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Hi guys, I coach a U9 boys team and U9 girls team, they both participate in 1st division soccer. The boys I have had for a little more than a year. The girls I have had for 6 months. We start each practice with everyone with a ball, we start with ball taps or tic tocs happy feet, on command the players dribble in the area, using a move and a turn and on command go back to ball taps or happy feet. We have built our stockpile of moves and turns over the time. I used to then have all the players go around the outside of the square and pass the ball on the floor and follow the ball and replace the person they passed to. We did two touch and one touch, dribble takes and such. The rule was keep the ball on the floor. This was hard at first but over time became very easy we counted how many passes we could get in a row without a mistake ie. ball coming off the floor, or passing out of the square. We continued to improve and the players really got into it. Then we would go into a 8v2 rondo. I now have moved to instead of the big square we do 4v0 rondos, then 4v1, with the one just looking for not two touch and not receiving across the body, if they see it they raise their hand and that player has to go in the middle. Then we go to active 4v1’s, player can only tackle the pass not the feet. The players love this…. basically just following the progression of the video’s. We then get into some type of rondo that ends in the part of game play I want to address. My boys team has been all over possession for a long time, and understand it, but my girls are new to this. Last Sunday morning they had a break through. We went up 6 goals in the first half. So at halftime I asked them to play rondos on the field, simply keep the ball focusing on playing across their body and such. They did it better than I could have imagined. My suggestion is to keep training this way, don’t change, make it your philosophy. I used to be the guy that said it is all about the 1v1. And don’t get me wrong we believe in players having 1v1 skills. But really that theory of telling the young ones not to pass but to just dribble is such lazy coaching. Let’s prepare the whole player! Anyhow I applaud you all for taking on this age group. I used to coach just older State Cup age teams and always wondered why those players came to me with such hole’s in their game. Now I know, it is because at U8 to U11 they did not get what they deserved. Give them what they deserve train them for the future, we always say we play to win but we don’t do what we do for today but for the future…….
Blessings,
Kg
I posted this is the other feed for film. I should have posted it here. 🙂
Curious what you think of this video…
Context: Opponent is a U10 low division Rush team. Not a great test, but it’s some of the only video I have of this team.
I started with most of them at U8 and I now have three U9 teams in the age. For indoor we mixed them all up. In this video there are 2 from my top team, 2 from my 2nd team and 1 from my 3rd team. The top 3 or 4 kids in this video – I have 15 more just like them. There isn’t a huge difference between the 1st and 2nd team.
I’ve focused a ton on skill development up to this point. I know Brian hasn’t gone any younger than U10, so I’m just trying to get thoughts on what to focus on with this team.
What drills of Gary’s do you think would be good to start with this group?
This spring I’m planning to really work on possession out of the back and see if we can get U9s to possess, which is pretty rare. For spring we will play 5 and GK so not a lot to work with.
Anyone tried to get their u9s to really knock the ball around? Any advise? Any thoughts on some basics patterns for 6v6. What formation would you play? Should I even think about doing pattern play with U9s? Should I just keep them mostly focused on skill and worry about possession when they hit U10? As other people have talked about with U9 and U8, you really need to keep it simply. You really need to break it down for them, any help would be great!
Love to hear your thoughts?The team does show some individual skill which is nice to see. To answer your question of how others get kids to knock the ball around I can tell you what I do. From U8 on I do a 5v2 drill where the 5 cannot dribble and the 2 can only win the ball if they call out a mistake from one of the 5 players…ie received on the wrong foot. My session are all 1.5 hours where the first hour is the topic of the week, the next 15 minutes in this no dribbling session with the last 15 minutes is just open play time where I encourage the kids to be creative and use what was covered earlier. Now I do many variations of the same concepts but that is the basic jist
I really dont think this system is for recc once a week kids. Id love to hear Garys input on this one.
The Barca teams that I played against(free to play kids- 4 of the 8 on the field are amazing) did collect across their body well. Played out from the back well in the later part of the season but they were very direct with their passing patterns. Pattern 1 I saw in early tournaments, pattern 2 in early season games and pattern 3 a year later. They defended with 3 and attacked with 3/4 using width well and had amazing finishers.
