Defending

When I wrote about attacking one on one, I said that the attacker should go straight at a defender. By the same token, a defender should not allow an attacker to come straight at him. Easier said than done! Defenders should always position themselves at an angle in relation to the attacker in order to sweep the ball away from him. In fact, ideally defenders should run in a curved path when approaching attackers which essentially means they should sneak up on the attacker:




When the defender gets closer to the ball, he/she can either slide tackle or simply kick the ball away.

Some simple exercises:

1. Have some stationary balls and ask the kids to run to the ball from the side and slide tackle. Kids have a tendency to lean on one side of their bodies but both sides should be practiced. If you are kicking the ball away with the right leg, the left leg should be bent 90 degrees.
After a while of slide-tackling, it becomes natural. Then they get up, run to the ball again and slide tackle. You can make it a game to see who reaches the end-line faster.

Take a water break.

2. Line the attackers on the side-line. Have them dribble towards defenders and try to beat them one on one. The defenders should also move towards the attackers and slide-tackle. Make sure you tell the defenders to hit the ball first or they will be penalized.

Note: This exercise is very injury prone. So it might be best to remove the shoes while learning to slide-tackle. That way the attackers won't get injured.

Competition

Competition for kids is a tricky business. As a coach you want them to win so they feel good. You also want the parents to see their kids win. But you also need to be performing a balancing act to do what's right for the kids development vs. winning.

1. Ask the parents to bring the kids to the games at least 1/2 hour before the game. Once they arrive, get them away from the parents. Make sure they are wearing socks and shin guards and the shoes are tied. I always ask the kids to shake everyone's hands when they arrive. At first it might seem awkward for them but kids need to learn respect: "When you see an older person, you don't just walk by him without saying hello".

2. Make sure every kid has water. It never fails that at every practice a kid walks up to me and says: "I didn't bring water", "I ran out of water", etc. When that happens ask other kids or parents for water and hand it to him. By the way, water and gatorade are acceptable drinks. If you see Coke or Pepsi, warn them about it. That's a no no! it causes obesity and is full of sugar! My rules are: "No soft drinks at the games or practices" and make sure parents realize that.

3. When the kids get there, they start running, shooting or whatever. Do not try to stop them. Let them play and then ask them to gather somewhere, do some stretching. Meanwhile keep talking to them: "we need to concentrate today...we are playing one of the best teams..."

4. Parents: During the games they scream and yell and get all excited. No way to avoid it. One of the problems I see is that a kid is dribbling the ball down the field and all of a sudden a parent who probably has never played soccer before yells: Shooooot... and the poor kid shoots from center of the field trying to score a goal. I usually tell the parents: "It's okay if you want to cheer and say go go go hooray... but let the kids make their own decisions on the field. They need to learn the process of decision making, whether they want to pass, dribble or shoot". Parents understand that.

5. Parents again: They always like to make themselves comfortable sitting in the shades on comfy lawn chairs. During half-time ask the parents to all move out of the shades (whether it's a tree or a tent) so kids can sit in the shades.

6. Parents again and again: Someone is likely to ask you to give his kid more playing time! that's your decision. I would not budge on that. It's direct interference in coach's decisions. Do not let parents dictate to you who plays for how long. But you also need to be fair to the kids. Make sure every kids gets to play at least one-half. The tendency for coaches is that in order to win you play your best players, all the time. Take a risk and bring out your best player and replace him with a less experienced player. Before you do that though, on the sideline, talk to the kid and point him to the good player showing him where he plays and how well he is doing. Ask him to do the same when he gets on the field.

7. Do not yell at the kids for making mistakes. Just say: "Next time do it better". Always be positive. Kids pick up on that. They should not be afraid to take risks on the field. I kept telling my defenders to clear the ball to the sides and out of our penalty box everytime but in every game my left and right defenders would send that ball back into our penalty box. This type of mistake is unavoidable but after repeating the concept so many times, finally they will be able to execute it.

8. Give the kids a free hand. In our first game, I asked one of my defenders to move up and try to score. His response was: "can defenders score?". This is typical. At some point in their short lives someone has erroneously told these kids that a defender needs to stay in one spot and kick the ball when he sees it. Your job as a coach is to get the kids out of their cages. Make sure your defenders move up and down the field. Make sure your forwards come back to defend. Creativity should not be lost. If you see your defender in the opposing team's penalty area, don't yell at him. Just ask him to get back to his position when he can.

