By Mike Woitalla
I have often wondered what goes on in the minds of 6-year-old American children who are told they’ve been signed up for soccer. I imagine they think thatmeans they’re going to be playing soccer.
Then they show up for practice, and do drills. The playing, “the scrimmage,” is a few minutes at the end, served up as a reward forsuffering through the boring stuff like ice cream after eating the green beans.
I wrote about this practice of treating scrimmage like dessert years ago, but it came to mind after spending my first practice with 7-year-olds inquite a while.
The boys show up after a long day of school with enough energy to power a small town. They’re desperate to play. Why not let them play as soon as they arrive?
Ibrought this up with longtime youth coach, Nick Lusson, the Executive Director of the Dublin United Soccer League and head coachof the W-League’s Bay Area Breeze in Northern California.
Lusson had toured youth academies in Japan and described the sceneat practices:
“When the first kid that shows up, it’d be 1v1 with the coach. Then the second kid shows up and it’s 2v1 against the coach. The third kid makes it 2v2 and then with the fourthkid arriving, the coach steps out and they play 2v2.
“With each additional arrival the game grew until everyone was there at practice. The coaches would then let the game go for a while andthat was the first phase of their training session — sometimes using it to check in with the parents or talk with the other coaches a bit as they watched.
“This was primarily done withpre-pubescent ages as there are concerns around proper injury-prevention warm-ups once the kids are older.”
Lusson said the Vissel Kobe director told him the idea came from the French soccerfederation.
Lusson started experimenting with this method of beginning a training session at Dublin United with the younger players.
“Kids are running into practice from the parkinglot to the field much more than before,” Lusson says. “They’re starting their practice with something fun and exciting that they like to do and that they have some control over. We let them just playin a more unstructured manner. … We try to prevent our coaches from doing any coaching in this opening game.
“Coaches are encouraged to play with them and have fun with it. The goal is togive them that feeling of freedom that comes with pick-up soccer and also ‘fill the emotional tank’ to start practice as our friends at PCA [Positive Coaching Alliance] like to put it.
“On the sport psychology side, there’s the theory of motivation that says motivation is derived from a sense ofself-efficacy and control, so we try to provide that through this piece and it helps start them off on the right foot for a good training session. We then always try to end every session with a goodchunk of time devoted to just playing, and that’s where the coach will give more direction.”
Lusson says that a common reaction was the players thought it was “some sort of trick”– too good to be true:
“It made me realize how over-programmed they can become with this pattern of the ‘boring stuff’ at the beginning and all the fun saved for theend.”
Besides free play giving them the best chance to fall in love with the sport in way they’ll need to if they’re to excel at it — it uses up some energy so they’reless rambunctious when in the next phase you introduce a more complicated exercise.
The concept also reminds me of some of the best advice from the U.S. Soccer Federation’s “
“Coaches should think of themselves moreas facilitators, monitors, guides or even participants.”
And:
“Set up situations where the players can learn by playing the game. The game is the best teacher for youngplayers.”
(Mike Woitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, coaches youth soccer for Bay Oaks/EastBay United SC in Oakland, Calif and is a Grade 8 referee. He is the co-author, with Tim Mulqueen, of
We have doing this at our club for a few years now. A lot of coaches probably cringe at this idea since they lose a bit of control of their session. Kids love it though!
Nick Lusson is a great DOC, always looking to learn and teach. Even for the older kids +11 years, after a good warm up I have them play some kind of game that reinforces the days theme… sharks and minnows, pac man, unleash the dogs, heading games. They still have fun with this at older ages. Studies show that learning happens best when their is a release of dopamine/happiness before the instruction. No better way than to get everyone engaged and smiling.
I think beginning with games is a good idea maybe every other or every third session. I run practices for many players at a time and often we have ‘festivals’ which is a practice where all activities are game based. I certainly see the value of simply letting kids play the game.Lets not forget though practice is only ‘green beans first’ if the initial activities are dull and monotonous. An enthusiastic and well prepared coach can make the whole practice appear like a bowl of ice cream (enough of the food analogy now!)There is still a lot to be said for the ‘traditional’ practice approach of warm-up, skill teaching, game it’s all about finding the balance.
Excellent idea!
This is especially good for teams when kids all show up at different times, often the case in busy cities at rush hour. As soon as four players are there, I start with a two-touch game and gradually build it up until everyone’s there, usually about 15-20 minutes into practice.
Bravo. A terrific idea for “the gathering time.” Why not make practices in general games/puzzles for youth players to solve. If they like video games, why shouldn’t they like soccer practice.
Great idea for all the reasons given.I’ll bet more players will show up on time too. It’s supposed to be fun.
Another advantage of starting practice with this sort of activity is that kids will want to get there early.
Doesn’t anyone find it just a little ironic that, historically, the world’s players (both famous and annonymous)just played games to fall in love with the sport? Youth coaches should be looking no further than how to organize two teams to compete between goals to solve most of our youth development woes.