Stage One - U8
Stage One is the introductory, exploratory stage for kids. They are meeting the ball and the game and the practice environment, literally feeling their way into soccer. The most important considerations for practice and games are freedom to move, positive encouragement, trial and error and fantasy.
Practices should be fun: stimulating, low-key, child-like, dynamic events. The central elements of every practice should be the natural curiosity and eagerness of the child... and the ball. The emphasis at practice: touching the ball, becoming friends with the ball, understanding how it moves and acts.
During games, coaches are on the field helping players to their positions and understanding the play around them. There should be virtually no talk about tactics and no fitness work. No laps, or running without a ball, or calisthenics, etc. There may be goalkeepers, but no real goalkeeper training!
Six through Eight Year-Olds
Technical Guidelines:
Continuing to become "friends with the ball": maximum ball touches and repetitions in footwork activities.
Starting and stopping with the ball; changing direction with the insides and outsides of both feet.
Turning through 180 degrees with the ball with the soles of the feet and the insides and outsides of the feet: emphasis on balance.
Controlling rolling balls (passes) with the insides and outsides of the feet: beginning to develop good "first touch" with ground balls.
Accurate passes over 10 to 15 yards and beginning to kick with the instep, and players are beginning to consider the "weight" of passes.
Tactical Guidelines:
Beginning to get a sense of the game and its demands and possibilities; beginning to see soccer in terms of teamwork.
Learning to relax with the ball and to protect it: "Try to get your body between the ball and that opponent who wants to take it from you!"
An assertive attitude about individual defending: "Press the ball when you lose it! Really hassle the ball possessor!"
Spreading out and making the field big when your team has the ball. When your team does not have the ball, getting together a little, trying to protect the middle of the field and the space in front of your goal.
Introduction of the concept of the "three main moments of soccer": our team has the ball, our team does not have the ball, and the transition between possession and loss of possession and the reverse.
Players are cultivating a "What if?" or "What's next?" mentality.
Fitness Guidelines:
Emphasis on balance and "playing on one leg" - differentiating between standing leg and playing leg.
Nothing without the ball.
The Practice Environment:
Reliance on the idea that "The game is the greatest teacher": virtually no coaching. Letting the kids play! Perhaps a 20 second comment every four or five minutes.
High tolerance for mistakes and trial and error.
No specializing by position.
Practice is "Play Time".
These years are all about coordinating the nervous system and the muscles.
#3 ball, small goals.
The week's practice is 60 minutes long.
Games:
Equal playing time.
Players play all the "positions".
6 v 6
No stress at all on winning and losing. Total focus is on enjoyment and the future; virtually no mention of results.