Phil,
Thanks for your thoughts. Totally agree with what you are saying. We are street right now and slowly evolving into a possession team – hopefully by the end of spring. Indoor is such a small space the focus on skill seems pretty natural to me.
I think you have good ideas. Most coaches have no idea how to teach individual skill, the kids in the video are rec. players that have been trained to do everything they do. They aren’t “naturals” and they don’t practice at home much, it’s mostly trained into them at practice.I’ve always had a fear (in the past) that if I taught passing “too early” the kids would stop using their skills and just make the easy pass. It’s the same idea that teaching tactics is bad before U13, because it “kills” creativity.
My personal thoughts have changed as I think 3four3 has shown me that it all depends on WHAT type of passing and tactics you teach. If you teach defensive long-ball counter attacks I think the thought is absolutely correct – it kills creativity and skill. However, if you can get your kids to play real possession than how is that going to hurt them. If the kids have the ball 80% of the game I think it’s only going to give them more opportunities to develop individual skill, better technique and better tactical understanding.
So my question to you guys is… can you get U9’s to get 80% possession in the American suburb environment. 10-15 pass combinations? Can you really get the kids to think ahead three and four steps off the ball to possess as a team. I deal a lot with suburb kids that are patchy in their level of commitment. About 90% of all the soccer they get a week is at my practice. Two times a week for 1 hr. As you can see from the video the kids are fairly technical, not elite, but good. Should I be able to do full possession in 6v6, can the kids do it. Any thoughts? I’m going to give it a go and try to update with video on here. Love to have your help.
Liviu,
Balance of individual skill work and passing work.
What I try to do is work towards teaching my kids “intelligent soccer”. What’s the point of teaching passing if the kids don’t really “see it” – blind passing leads to a false sense of success. Just switching the ball without really seeing it, isn’t intelligent soccer even if helps get goals.
I don’t teach passing until my kids can dribble without having to look at the ball. If a kid’s head is either barred in the ball or he has to stop dribbling to look up they aren’t ready to pass yet.
A players technical ability can put a limit on how fare they can go, so I try to build that technical base as big as I can. At the younger ages I think a big bag of tricks and the ability to do them with your head up is a good start for a solid technical base and the beginning of possession soccer.Phil,
The mental image or cue words I would give my teams at this age in the first year was. When we lose the ball what do we do, and they would respond “get it back as quick as possible.” Then I would say what do we do next? They would say string together at least 5 passes, as they got better at this that number went up. So I always gave them a number to shoot for. As I have had my boys for more than a year now, we have gone away from this into attacking patterns and overloads and recognition of the correct pass, recycling to the keeper and such…. but to start out I think this would help…..
Blessings,
KgI have been doing the 4 vs. 0, 4 vs. 1 and double rondo progression with U9’s this winter. The players have varrying levels of skill from no skill at all to highly skilled. I have found that even those kids who struggle with any kind of basic technique benefit greatly from these sessions. They are forced to move into good positions to receive the ball, which makes it easier for them to play.
I have used these sessions with U8… all the way to senior men’s. The coaching points are always the same… the stoppages and demonstrations are always the same… and the mistakes are always the same. So I would not be affraid to push the kids regardless of the level to enforce the concepts 4 vs. 0, 4 vs. 1 concepts that Gary promotes in his videos.
Best regardsA couple updates: I bought an HD video camera and a tripod, so I’m set to record training sessions and games. Also, we’ve had our first two weeks of training and still haven’t split into our teams — I’m coaching one of two “B” teams, if I can ever convince the other two coaches and the director to let us split the teams.
It’s been kind of a frustrating process so far — disorganized, asinine training sessions — and the adults are pissing me off far more than the kids (welcome to youth soccer, right?). In any case, I’m hoping to have some actual observations of substance to report soon, complete with video.
For now, I can say that this seems to be a good little group. The kids are picking things up quickly when I get moments to coach, and most of them are pretty well behaved for being 8 years old. Once I can get the bureaucracy crap out of the way, I think we’ll do OK. They naturally take to the idea of passing and moving when we just let them play, so with a little direction and focus on the proper topics, they’ll hopefully be good to go in a couple months.
