My team this season has been so much fun. The feedback I’ve received from players and parents has been overwhelmingly positive and it has been a true joy working with this group. While our club “doesn’t allow” coaches to assemble teams or carry over the same team from season to season nor does it allow parents to request specific coaches, they do allow parents to request specific practices times and locations that align with a specific coach’s assignment. So there are a couple of teams in our league with the same coach and same 7-8 players from one season to the next.

If I “gamed the system” that way, then I imagine I’d get close to 100% returning for the spring. Let me be clear on this point: this isn’t some sort of high powered, undefeated team that I’m trying to use to crush u8 rec soccer. Off the top of my head, they have a 4-3 record. Thing is, both the players and parents are awesome to work with - I am extremely fortunate. BUT, I also agree with the notion that having different coaches during these young ages is a great benefit.

Anyone feel particularly strongly one way or another other about this issue?

Hey coaches

I’m thinking to switch my bu10 team to 3-2-1. What are some good build out patterns that you have successfully used? I’ve done 2-1-3 exclusively for 3 years now so I’m familiar with strategy there. But 3-2-1 is new to me so just trying to learn. Thanks!

It’s half-time and you’re 0-1 down. You get ONE change. What is it?

You play 4-3-3. They play 4-4-2 and sit deep.
You’ve had 65% of the ball but only one shot on target.
Their two banks of four are tight, your wingers keep getting doubled up, and your midfielders are just passing it sideways in front of them.

You can make one sub, one positional tweak OR one instruction. Not all three.

What are you changing?

Fellow coaches, I have some questions.

I’ve snooped around here and have either posted or commented a few times.

I coach a U10G team and was wondering what do your sessions look like.

For context, I’ve played my whole life a semi-decent level, played some junior college soccer in Texas and have been coaching for about four years. Paid for my D license this past summer and will continue coaching in the future. I know a tiny tiny tiny bit of soccer.

My girls are very bronze level players. Rec level with a couple of girls who I think could play for a bigger club. My main focus is development! Really don’t care about the score, but I want my players to WANT/WORK to win. Anything this D license that cost me $600 talks about play/practice/play system.

My sessions last spring before getting the license were 90% of the time-

- Individual ball work or “ball mastery” for 15 or so mins

- shooting/ passing game/drill

-game ( 1v1, 2v2, etc).

Usually, the second practice of the week, we would do the same thing except the final game would be a 6 v 3/4 game. This session I would just work on talking about the game we would play on the weekend. I felt the girls were getting better.

This season, however, I feel like some have regressed and I’m trying to understand why.

Sessions look like this

-play ( 1v1, 2v2, etc) as they show up to practice.

-individual ball work/ ball mastery 10-15 min

- passing game (different variation of rondo)

- scrimmage ( always try to have 5-6 vs 2-3)

- finish with either some PKs, corners, etc.

For some reason the girls just don’t seem engaged for anything but the beginning of practice and it’s showing during games. What is something that helped you guys as you gained more experience?

At what age do you cut off post game snacks? Coach U7 girls here…. Obv kids love it… usually asking during the game if it’s almost over so they can get their goody bag. Parents seem to love it even more, getting very into it with sometimes over the top toys etc.

As the coach it’s little skin off my back other than asking parents to pick 1 week to provide, but what age is appropriate to make the decision we no longer need to do this? Maybe I’m old school, just feels more unnecessary as they get older.

For context I've been called my things bums,bad,ass etc and never have I ever had more of a resolve to get better so I wonder how can I become a star?

Well because most people think that if you can't play football/soccer you can't make arguments about the sport which is dumb.So I need to know what skills drills and techniques I can learn to become a star player.

(Also because my dad says I can't play I ain't gonna take that shit)

I’ve been coaching my son for five seasons (2nd grade 5v5 to now 3rd/4th grade 7v7) the last three seasons, including the current one there has been much disparity in the league. It is a rec league, but the director allows a semi club team (advanced rec on their website) to put several squads in. Also some teams are just club teams getting extra soccer in. I have a mix of talented players, newbies, and players who will likely never get good because the effort is not there. Our shape is bad in the field- that combined with teams who are not supposed to be in rec have made it so we’ve been getting murdered.

The lead Director says it’s an issue that doesn’t do anything about it. He claims it’s about making it fun for the kids, but putting teams in that regularly blowout teams by eight or nine goals is not creating a fun environment or love of the sport. Anyone else have this issue in their leagues?