Attacking 1 vs. 1

Every soccer player should be able to take on the defender in front on him. When I say "take him on" it does not mean to make a big wide circle around him. It means take him on straight on. Go at him straight on and leave him behind with a sudden move. Once the defender is left behind, the attacker should then speed up in the open space.

Why?

Mainly because when an attacker who has the ball goes straight at a defender, other defenders stay clear to let the defender do his job. They don't want to crowd him up. They also trust him.
If the attacker starts making a big circle, the defender + other defenders suddenly converge on him. So it's best to practice making the run straight at the defender.

How?

Line up the attackers on the side-lines, a few meters apart. The attacker is going to dribble the ball from the side-line to half-way across field. At the same time each kid should have a defender waiting for him a few meters away. The attackers should dribble the ball very carefully to the defender, make a sudden move and leave the defender behind and speed up. They can then turn around and come back repeating the same exercise.
At first ask the defenders to be passive.

Notes:
1. After a few minutes take a water break. This exercise can be exhausting.
2. With you ace players ask the defender to be active and defend hard. This depends on how many good players you have. They should still be able to pass the defender.
3. Many times when kids get to the defender, they don't know what to do. Here are some tips:
- Show them to fake their body as if they are going in one direction and then change direction and go the other way.
- When the attacker gets close to the defender, he weaves his right leg over the ball and back:
This can be done in two ways: weave your leg clockwise, or counter-clockwise. It really doesn't matter that much. Just have them try it. Once they weave their legs, they can tap the ball with the left leg and go around the defender.

Scrimmages

Kids don't come to practices to stand around and pass the ball to each other. They come to play!
Absolutely, every practice session should have a scrimmage at the end. In fact, using the promise of the scirmmage, I get the kids to practice harder, pay more attention and not waste too much time. Usually I tell them: "If you guys waste time and not listen, we won't have enough time at the end for the scrimmage". It's a great incentive to get them to listen.
And ofcourse, you have to stand by your promise.
Divide up the teams into two (almos equal forces). Here I would advise you that you should not be so strict as try to make the teams strengths exactly equal. It's impossible. During the course of the play if you see too much imbalance where the ball does not get out of one team's penalty box, take a couple of good players from the better team and have them switch to the other team. It quickly balances the scale.
In any case the kids will get their training out of these scrimmages one way or another, whether they are mostly defending or attacking.

A couple of important points:

1. Make sure you have "pennies" to give out to one team so that kids know who is on which team. Sometimes kids have trouble putting the pennies on. Help them out.

2. Many times kids ask you to put them on the other team because their friends are playing there! It's fine. Go with it. In fact sometimes you actually want kids who play well with each other to be on one team so you can have them practice passing to each other.

3. Make sure you allow about 30 minutes of scrimmage at every practice session. By the time you divide up the teams and get the kids going, another 5 minutes is gone!

4. Run along with the kids in the field and cheer them on. "Thomas: go for the ball...that ball is yours...don't stand around", etc. Don't let anyone stand around. Ask players to move into open space.

5. Don't let one goalkeeper stand in goal all the time. All players need to play even goalkeepers. Switch goalkeepers every 10 minutes or so.

6. Make it a happy scrimmage and encourage passing as much as possible.

Teamwork and Keep-away

Yes, individual skills training is a bit boring, unless you work on fancy moves which kids love. But that's for a bit later. It's time to start getting the kids used to teamwork.

I call this game "keep away" and it's a great practice to start learning the basics of running into space, receiving the ball and passing to the open player.

1. Just use hands: Divide the kids into teams of 5 or 6 players max. Too many players on one side means they will all bunch up and you won't achieve what you are looking for. If you have 20 players, make 4 teams out of it. If you have 10 players, make two teams.

The game itself is very simple. There are no goals. Take the kids to the penalty box and divide the box into two equal halves. Two separate groups (5 vs. 5) can play in one half and the other groups play in the other half. Whoever has the ball, passes it to his teammates while the opposing team members try to steal the ball in mid-air. If they succeed to steal the ball, they will pass it amongst themselves and the other team gets to defend. Explain to the kids the concept of running into space and asking for the ball. Nobody should be standing around. After a few minutes the kids get it.

Note: it's important that you join them in this game (at least initially) to show them how to play it. I usually tell them: "I am with any team that has the ball".

Take a water break. This exercise is very exhaustive.

