Coaching Under 8's Soccer

I'm coaching my six year old son's Soccer team again this year. It's our second year playing/coaching and so far it's been a pretty tough season. The team consists of seven boys and a solitary girl all aged six or seven.

We have retained a nucleus of last years team with just two new players joining the squad so that has helped with everyone already knowing each others game. Games played with five a side with no goal keepers on a 1/3 size pitch.

Jack and I missed the first four games of the season while were were on vacation and the team did pretty well losing just one of the four games, scoring 15 goals and conceding 6. They were grading games however and now that we have been placed in a division with teams of similar abilities we have been finding it a challenge. We have won just one of our last six games. The games have all been pretty close with our largest defeat being by 3-0. We have scored 6 goals and conceded 13.

This bad run has really started to test me as a coach also. The difficulty with coaching seven year olds is that it is extremely hard to get them to play to any sort of a game plan. At this age they just want to get out and play the game and sometimes I wonder whether as a coach of midget soccer (or any childrens sports team) it is us parents that strive for the wins more so and feel the losses more than the players themselves.

As a coach of kids you need to somehow be able to get the best out of kids with a wide range of skills, personalities and temperaments. Our team, like most I guess, has a mix of talented players, some less skilled but none the less hard triers, through to others that for most of the time seem to be in their own world oblivious to the game. One way of getting everyone involved is to give everyone a role to play and give them specific instructions on what you want them to do. As I said above, these instructions are often quickly forgotten in the mayhem of a game but gradually we are getting there.

The other aspect about coaching which I am quickly becoming acutely aware of is the pressure to win is as high as you would expect from a national league side. As I also mentioned above, sometimes it is the parents that create that pressure with our own huge desire to see our children succeed. I feel the losses as hard as anyone, but kids are kids and they quickly forget.

This week at practise, I had an intense discussion with one parent (I might as well call him my assistant coach) who it is clear has very differing views to mine on how we should be coaching the team. I am inclined to just let the kids play the game and let the game be the teacher, while offering bits of advice here or there. My assistant can be a lot more direct, is often in players' ears constantly, telling them where they should be and what they should be doing. I don't think that's an effective way to get the best out of seven year olds and I prefer to offer positive feedback and praise to someone who has done something well rather that come down hard on a kid for making a mistake. We need to let these kids learn the game their way, in there own time and from the mistakes that they make.

Every week we go close and today was no different. We played the side that beat us 3-0 six weeks ago. We were up 1-0 at half time but unfortunately let in two second half goals to go down 2-1.

At the end of the game I asked the opposition coach how his season was going. He said they had not yet lost a game and that the two games against us had been their closest and toughest games.

Next week is another game.

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