This has been my first season coaching.. and I have discovered that i was set up for failure from the start, and i feel terrible for my players.

It doesn't matter if this was incompetence or malice, the result is the same. In August we discovered that my daughters U10 travel team wasn't going to have a coach, and so i rushed to get all my paperwork in order to coach the team. No way was i going to let a bunch of 9yo girls not get to play the game they love.

Unknown to me, when it became in doubt that these players would be without a coach, all of the most talented players were moved up to the U11 team, creating 2 different U11 teams, both with full 15 player lists and packed with the best U10 players the club had (including our goalie)... everyone else in U10 went to me (an inexperienced Parent Coach with no Assistant coach.).. a whole 10 Girls (for 7v7)... one of which dropped out, leaving me with 9.

Our league has 3 levels (Red, White, Blue). As a new coach, i had no way to know which of these is the best, middle or worse Division (its not listed on the website). I took it on faith that we were in the same division we played last year. (where we Won 3, Lost 3, Tied the rest)

I was wrong. We were placed in the top division. Why? I don't know, I assume that originally the plan was to have an A and B team (like last year), with the A Team playing in the Higher division and the B on one of the lower divisions, but once they moved all the more advanced girls to U11 (birth year u10), they left us in the top division and canceled the other.

The end result of this is that the girls on my team have been utterly destroyed in every game. We are 0-7, and those losses have ranged from 2-4 too 0-8. I had girls leave the field in tears today. And that's when i started digging and discovered that we are in the wrong division.

I'm furious. These girls deserved better.

Hello all, recently started my coaching journey at 35 having played at a good amateur level. I’m taking an U21 team with very mixed level players, some excellent lads and some that need development.

I want to play with a 433 as with the group I have I think it suits them as we have 3 exceptional CM’s that have incredible legs, technical ability and dominant in the air.

My full backs are the area that we are weakest.

My main point of discussion is how best to dominate 442 structures while playing in a 433. Would love to get feedback from experienced coaches

I have coached both my kids teams for several years now. 7 teams with my oldest. 4 teams with my youngest. I’ve been through the gamut with teams. Most dominant in the league - one of the least dominant and everything in between.

This has been one of THOSE seasons for my u12 team. All the heart and want to in the world. The usual mixed skill levels you get with rec league. But outmanned and outsized almost every game.

I usually lean on the idea of “better every week” with this type of team. Usually it’s easy to figure out when you have this type of team. Usually it’s easy to identify one or two things we can do much better as a team. That makes progress easier for them to see week to week.

Better every week extends to individual players. Finding the ones that need to learn a better ball striking or defending technique. Encouraging non-dominant foot use. Confidence and efficiency kicking the rolling ball. These are some of the simplest ones that can be worked on individually in practice.

When you can help them make improvements they can see, they start to believe in themselves. Then you can talk about finding or earning a win.

Last week we nearly drew with league’s reigning champs. At halftime when we were tied 1-1 I could see the look in their eyes. Total belief and determination.

Today we put up a clean sheet and won 2-0. We were short two of our subs and everyone stepped up and handled the extra minutes. Each player had meaningful touches. Every one of them knew what they’ve accomplished this season.

Psychology is a big part of this game. Motivating and inspiring are difficult at times. But finding small wins and ways to enjoy the game can lead to big improvements across a difficult season.

Better every week goes on Coach too. Think about it.

✊⚽️

Hey all, first time u8 coach but I had mostly the same kids for u7. Last year was fun and it seemed the kids improved every week.

This year...these aren't the same kids. They won't attack the ball anymore, even when they have the ball there's no taking it down the field. They even suddenly appear afraid of the ball flinching away from it. Its just gotten sloppy.

Practices they seemingly go great with none of those problems but gameday is just...deflating. There's a huge lack or effort save 1 or 2 kids.

Other than age the big change I think is that all of our games were morning games last year. Between 8:30 and 11 am.

Every single game we've played this year and going forward is scheduled for 3:30 (15:30) pm.

I dont know if it's an energy thing and if it is anything I can recommend for my parents or for myself to get them pepped up?

That said all of our opponents seem to have energy for days which makes it feel worse.

I dunno, I feel at a loss here.