2. Repeat the same exercise using feet. It's important that when switching from hands-play to foot-play, you increase the size of the box to cover the whole penalty box. Have the kids run into spaces and ask for the ball.

3. After a while, tell the kids that you are going to count the number of consecutive passes. Start counting aloud and the kids will try to pass quicker.

First time I did the hands-play, the kids loved it so much I had to force them to stop.

Note: if the ball falls on the ground and the kids all converge on it, call it a jump-ball. Overall, this is a great exercise as the kids start learning the value of running into spaces and finding their teammates on the field.

Shooting

When the kids start trickling in at the practices, the first thing they do is shoot the ball into the goal. Hey, adults do that too! It's fun to score, isn't it? Let them shoot all they want until they are tired of it.

Preparation:

Break them up into two groups. Have one goalkeeper at each goal (if there are two goals available) and have the players line up across and start shooting from closer distances but not too close. If you don't have a goalkeeper handy, stay in the goal yourself. They love to score against the coach.
It's important to have the goalkeeper call the name of the next shooter before he shoots. Kids like to all shoot at the same time and the goalkeeper might get hit in the face with a stray ball.

Exercises:

Note: Don't worry about accuracy of the shots for now! it will naturally come later.

1. Have them shoot with the inside of the foot. The proper way to shoot is to approach the ball from the sides (many kids approach in a straight line and shoot with the front of the shoe. That's a no no). The shooter must start about 3 or 4 steps behind the ball, run to the ball and place the "other" foot right next to the ball. While shooting the player should bend forward over the ball and hit the ball at the center or a little above. The ball should stay on the ground. If the "other" foot is behind the ball while shooting, the shooter is likely to tilt backwards and shoot up in the air with no aim.
Also make sure the shooting foot follows through for more power.
Some shooters like to open their arms while shooting and that' s perfectly fine, it gives them balance and protects them from defenders while shooting.
I usually demonstrate the proper way of shooting to the group(s) but do not bog them down with the exact proper technique. Just some guidance should be enough. Let them have fun.

2. Have everyone get closer to the goal and ask them to switch the shooting foot. This is what I call the "weak" foot. A good soccer player should not have a "weak" foot. At first it's going to be awkward but after about 10 shots, they start getting it and gradually they get stronger and more stable.
My players usually know what I mean when I call out: "Everyone start shooting with the weak foot now" and everytime they say: "nooooooooo". They don't like it too much! Just explain to them that later on, good coaches will look for those traits when drafting them into their teams.

Here is something that I found very inetersting: After shooting with the weak foot for a while, their strong foot is silently getting stronger!!! Maybe it's because they realize the value of their strong foot but mostly it's because when they shoot with the weak foot, they try and exert lots of force behind the ball just to allow the ball to reach the goalkeeper. Now that they go back to shooting with the strong foot, they will try to put the same amount of energy behind the ball and it goes alot further! wow! try it!

3. Shooting with the top of the foot (not the front): This time have the players use their strong foot and shoot the ball with the shoe lace area and follow through with the leg. This gives them much more distance and power. So you might want to pull them back a little to make them shoot a bit harder and with proper techniques.

The shooting practices should not take more than 1/2 hour a session.

Some side notes:
I read somewhere that in order to make the players use their weak foot, some coaches ask them to take off their strong foot shoes throughout the practice sessions!
It sounds like a good idea but I did not try this technique for two reasons:
a. The players might get injured because of someone (or themselves) stepping over the strong barefoot! ouch! I guess in some limited, non-contact exercise you could try this, maybe with older kids but not 8, 9 and 10 year olds.

b. With younger kids, getting the shoes back on is a hassle! It might waste too much of your practice time.

Controlling The Ball

Controlling (as opposed to stopping) the ball should be practiced regularly in every session. It is fundumental and it's what differentiates great players from mediocare players. When the ball arrives at your feet, what is commonly known as the "first touch" is incredibaly important because it dictates your next move, whether it's a pass, a shot or dribbling.
So why not "stopping"? When a ball arrives and you stop it dead at your feet, the defenders have a much easier time kicking it away from you. During the course of the game there may be special circumstances when you want to stop the ball (maybe to deceive the defenders) but most of the time you control the ball which allows your game to be fluent.

1. Have two lines of players (paired up) and have one player pass the ball to the other and have the receiving player control the ball with the inside of the feet, sliding the ball to the left or to the right (depending on which foot he is using). Then pass the ball right back. Have the kids control using both feet, again to the left or to the right and then pass it back.

