told them they were all drivers and the ball was the car. Got them to make a car sound when asked to "start it up" and they then dribble around the area. "Turn Left" or "Turn Right" involved using one of the, already learned, turns (simple inside cut, outside cut etc.) and "accelerate" was always to move quickly into space for a few strides.

Then introduced "BRAKE!" and they had to have the ball close enough to their feet to be able to stop immediately. The final one we brought in was "Change Cars" and they had to leave their ball and quickly take somebody elses and continue dribbling.

This is fun, it teaches them dribbling and turning skills, and it gets them warmed-up ready for the next exercise. Make sure you get all of them doing as much as possible in smal numbers (no more than pairs) otherwise young children will soon find something else to amuse themselves whilst waiting in line for more than 4 seconds.......

[Cookie]

Also......

When trying to explain key factors to young children they don't want to learn basic technical stuff in logical steps. They want it to be fun!

So, for instance, I once saw a very good coach explain about passing the ball to some young kids and he wanted to show them where on the ball their foot should make contact (after he had taught them about the 'pointer' standing foot and using the inside of your foot).

He described the ball in his hand as the world, told them the top was the north pole and that if they kicked it up here to pass they would be hurting Santa. Anybody kicking it around the 'South Pole' would surely be knocking penguins off the globe!

He then asked them what the central line around the hot part of the world was called and a few called out "Equator" and he said that was exactly where they had to strike the ball. Every single kid in that lesson knew from that moment where the correct area of the ball was for passing.......they can relate to this.

Don't expect them to know footballing terminology and make it as much fun as you can. They will learn quicker!