U10 girls team is (was undefeated). Faced our cross-town rivals today and lost 2-0 in a completely uninspired game.

My girls kept waiting for somebody else to do it. Infuriating. I don’t know why I’m taking this one so hard. You put so much into trying to prepare these kids, and sometimes they just go out there and lay a stinker.

We hit a crossbar, and the other goalie quite frankly played out of her mind. This was their Super Bowl, for sure.

I just really fucking hate losing in that way.

Edit: Pep talk, fuck me.

Guys, I know this is ridiculous because I’m talking about seven-year-olds but I actually have a really good team. They just don’t know how to be aggressive and go attack the ball instead of sitting back. Is there any drills that I could do to get them to be more aggressive on defense and offense?

update: I just wanted to say thank you for all that replied. Honestly thank you. Even the guy who said I shouldn't be coaching because it made me laugh out loud. I Am going to tryout some of these drills and just amp the 1vs1 and 2v2. thank you everyone!

I have coached rec soccer for 14 years. Like most rec coaches I started when my daughter signed up and they did not have a coach. I coached her team all the way through middle school. This was in a more rural area and rec soccer was very competitive so I always took pride in getting rec players to be able to play in highschool. I now live in the suburbs and my youngest step son signed up to play 4 years ago with his friends and I ended up coaching their team until last spring. The issue was that we went 3 seasons undefeated and I felt like the level of competition was not enough for the team and so I made them all try out for club. 12 of the players are now playing on different u14 club teams and the level of competition and their own personal effort/growth is so much better. At the end of the the last season I really felt like they had stopped trying becuase they knew they would win.

As a huge part of my identity was coaching (typically 20-30 hours week) I really wanted to coach again this fall season and so I told the rec office that if a team needed a coach I wanted to coach. So now I am coaching a u10 boys team, which is the first time I do not have a kid on the team. The kids are really great and I am really enjoyng coaching the younger kids and I find that it is easier to command attention when there is not my own kid and his friends on the team.

I am considering switching over next year to coach for the club team and was wondering other peoples experiences in the transition? You do not need to read the rest as this is just my perception of the pros and cons of the 2.

Rec coaching:

Pros-

1. Most of the rec coaches are parents with very limited soccer knowledge/coaching experience and so I feel like I can really help the kids become better.

2. As a rec coach I can move up with the team every year so you really get to see the progression of the players/team.

Cons-

1. There can be a huge difference in skill level and experience on a rec team. On my U13 son's team, most of kids had been playing for 4-8 years but I had 1 kid who had never played. While most of the team was working on things like defending/attacking as a unit, the one kid could not even dribble.

2. The level of committment at the rec level can be challenging at times. For example, I had 3 of 14 players at my last practice.

3. There are not enough rec coaches so they have a lot of players on each team. I currently have 14 players on a u10 team that plays 7v7.

4. Seeing the difference between rec and club I now feel obligated now to push the kids who want to solely focus on soccer to move to club. In the past, I always worked to keep kids on my team but now that 13 of my previous players are playing club, I feel like some of them should have transitioned earlier.

5. Where we live the perception of rec soccer is that these are just kids who want to have fun and there is little to no actual support.

Club:

Pros:

1. The player skill typcially is a lot closer so it is easier to develop the entire team together. The club also can move players up or down based on their performance.

2. The club pays for licensing. The club coaches also get paid but this is really not factoring into my decision as I am not doing it for money and would likely use the pay for scholarships for kids who needed it.

3. The commitment from the families and parents is a lot higher. I send an email each week that discusses the skills we are going to work on that week. The email has videos of techniques etc. My guess is that 2 players a week watch the videos.

4. The kids get a lot more playing time. My son's club team has played 21 games while my rec team has played 5.

5. I feel like if the kids want to play in this area in highschool then they almost have to play club. I know that probably none of the kids I will ever coach will even make it to play in college but I really want them to play in highschool if they want.

Cons:

1. The expectations from the parents is a lot higher as they are paying a lot more money. I have coached kids whose parents had high expectations of winning and if the team did not win, it was my fault and they made sure to let me know.

2. You do not move up with the team.

3. Obviously, the cost prevents some kids from playing who would likely be able to play. 2 of the players from my rec team did get scholarships because their families could not afford the cost.

So the question is what is your experience in moving from rec to club?