2. Try the same exercise only this time have them use the outside of the feet. As the ball arrives, the receiving player places the ouside of his foot behind the ball and slides it to either his left or right (again depending which foot he is using). You will find that controlling with the outside of the foot is much more effective and places the player more in a position to easily pass the ball back.

I demonstrated controlling vs. stopping the ball to the group to make them understand the difference. I asked one of the guys to stand in front of me as a defender. I had another player (supposedly a teammate) pass the ball to me and I asked the defender to take it away from me. As the ball arrived, I stopped it dead. The defender was easily able to shoot it away. Then I repeated the same exercise but this time when the ball arrived, I controlled it to my left (I am left-footed, if you were wondering), away from the defender and I ran along with the ball. The defender had no chance this time. Try it!

3. Controlling high balls with the chest: This one is a bit harder to learn but have each player throw the ball to his (or her) partner. The receiving player should "trap" or control the ball so that the ball either falls in front of him, to the left of him (by making a slight turn on the chest) or to the right of him. Then follow it up and pass it back. After a few minutes switch the players.

4. There are other ways to control the ball with the thighs, etc. but leave all that for later. For now concentrate on feet and chest.

Passing

1. Passing with the inside of the foot: Divide the kids into groups of two and have them line up in two straight lines facing each other, about 10 feet apart. Start passing with the inside of the foot. Walk around and make sure everyone is passing correctly. At this point don't worry about the receiving part. That's another exercise all in itself. Just walk around and make sure everyone is passing with the inside of the foot. After a few minutes, have them switch to the other foot. Some kids will complain that it's too hard but tell them that good soccer players learn to use both feet.

Take a water break.

2. Passing with the outside of the foot: Kids love it when they discover the outside of the foot. Once they learn it, it gives them more power and distance. Do the same exercise using the outside of the foot and switching feet.

Three side notes:

a. Inevitably, especially with younger kids, you will run into a kid who starts crying, either because he thinks he is no good or maybe he ran into another player. In my case a kid told me outright: I don't want to do the exercises because I don't like soccer and my parents forced me to take this! Don't try to force them to play. Just let them be and tell them to take a water break and eventually they will come back. Every once in a while ask them if they feel better.

b. When the kids take water breaks, it's hard to get them back. They are kids and like chatting on the sidelines. Go the middle of the circle, blow your whistle and yell: Last one here will do 1000 push ups! The kids will start running and will be there in no time. The only drawback is that they all point to the last guy and want him to do 1000 push ups! I have not found a good answer for that yet. I usually tell them that he will do it later.

c. Always be on alert for untied shoe laces. They can cause injuries. The only thing is that you should try not to embarass the kids who don't know how to tie their shoe laces. Don't ask them to tie their shoes, just say: "come here, let me tie your shoe for you."

Heading Exercises

Kids are scared of heading the ball. Once I had a very good player in my training session who absolutely refused to head the ball, even when I pitched it from very close. He just had a head-o-phobia. So how did I get him to head the ball? the simple answer is: I didn't. No reason to force the issue. He will come around it. Afterwards I mentioned it to his father and he said: yeah I know... he doesn't like to head the ball and I don't try to force it either.

1. To get everyone used to the idea of heading and learning correct techniques, take a bunch of helium filled small balloons (preferrably size of a soccer ball) to the field with you. Have each player hold on to the string, jump up and head the ball. They should be heading with the front of the forehead, they should keep their eyes open all the time and close their mouths. Let them know that if the balloon touches their nose or any other part of their heads aside from the forehead, they are not hitting it correctly. The nice thing about the balloons is that once they head the balloons, it will come right back to them so they can keep repeating the exercise.

Let go of the balloons altogether to celebrate our first step into heading the soccer ball.

2. The classical exercise is to pair players in two lines facing each other (2 or 3 feet apart) . One group should throw the ball to the other one while the partner heads it back to him. Next, they can switch. Make them go a little further apart and repeat. At all times they should keep their eyes open and keep their mouths shut.
One important note is that kids tend to jump up and head the ball with the top of their heads. Show them how much more power they get behind the ball if they bend their backs and thrust onto the ball instead. If you have to, ask them do this exercise without the ball. Just bend back and thrust forward. The power should come from their whole body. Some people are more comfortable with putting one foot forward when heading. That's fine too. Whatever is more comfortable for them.