As promised, some video from training, now that we’ve finally split into three groups, and I have the core of my team settled:
This is the first time I’ve been able to work with them on any of this stuff. It was all in a huge group with 20 or so other U8s for the previous two weeks, which felt a bit like herding cattle at times. In any case, I noticed a few trends:
- If you turn your back on half the group, they usually won’t be doing what they should. The one big exception I found in reviewing the tape was during the 4v0 rondo section of the video posted here. That group on the near side did OK at staying on task.
- When kids were making mistakes, it was frequently the same offender(s) over and over — see if you can pick out the one that frustrated me the most! As a general rule, I won’t teach to the lowest common denominator. To make sure the more talented kids are challenged, I coach to their level, and naturally, the less-skilled players will be drawn up in their performance. We’ve split the groups so that the chasm of talent in any one team shouldn’t be vast, but you can clearly see that the gap is there.
- After nearly an hour of working on receiving across the body, I saw very little of it in our end-zone game and the small-sided game that followed. However, the chunk of the end-zone game that I posted here was the team in yellow connecting six consecutive passes, which was probably the highlight of the session in my book. (The game rules were: earn one point by passing to a teammate to control in the end zone; earn three points for connecting three consecutive passes.) I’m going to work on spacing with them next, to minimize the beehive effect that is very obvious even from that small clip.
As always, thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc. are all welcome. No other way to get better than to put yourself out there, even if it’s uncomfortable (and nobody likes being scrutinized). Like I said, I’ve never coached this age group before, so I expect the learning curve to be steep at first.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 9 months ago by
Liviu Bird.
I think you are off to a good start with the rondos. It takes time for the kids to learn any drill, but they can do it if you keep working on it.
Here are some thoughts for you. Think of them as positive criticisms. I’m not trying to be negative. I just know that if I posted something I’d want honest feedback not just surface talk.Little kids have the attention span of ADHD squares – if you really want to get more out of the rondos you NEED to inject some excitement into the kids! Everything they do isn’t good. Some things are ok and you can call it good, but then when someone actually does something good it’s got to be AWESOME!!!! Some of the best kids coaches I know are the ones that willing to look a little silly with their excitement about the good things the kids do! Otherwise the kids don’t really know the difference between when they are learning and when they are going through the motions. Re-read this post: http://blog.3four3.com/2012/06/11/soccer-coaching-evaluation/
But maybe you were just feeling weird filming yourself, which is totally normal and I think I might feel the same. LOL.Possession drill at the end…
While you want to challenge them, you want success, you want to challenge the kids so you give them things that are inches outside of their reach, not miles. Even if they get some level of success in our possession drill it’s not the fastest way to teach possession.
I’ve had a teams playing in the U8-U10 range for about 6 years now. What I have found is that doing full possession (as I saw you doing a little of at the end) is not something you want to do with the younger kids that are still learning basic techniques of passing.
4v4, 5v5 or 6v6 or even 5v5 + 1 or 2 possession drills don’t translate to possession in games just because you do in in practice. It can help but in my opinion it’s the long-cut to teaching possession in games.1. Master the receiving across your body.
2. Get the kids a basic level of understanding about weights of passes. 1. Hard (rockets) 2. Firm (like the ball is sliding on glass) and 3. Soft (trapping it for your teammate).
There are lots of different drills for teach this and it mostly comes down to coaching in the drill if you want the kids to know the difference in weight of passes.3. I would do some shadow play in practice and before games. Show them how the ball can potentially be moved around the field in a game vs trying to get them to play possession. Translating possession without goals into a full game is a lot to ask of 7 and 8 year olds. Heck most college and professional teams spend tons of hours at practice on possession and we know it doesn’t translate to games, so why would it be any easier for 7 and 8 year olds.
Possession drills are primarily beneficial for the technical focus, not tactical. The tactical benefits can be taught better through other drills. And the technique with this age needs more focused coaching attention, because it’s terrible at this age. lol.
