This spring will be my second season of coaching my son (who's now 7) in a town rec league.
There are 11 kids on the team: one 9yo, eight 8 yos, and two 7 yos. We had our first practice last week and though all the kids say they have been playing for multiple years, including in this league, most of them still have very little in the way of decent soccer skills especially in game situations.
Last week, I structured by practice like this:
Start End Duration Activity Goal
5:00 PM 5:05 PM 0:05 Passing/dribbling Warm-up (this was just free-form play)
5:05 PM 5:10 PM 0:05 Intros getting to know each other (this was a couple minutes of each kid saying his name and how long he had been playing soccer)
5:10 PM 5:15 PM 0:05 Passing in shapes Spacing (this part became just passing practices with no emphasis on shape/spacing)
5:15 PM 5:20 PM 0:05 Dribbling close
5:20 PM 5:25 PM 0:05 Dribbling far
5:25 PM 5:30 PM 0:05 Water/chat
5:30 PM 6:00 PM 0:30 Scrimmage fun; put drills to practice
Some of them did pretty well in the drills, but once the scrimmage started, it was the worst type of kick and chase with no recognition of putting into practice what we had just worked on. I froze the scrimmage multiple times to remind them about spacing, about passing TO someone (not just kicking it), and about covering a man, not just chasing the ball. I even required three passes before shooting.
So I'm looking for help in how to help the kids to implement some of those things in the games.
I'd also love some ideas on fun drills to work on.
There are 11 kids on the team: one 9yo, eight 8 yos, and two 7 yos. We had our first practice last week and though all the kids say they have been playing for multiple years, including in this league, most of them still have very little in the way of decent soccer skills especially in game situations.
Last week, I structured by practice like this:
Start End Duration Activity Goal
5:00 PM 5:05 PM 0:05 Passing/dribbling Warm-up (this was just free-form play)
5:05 PM 5:10 PM 0:05 Intros getting to know each other (this was a couple minutes of each kid saying his name and how long he had been playing soccer)
5:10 PM 5:15 PM 0:05 Passing in shapes Spacing (this part became just passing practices with no emphasis on shape/spacing)
5:15 PM 5:20 PM 0:05 Dribbling close
5:20 PM 5:25 PM 0:05 Dribbling far
5:25 PM 5:30 PM 0:05 Water/chat
5:30 PM 6:00 PM 0:30 Scrimmage fun; put drills to practice
Some of them did pretty well in the drills, but once the scrimmage started, it was the worst type of kick and chase with no recognition of putting into practice what we had just worked on. I froze the scrimmage multiple times to remind them about spacing, about passing TO someone (not just kicking it), and about covering a man, not just chasing the ball. I even required three passes before shooting.
So I'm looking for help in how to help the kids to implement some of those things in the games.
I'd also love some ideas on fun drills to work on.