3. Once they get good at this (and especially with older kids), you can try the same exercise, except this time both players head the ball back and forth to each other. This one is a bit harder and takes some time. But you can start by asking them to keep the ball in the air for two consecutive headers and then increase to 3 and so on.

4. One guy crosses the ball from the side of the field while everyone else runs into it to head it into the goal. This is a fun exercise but make sure everyone tries to do it and nobody is standing around watching.

By the way, one point is that if you are concentrating on one aspect of the players technique, do not try to correct other aspects of their game at the same time. For example in the above exercise, the object is heading. If a player does not cross well, don't worry about it. There will be plenty of time to work on that. For now just concentrate on one thing and that's heading the ball.

Dribbling Exercises

You can tell the kids a million times to hold their heads high when dribbling the ball but it doesn't work. In fact the more you cut down on the speeches, the more time you will have on training.
Here are some simple dribbling exercises:

Note: every kid needs a soccer ball:

1. A soccer field's center circle is your friend. Take the kids to the circle and have them dribble around with the ball. They don't have to go fast but they should try to keep the ball on the line. After a few minutes, half of them should turn around and go the other direction. For sure they will run into each other. It's now time to tell them to keep their heads high so they can see where they are going.

Take a water break.

2. Have the kids dribble around the circle again. On the whistle each player should dribble into the circle, cross the center of the circle and get to the other side of the circle and start dribbling around the circle again. You can imagine that all the kids will run into each other in the middle of the circle. So they are forced to keep their heads up.

Take a water break.

3. Use the inside area of one-half of the circle. Have everyone dribble inside the half-circle. They should not be running into each other. They should keep dribbling around. After a while when the kids start getting tired, you will see that they start walking with the ball. It's fine. At this point get in the circle yourself and start kicking their balls out. The kids should be forced to turn their backs when you approach them to protect their soccer ball. Otherwise you will kick their ball out and away and they will have to run to get it back.
Alternatively, take away the soccer balls from two of the kids and have them kick other kids balls out of the circle.

4. When designing your own exercises, always remember the 3 L's:
a. No Lines - As you can see in the above exercise, all the kids are involved all the time. No standing in boring lines.

b. No Laps - Kids can get their workout during the well-designed exercises. No need for the boring laps which takes away the kids energy without achieving much.

c. No Lectures - I touched on this before. You can tell kids individually about their mistakes but do not hold up the whole group to explain something to one kid, unless it's real important for everyone. Keep the flow of the exercises going.

My First Season Coaching Kids Soccer

This past Spring was my first season coaching soccer at WestU. Soccer Club in Houston, Texas. I have played soccer almost all my life but did not know much about coaching. In December I took a full weekend course for an "E License" which is the first step in getting started, at least in Texas. It proved to be an invaluable experience. The course was well taught and there were lots of great points discussed. But what's a course without the practical experiences of working with kids to find out which exercises work and which ones do not! (By the way, the word "Drill" is frowned upon because it implies brain-less activities whereas "exercise" does not. Just like the word "shooting the ball" is preferred over "kicking the ball". But hey, I am not a purist!)

Having had an "E License" I called around and found out that West U. had a good soccer club. After several unanswered emails and phone messages, I was finally able to find some people who sent me in the right direction. To make the long story short, I finally got to talk to the right people and after a couple of weeks, they asked me to coach one of U-10 boys recreational teams. They have a whole different division called Express Soccer which is more competitive and is on a try-out basis. Unfortunately they said that the coach in the competitive division does not do much besides showing up for the games. But what I was looking for was to gain first-hand experience directly coaching kids. I was not ready to have someone else train my team.
They also mentioned that Spring soccer at this club is a bit more relaxed so that parents can take a break from intensive Fall soccer.

After attending a Monday night trainer led session, I decided to ask the coordinator to allow me to have a Saturday morning session of my own so that I could directly train my team and also any other kid from other teams who likes to attend. Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. was a hard sell to the parents but they got used to it quickly. Additionally after a few weeks the kids were looking forward to these practices mainly because they were fun and intense at the same time.

This is where I gained invaluable experiences in different exercises that I have decided to share and discuss with any coach who cares to read this weblog. So, off to exercises we go. By the way, we were able to beat all the teams this season! Some of the scores were so lop-sided (10-0, 11-1, etc.) that the coordinator emailed me with his concern about kids in other teams getting demoralized and asked me to ease up after a few goals.