I hope that gives you some things to think about, without sounding too critical. 🙂 I’d love to keep the conversation going.Alec,
Some good points. For me, the difference between a great practice and a so-so practice is MY enthusiasm. When I am too serious and looking for perfection, I get frustrated and they can tell. You are correct not to give false praise for bad techniques, but at this age, they need us to get excited about progress. Last week, I worked on 4-0 rondos, and it went really well. This week, I was working on some quick, repetitive new dribbling skills. I was surprised at how difficult it was for them ( as it was basic basic stuff) and so I was getting frustrated instead of looking for the progress of baby steps. It would have gone much better if I got excited about little improvements. It may seem weird for adults, even teens, but would have helped with little kids. I will see we have done rondos 3 times now, and they are getting better each time. Even saw some receiving across the body in the SSGs, even though all bunched up.
Glad to see this forum topic. I have a U9 boys team currently, but I have been training several of them since U6.
I could write a book about my thoughts on training younger kids, but here are a few initial thoughts:
- You absolutely must lay a foundation of technical skill BEFORE you try to teach ANY tactics. I think individual ball mastery is key to teaching possession soccer and developing a high soccer IQ. If you get a group of 10 year olds who don’t pass properly, don’t start teaching them to play from the back!
- 1/3 to 1/2 of my 90 minute practice is spent with a kid to ball ratio of 1:1. Example: 10 minutes of juggling, 20 minutes of ball mastery (toe-taps, bobbles, side-rolls, Coerver moves, etc), 10 minutes of dribbling through obstacles to finish with a shot on goal. Critical skills for young players.
- Break down the technical parts of passing and receiving and don’t let them get away with bad technique. Spend a ton of time on this and it will pay dividends later.
- Start slowly with easier stuff. Passing around a square (Dana’s example above – I call it a Dutch Square) is WAY easier than 4v0, I think. Start there, build to 3v1, then try 4v0.
- Once you lay the foundation, start layering in tactical aspects – position, spacing, movement, communication.
- I try to limit tactical lessons and set tactical training sessions to 15-20 minutes max. At u9, they are getting an introduction, not a master class. I am patient. When these boys get to U11 and U12, we can start cranking it up. I’m taking the long view.
I am still learning every time I step between the white lines. Younger kids are pretty unpredictable. I had a fantastic practice last Sunday and then the boys kicked my ass on Tuesday – go figure.
If you are focusing on ball mastery I would add 1v1s in all fazes of the game to every practice at U6 and U7.
Liviu, thanks for sharing. In general, I agree with all of Alec’s points and here are a few other ideas based on working with those ages the last few years (now moving into U11):
+ Don’t waste too much time on unopposed activities. 4v0 is ok for teaching the finer points, but it quickly turns into a drill and the reason rondos are so effective is because they are a game with opposed pressure. I would move to 4v1 as soon as possible and do things like not allow the defender to tackle but instead require them to get out of middle by noticing receiving on wrong foot. Then, move to full pressure and accept that it’s going to look ugly for a while but that’s ok because the game is chaotic and ugly at times too but they are learning to make decisions which is ultimately why the rondo is a great teacher.
+ On a related note, the square size seemed a little small even if only to emphasize making firm passes. This will be an issue when moving to pressure as well.
+ 3v1 is the next progression after 4v1 and is even more game realistic given the free movement within the grid. Again, it’ll be ugly but get to it and let the kids start problem solving even if they are far from mastering technique. They’ll learn to solve problems given their current technical ability.
+ Numbers up possession games at those ages are almost pointless if you are playing to goals or directionally. This could just be my experience but a game with +1 or +2 neutrals in the middle just means you can all but assure that those neutrals don’t touch the ball. Neutrals on the outside work better.
+ It’s a marathon not a sprint. Obvious I know, but let the kids fail and learn without getting too frustrated. That’s the “art of coaching” as the Kleiban’s talk about a lot in constantly setting the expectations just a little above the players’ current ability all the while realizing it’s going to take a long time to get to where you want them to be.
+ Don’t forget to let the kids play the game. I’m a big believer in Horst Wein and he preaches the 4 goal game with 3v3 at those ages. You might already be doing that, but just wanted to point out that it’s sure hard to beat a small sided game.
Thanks again for sharing and I’ll have to record myself coaching soon so I can put myself out there as well…
-Justin
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