U10 Boys Training, Summer Tournament Results

[Paul GruberParticipant]

This summer I put together a U10 boys team to compete in a few tournaments. Granted this is a rec level team and the player ages ranged from 8 to 10. By no means was it a stacked team, literally took whoever I could get. Primary goal was seeing my son play who was with me over the summer. He lives out of state with his mother during the school year. He shines regardless of what state he’s lived in and he has lived in a few states now at the ripe age of 9.

I experimented a bit. Used the coaching learned from 3Four3, and the activities. The practice field we used was good, but very over grown due to the end of the spring season. So trying to teach and implement proper passing on a field that was slow…well it wasn’t happening as any pass required a hard kick from the players and the ball up off the deck a bit so it didn’t stick to it like it was Velcro.

Initially, used the 4v0 and 4v1 rondos. Quickly gave up on it because the technical demands were too high for this group of boys and the field compounded the issue. So we worked on the Set Tactical Training (STT) of positioning. At this age group for my state, we play 6v6, so we played a 2-3 formation.  

At the start, we had a week to prepare for our first tournament. The boys are rec players, but their technical abilities are pretty good. Lots of Coerver training and good comfort with the ball since they were 4. However, not the most athletic as a team as our age group is mixed and as always, the big play that can shoot from midfield sometimes are the deciding factor in games.

Didn’t mean we didn’t play well. We tied our first match, but definitely out played the opponent. Should have won, outshot the opponent and out possessed, just couldn’t score that extra goal. Second opponent was an academy team (pseudo competitive). We looked better with the ball. Problem we just were outclassed when it came to overall speed, didn’t have as many ballers as they did. Last game, should have won. Gave up a comfortable lead and lost by a goal. My fault as I was trying to get equal playing time for all the players.

Second was a 3v3 tournament. By far my favorite version of soccer play. Tactics are quite different and require training on. Just like the full sided game, we rehearsed our play focusing in on set pieces (goal kicks, corners, and kick ins). Unfortunately weather only allowed for one game and the tournament got cancelled. We did win however 7-1.

Third and final tournament, we had a solid month of training. Almost all of our focus was on STT. We didn’t have to have the cone markers for positions anymore. A lot of what was addressed during shadow play was getting the correct angle of support to the teammate with the ball. Making sure the weak side sagged. The boys knew how to call swing, a switch through the pivot, and bounce pass from the backs to the pivot. We also practiced playing to our keeper as an outlet (goal kicks were trained very highly as well).

We would progress into a 6v2 and 6v3 possession game, with our playing unit in formation and sending our remaining players into chase after the ball on a half a field. If the defenders won the ball, they could shoot on goal, so defensive principals were taught. Then I placed 3 target goals at midfield for the attacking team to dribble or pass through. Once they did they unlocked the attacking half of the field against 1 dedicated defender and one defender that was allowed from the defensive side to chase. We worked on some attacking patterns which primarily consisted of sliding the ball to the pivot early and from there, the pivot finding the open corner to pass to for his teammate to cross for a finish.

As much as we worked on the STT, the swing rarely surfaced. That was disappointing as I wanted it to come out naturally. However, having worked on the STT extensively, the boys had a much better understanding of positioning and spacing which created problems for our opponents, many of whom played a 3-2. We won all our games, our closest was a come back from behind win of 2-1 against an opponent that was scoring double digit goals on their opponents. They had us scared in the final minutes of that game as they were taking shots on us. In reality, most were off frame and desperate. We kind of played into that desperation by making anxiety errors. If we had calmed down we would have completely subdued the opponent. But we won.

Final game, we won decisively, allowed no goals. Tried to shut the team off at the end, tried to get them to work the possession game. These are young boys, there was no off switch. The final play and score was a throw in from one back, negatively to our other back, the ball swung all the way to the other side of the field and high to the winger. The ball slid back centrally to the pivot, being my son. He quickly dispatched the opponent defender and made an easy looking finish on goal.

Lessons learned. As with any team, you have to make adjustments to the activities so they work for your respective team. span Granted I wanted to see more of possession play from my team, but I only worked with them for a month and the team consisted of different players depending on the tournament. Gave up on the smaller rondo game because it was too technical for the boys. However, had this been a season, that activity would have been my go to activity as the boys simply needed more time to develop technically and we were gearing towards tournament results

Most for this age group suggest that working on tactics is too early. I believe there has to be a mix. I am very insistent on the boys being highly technical in terms of individual skills. Every night the boys were required to work on juggling for 5 minutes, the ball starting from the ground. The ball never stops moving during the 5 minutes. This created a ton of touch opportunities for the boys under a pressure element. Every boy improved their juggling high score with most entering into double digits. The high over all was 46. Not bad for a group of boys that didn’t know how to juggle.

I also had them work on moves sequence. Gave them homework after each training session of 3 moves that most already knew, but they had to perform them in a specific order. Basically, I never gave up on the technical element of the game in terms of development. Tried to create a “culture” within this group of boys to work on the technical stuff at home. Most did. A couple did not and it was very apparent in training. That helped those players that lagged in effort, to step up their game to be part of this team.

Bottom line, you still have to be a coach. You have to know what the team needs and how to train appropriately to the age, skill, maturity level of the players. This site has been fantastic in terms of ideas, activities and most importantly, examples of how things are done with respective teams. I’m at the other end of things with a rec only team. I’m a firm believer that this can occur with every team that exists between my level and the level of players representing Coach Kleiban’s teams.

• This topic was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by  Paul Gruber.
• This topic was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by  Paul Gruber.
• This topic was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by  Paul Gruber.
• This topic was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by  Paul Gruber.

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