Coaching Youth travel soccer, I don't know anything about soccer (1 Viewer)

[Dickies]

@Dickies

Sounds like the parents are forcing him to play and he does not want to. Being that this is rec, I think that they do have a right to be upset about the 10 mins of playing time. 

Does he ever talk to you about things he likes. Maybe use that to create a game during training. Maybe he gets into it. I used to play candy mountain with my young kids. Make a square with some cones. The ball was the kids candy bag. Each side of the square was a different candy (hershey, kisses, krackle etc. The kids picked) Then I would yell out a candy and they would have to dribble the ball to that side. I bought some candy and at the end of training handed it out. 

You can really sub anything in for candy in that one. I also had a shrek and toy story game. And something with animals that I vaguely remember. Just pick something her likes and see if that helps. And play him just as much as the other kids. Its rec 4v4.

They are definitely forcing him to play, and I completely understand why they were upset because my #1 priority is finding a way to get everyone equal playing time.  When I signed up for this it didn't even cross my mind I would have a kid that absolutely refuses to play.  Would you force him to play even though he is constantly asking to come out, and conversely would you force him to get back in even though he refuses? 

I'm thinking of asking one of his parents to help with getting him back in the game because I'm not comfortable with physically forcing a 7 year old onto the field.  

As for drills, I'm pretty sure he's way into Star Wars, so I'll see if I can incorporate that into training.

 

[SwampDawg]

@Dickies I've experienced that with a kid or two in baseball.

Find out if he has a position he does like (I thought the same as you with being the keeper).

Encourage and do what you can but I don't believe in forcing the kid. At half time if he refused to go in when you asked him in the first half have your assistant go over and relay to his parents you are trying to get him in the game but he is refusing to go in, how would they like to handle it? You need to be there for all 8 kids and while it is rec and every kid should play equal as you said you can't physically force a 7 year old on to the field. I would just keep the parents over informed and let then know every time he refuses. They will either see he doesn't want to be there at all or they will get tired of being bugged and maybe talk to him. Unfortunately some parents never get that their kids just don't like a sport, I've seen U13 kids that the parents basically drop off and use it as a baby sitting service. 

 

[AcerFC]

@Righetti

2-2-3

The one girl you lost make that much of a difference. 

 

[Worm]

My 7/8 year old team is 3-3 I think. This past Saturday I took out my good goalie in the 4th quarter and moved her to striker to try to tie it up at 1. They did and it was awesome. And then with less than 30 seconds to go they scored an own goal to lose.

 

[SwampDawg]

For what my opinion is worth for those with kids moving along we moved this year (U13) for the first time to a pay to play premier program from our little town travel club and couldn't be happier. I'm sure every pay club is different and you need to look at them closely but my son is loving it and you can see marked improvement on things like first touch and just overall strategy. With our local club travel team he was one of the top players but had kids due to our club size that really wanted to be and should have been rec on his team and that made it so he got by on being more athletic and having some natural ball skill. Now he is on the B team for his age group but it is still a solid group (They had about 50 kids tryout for their two teams) but a little less pressure then the A team which is top 10 in Pennsylvania and just playing with all kids of equal or even higher skill level he has had to step his game up. The practices are much sharper and productive because you have all the kids focused and not some just working on basic dribbling or running around aimlessly. The club uses the same philosophy of building out of the back with an attacking 4-4-3 and teaches it to all their age groups which is nice. It took him a little while to find his niche spot, the coach really wanted him at left wing but he is naturally defensive in his thought process (be it soccer, basketball or baseball) so he has settled into playing left back and will occasionally still play some wing depending on the rotation. Where I really noticed the improvement was he has played a couple games with his old club team (we secondary rostered him with them) and while he looked good before you can now see when he went back and played in the county travel league the game had totally slowed down for him, there was no nervousness on the ball and he would take his time, create space for himself and make passes to the right spot.

The team as a whole has had a great season and the kids have been awesome, they all get along and really seem to enjoy each other. While I cared more about his development, winning always is more fun. They won their first tournament going 4-0, and while they have 2 wins, 3 losses and a draw in the other two tournaments the wins they had were against the eventual champions and the only losses those team suffered in the tournaments. One of those they beat was a top 25 team in NJ in their age bracket. In their league play they are 4-1-1 with two weekends and 3 games to play. The biggest bummer has been the weather and constant rain and needing to double up games, hopefully we somehow avoid the rain Saturday and get our two games in.

It was a lot more pricey then the local travel team but the development has proved to be worth it so far and it is his favorite sport so we've dropped baseball and he'll just play basketball over the winter so that he still has a sport with all his school friends. I only really wish we had done it one year earlier, I think U12 would have been the perfect age to make the switch.

 

[Lehigh98]

Not sure if you guys do fundraisers for your teams (I'm not a big fan) but a squares pool is easier than washing cars or running a bake sale.  I usually forget and don't get one setup in time but I finally did this year.  There's a month left before the superbowl if you'd also like to give it a shot.  Here's a link to a website that will manage the grid and signups for you (for $16) but you still need to do the payments separately.  I told people to bring me cash or send to me via Paypal.  If you can sell $20 squares, the team gets $1000... $10 squares would be $500, etc.

https://www.superbowlsquares.org

Here's how I customized for our team...

https://www.superbowlsquares.org/PFLV07

 

[Lehigh98]

You guys playing any indoor during the winter?  We don't have alot of options but we have a local dome with a couple decent sized fields.  Play is 6v6 on the smaller field but the benefit is that it forces the kids to focus on first touch and being more active with fewer kids in a tighter space.  Downside is that its kind of luck of the draw for what other teams sign up as far as the competition level, plus the league has had to combine two years into one to have enough teams (U10 + U11 and U12 + U13).  Our U11 may not lose a game but our U12 may not win one.  

Other option was a smaller turf facility (where we practice) playing 3v3 with no goalie.  At first I was interested for even more touches and action but competition level when we did that last year was pretty bad.  We've struggled with possession and passing backwards on the big field and the 6v6 lets us work on moving the ball around the whole field a little better too.  Looks like we'll enter at least one 3v3 futsal type gym tourney too though.

 

[Ned]

You guys playing any indoor during the winter?  We don't have alot of options but we have a local dome with a couple decent sized fields.  Play is 6v6 on the smaller field but the benefit is that it forces the kids to focus on first touch and being more active with fewer kids in a tighter space.  Downside is that its kind of luck of the draw for what other teams sign up as far as the competition level, plus the league has had to combine two years into one to have enough teams (U10 + U11 and U12 + U13).  Our U11 may not lose a game but our U12 may not win one.  

Other option was a smaller turf facility (where we practice) playing 3v3 with no goalie.  At first I was interested for even more touches and action but competition level when we did that last year was pretty bad.  We've struggled with possession and passing backwards on the big field and the 6v6 lets us work on moving the ball around the whole field a little better too.  Looks like we'll enter at least one 3v3 futsal type gym tourney too though.

We're all futsal during the winter, but have our own indoor facility where they train playing more 6v6 style soccer (when they're not doing drills).