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Pete, I respectfully disagree with your statements about focusing on technical skills before moving on to tactics. I also once thought that way but after many years of research and experience, as well as learning about the scientific study of motor learning, it’s obvious to me that decision making (tactics) is ultimately what we are trying to coach. This overview of motor learning changed my thought process and now I’m very careful about how much time I spend in non-decision making activities. Ball mastery exercises look great, but are they really more effective than the player using that time to play 1v1 (or rondo or SSG)? The science says to be very careful how you allocate your practice time.
Now to defend you a little (because I feel the same), I agree that ball mastery is very important however it’s really something between the player and the ball. We as coaches can introduce the ball mastery exercises and encourage the players but truly they must learn to master the ball on their own time.
I thought since I opened this thread a while back, I’d give a summary of our progress over the year. I knew attempting some of the 3four3 techniques and tactics would be a challenge for 8-year olds, but after 9 months or so, I feel that with the right players with supportive parents, it is possible to do. The difficulty was in trying to spend time developing basic foot skills and using time with some of the 3four3 tactics. Some of it overlap as many here have said, so I tried to make use of “economical” training. With the repetition of rondos, the constant reminder of back foot, across your body, look over your shoulder, lose your man, and correct spacing did find some success. Some kids picked it up perfectly right away, and there were others who made the same mistakes all year long no matter what teaching method I gave them. This of course was quite noticeable during the games. We worked on a lot of pattern play which looked great in practice, but was hard to replicate under pressure and in game. We also played a bit out of the back for a while and at times it worked well. Other times, it was disastrous. Not having a central defender who was fully committed to building out of the back did not help the matter. Goal kicks were not easy as we tried to mix it up out to the sides with some longer passes. Too much telegraphing and too slow,but did not spend too much time on it. We won or tied about half our games, but we did play a better possession style than most of teams we played. For 8-year olds, it was difficult when we played much bigger and faster teams. We definitely did not play kick and run, although I did try to get the kids to understand that a main purpose of the rondos and the short passing was to move the defenders out of their spots so we can get behind them to score. Again, about half picked up that concept.
Also, I thought I would move player around a bit more at this age, but only three players really understood building out of the back so I was limited in moving players around. The good things was nobody seemed to have problems with where they played.
One change I did make was on kickoffs. I spoke with Gary and Brian about this at a clinic, and said we always kicked back to the CM for possession and it worked well in concept, but because our technique was very novice, it led to a lot of mistakes in our half. So decided it was better to mix it up and try to pass out wide right away and move into the opponents half, and try to keep pressure in their half, not panic in ours. We tried to choreograph it, with mixed success. Some 8-year old aren’t so good at hiding the obvious.
I wish I had some video of before and after as I think their is a big difference in our players touch, but I do not. Our rondos (mainly 4v0 and some 4v1) look great now, but need to improve how we connect this to the game.
So what next? The discussion of setting a culture is so important. Trying to make sure the kids have “fun” and get a lot of playing time is still very important at this age, but I need to make sure the kids are accountable for their performance at training probably even more so than at games. To truly implement 3four3 philosophy, you do need to have all the players live, breath and die for soccer..or close to it. I know that half my players barely touch a ball outside training and games. While we go dark a bit, I am giving them a skill regiment based on the 10,000 touches, so it will be interesting to see who follows through.
I have 11 players now (playing 8v8) and am not sure who will be staying or leaving for next year. Those discussion will come up after State Cup in January. If anybody has any advise on how to talk to a parent of an 8-year old when it is pretty clear the kid is not quite working out, please let me know. The difficulty is kids mature at different ages, and even though it is not quite clicking right now, it may in 4 months or 6 or one year. So hard to say.
So overall,the 3four3 ideas are solid and can be effective even at u-9. I think the next year at u-10 will be even more promising.
Please share your stories, good and bad about your season.
Liviu
Not sure if you’re still with this group but I’ll try and give you some advice. I have some experience at this level as I’m now coaching my fourth child who is a U7 and my eldest is U14. Coached all four right on through the U8 year and longer for some. U8 is tough. You have some kids that want to leap forward quickly and you see their effort, focus, etc. take them far really fast compared to their less serious counterparts. Try peer pressure through competition. With boys, don’t be afraid to let one group know they are getting beat by the other group. See if that has the right effect. Even on rondo’s, actually everything. It doesn’t have to be a keeping score competition. Just let the groups know you are watching and the ones doing it more right than the others will win. Put in an age appropriate fun penalty and you should see the intensity go up and the progress to be right there with it.
No doubt, certain players without focus need an age appropriate “notice” as well so that they have some time to fit in better with the group. If they are U9 going on U10 and you aren’t seeing at least movement in the right direction on focus, the kid may just be in the wrong sport and that’s a conversation you can have with that child and the parents. Cutting playing time isn’t appropriate at this age, my opinion.
I’ll try and cut the ramble at this point, but you probably need to be working in footskills and maximizing touches for the group that I saw. Rondos are fine but the players need to work their touch through all surfaces and get as many as possible in your warmup prior to rondos and other progressive activities. With some ball comfort, then you could probably start working on getting their heads up so they can see the field which goes really well with receiving across the body and playing to the open player. As you are doing that, work in communication…
Good luck. Stick with it, it’ll work over time. Encourage juggling as well so their touch improves. I’d like to see where you are at and how it’s going, given the previous year.
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