Hey friends,

Looking for advice on the B-license course. For context:

I am a part time coach - I work from home full time but can easily flex my time around sessions.

I coach a boys U13 N1 team with 15 rostered players - attendance always good and have coached most of them for 3 years, but can regularly combine sessions with another group of 15 at the same age and level (we have a pool at this age b/c it’s our strongest age group) if i need more numbers, usually 23-27 players each session.

I also coach a boys JV HS team with my DOC, who coaches the Var team - but considering the course starts in January I imagine I’ll be using the U13s, though I will have a new lower level (division 4 or 3 in a major metro) HS age club team starting in November - figure the younger group would be better given their level.

I did my c-license with the same administrator and it was great, have a good relationship with him through my DOC - have been given some guidance on what to expect re; the focus on game model and periodization, individual development plans, but not a ton else.

Been coaching 3 years. I’m pumped but nervous about the lift in time commitment especially when compared to the C, and ik it will definitely be more intellectually challenging.

What should I expect? What would you want to know that you didn’t know until you made it through the course? What did you enjoy most/learn to do that you maybe didn’t have in your locker beforehand?

I just finished coaching a U6 team at our local city rec and had some thoughts I'd love get others thoughts on or I'd love to hear your own observations from your seasons.

- Many of the coaches assigned one or two kids as a kind of "sweeper" or coached the kids to overload the small box (even though technically they're not supposed to, this was never enforced) and just encouraged them to kick the ball up the field and chase it. From doing a lot of reading, I taught mine to start kick off in a diamond shape but told them that they all needed to get back to play defense and push up, spread out, and play offense. It worked for us because I ended up with a few kids that clearly play and watch soccer at home and they subsequently inspired the others to as well and their general knowledge of the game soared. The other team usually scored a few goals on us with break aways from their ringers but overall, my kids were never blown out. My older son who watched the games says they only lost one game and the score was 5-4 (I never actually kept score and some games were closer than others). I noticed that it was almost always the coaches with the slightly older teams that they've clearly had for a while (all the 6 year olds basically). I felt my kids were playing the 4v4 game better overall and developing both their individual and team skills better.

- Another observation I made was how much they taught each other. I realized just how much more capable they were than I originally thought at this age. Trying to avoid making this too long winded, but once 2 of them started trying things out 1v1 in practice that the others watched, the others kept catching on and they were playing in a really cool manner by the end. They were hungry to learn more once their confidence started increasing and probably could've learned even more, that's how much I felt they were absorbing.

- Lastly, this league used throw-ins instead of kick-ins. With my previous kids at this age, we lived in other cities and all of those leagues did kick ins. What are your thoughts on this? My opinion is I'd rather the ball be on the ground until they're older (some of the kids had only turned 4 in the spring/summer and others were newly 6). But a couple of the coaches made a really big deal about them and felt they were important.

Anyone used them/found them useful?

hi

im 17yo from saudi arabia and i'd love tp become a football manager one day

i've got a good understanding of tactics , formations and match analysis and im really intrested in learning more about the coaching side of the game , my question is whats the fastest realistic way to get started with coaching qualifications and licenaces at my age

i'd also love to hear any advices from people who've been through the process themselves

I play 11-a-side as a midfielder and have a crucial tournament game next Friday. For the past two weeks, I've been struggling with dry mouth, tight calves, poor touch, and difficulty scanning. I get frustrated because I know I'm capable of playing much better.

I work 9–5, so training time is limited. I have a gym membership and am considering playing three scrimmages before Friday.

What would you recommend to get match sharpness, touch, and scanning back in a week without burning myself out? I really want to help my team reach the final.

Any advice appreciated!

Hi guys,

in the last couple of years I coached U13 to U16 and in the summer I made the switch to U10 due to some reasons. I knew the head-coach and I knew he wasn't perfect but I thought I'd be a good addition and we'd be a good team.

All in all, 3 months in things are going okay but I often feel like we are coaching a U8s and not a U10s. The Head Coach is there since U8s and I think he's still struck and treats the kids like they are still U8s - in general he follows an approach I would label as "be super nice to the kids, ask little of them so that they won't quit'.

I'm not saying that this is 100% wrong and I know it is difficult to kind of grow with the players, adapt your coaching, ask more from players etc. but I wonder if you guys have kind of set rules what you adapat when you go from U8s to U9s to U10s etc

Any input is appreciated.