Soccer has a number of basic skills, or techniques, players have to learn, such as:
Dribbling
Receiving and making passes
Shooting
Heading
Players also have to learn to make good decisions during the game, such as:
When to dribble
When to pass
Whom to pass
Players’ decisions are referred to as tactical decisions.
Players must master the basic techniques before they can learn the tactical side of the game. Think of techniques as vocabulary, and tactics as the grammar rules for forming sentences and paragraphs. Now, imagine a young immigrant who arrives in America without a word of English. It’s pretty obvious that before we can teach this immigrant about the rules for joining nouns, verbs, and adverbs to form a sentence, we have to give him a chance to accumulate enough vocabulary. The bigger his vocabulary, the better will he be able to use grammar to articulate his thoughts.
In terms of soccer development, your child is just beginning his/her ‘schooling’. We use the word ‘schooling’ here because there are many similarities between a regular school and a youth club, which can be considered as essentially a soccer school.
Some techniques should be taught before others. The first technique that children should learn is dribbling. The ability to dribble is absolutely critical since dribbling is the foundation skill and preparation for all the other fundamental techniques of soccer, such as receiving, passing and shooting. When players are receiving the ball and making preparation touches prior to passing or shooting, they are essentially engaged in a mini-dribble. Young players need to learn to dribble within a variety of playing situations:
dribbling forward unopposed
changing speed and direction with the ball
shielding the ball from opponents
dribbling past an opponent
dribbling to get away from pressure
A limited ability to dribble leads to a limited range of passing or shooting. There are also times in the game, when the player with the ball has no passing options and the only way out of tight pressure is to dribble.
Dribbling forms the foundation for all the other skills; however there are many other reasons why we need to focus on dribbling at U-6/U-8:
It takes years to become a comfortable and confident dribbler. Players have to learn to combine body control, agility, coordination and balance with the mechanics of dribbling and the sooner they start, the better. Just like any complex bio-mechanical skill such as skating or gymnastics, the later you start, the harder it is to achieve perfect form.
The process of learning to dribble involves trial and error. At first, the players’ rudimentary attempts at dribbling will often result in failure as they discover the contrast between a soft touch and a hard touch on the ball. The players will slowly develop a ‘feel’ for the ball as they experiment at controlling and propelling it. Young players don’t get discouraged easily if they don’t succeed. Players of this age do not possess the analytical thought process to look back or think ahead. If we wait for the players to mature before we emphasize dribbling, many of them will lose their confidence if they do not succeed and will become reluctant to dribble.
In 3v3 and 4v4 play, the fields are so small that dribbling is always an option since the ball is always just a few yards away from shooting range. Once the game moves to the larger sized fields, dribbling becomes less effective on its own and must be combined with passing to get the ball from point A to point B.
It’s better to go through the process of trial and error when game results are not important and standings are not kept. At the U-10 and older ages, game results assume more importance, making it hard for the parents and coaches to show patience and tolerance for mistakes, and putting added pressure on players to ‘get rid of the ball’ rather than risk losing it. Once games become competitive, the resultant environment is not ideal to start learning how to dribble.
Most coaches and parents of beginner players unknowingly emphasize the wrong skills. In a typical U-6/U-8 club play, the players are encouraged by both the parents on the sidelines and the coaches to ‘boot’ the ball up the field. Shouts of “get rid of it!” and “kick it!” are all too common. Players are so indoctrinated to ‘kick it forward’ that very few of them dare to get out of pressure by dribbling. The fact is that the players are asked to execute a skill (kicking) that they would automatically learn anyway as they grow up, even if they didn’t play soccer.
The reality is that players are controlled like puppets by the adults to such an extent that they are not thinking for themselves and are afraid to do anything but kick the ball. Players who clearly have plenty of time on the ball with no pressure anywhere near, are still kicking it forward without any thought or skill. This type of mindless play is usually not corrected by the coaches and is allowed to occur time and again. The end result is that we are ‘coaching’ the skill of dribbling OUT of the players. We take away the natural ‘comfort’ with the ball - forever!
The underlying issue has to do with how adults look at the game and analyze it. We all accept that results at U-6 and U-8 do not matter and that there is no need to keep standings. Understandably, it’s hard for parents to watch their child lose the ball in front of his/her own goal and for the other team to score butthe next time your child has the ball in his/her half, please try to refrain from shouting “kick it!” Every time they “kick it”, they lose another opportunity to learn to dribble. The buzz phrase of our program is:Soft first Touch’. Every time your player goes to the ball, his/her first touch on the ball should be a soft one, meaning…NO KICKING!
“What about passing?” Isn’t soccer a team game and passing a fundamental team skill? Passingimplies an intention by a player to direct the ball accurately towards a teammate. It implies decision making. Do not confuse passing with kicking. Passing means propelling the ball in a specific direction. You will not see any passing in a U-6 game, and very little in a U-8 game. Passing is simply beyond the ability of most U-6 and U-8 players. Kicking is the easiest to learn, dribbling is next, and passing is the hardest to master for young players. Think of dribbling as ‘passing to oneself’. If players cannot pass to themselves, how can they be expected to pass to a teammate 15 yards away? What young players do is actually kick, not pass, and the cheers they hear from you when they kick only serve to reinforce this bad habit.
For this reason, we ask you to stop shouting to your players to “Kick the ball”. If game results truly don’t matter, no one should be overly concerned if a player tries to dribble and loses the ball. First touch must be a SOFT TOUCH.
Now that we explained the program’s skill objective for your child’s technical development, we would like to make you aware of another important objective, in the area of decision making. Children aged 4 to 8 are naturally dependent on their parents for many of their daily needs. Players will tend to look to their parents for help since they are conditioned to be dependent on them. Therefore, another important objective of our U-6/U-8 program is to wean players out of their dependency on adults during games. This is so very crucial for the development of soccer players. It’s the player who must make the decisions on the field. In soccer, coaches have a lot less influence and power during games than in some of the other traditional American sports. Soccer players must learn to think for themselves and the sooner they learn to stand on their own feet, the better. Since results do not matter at these age groups, no one should be overly concerned if players make mistakes that lead to goals. Parents and coaches must resist the urge to tell their players what to do.
As parents, naturally you are mainly concerned with the welfare and development of your child. When your child goes to school, you are really only interested in how he/she is progressing in school. Do you really care how the class is doing as a whole? As long as your child is doing well and the teacher is keeping pace with the required academic standards for his/her age, you are happy. You don’t go around boasting that your child’s class average was higher than the class next door. The class concept in school is seen as a logistical convenience where children of like-age are grouped together to learn academics and social skills within the dynamics of a group. Nothing more, nothing less.
The same concept should be applied to youth sport. Just like a classroom, ayouth team should be seen as a convenient way to group players of similar age and ability together, to learn how to play soccer, as well as develop social skills. Nothing more, nothing less.
Parents and coaches have a hard time accepting this notion. They let the teamconcept take over and become the focus of the soccer activity. It’s no longer “my son is going toplay today”. It’s become “OUR TEAM is playing against THEIR TEAM today”.
As parents, you should only be concerned with one thing: Is your child having fun? And is he/she being given the opportunity to play and learn the game? How the team is doing has absolutely no impact on the future well being of your child. Mia Hamm is not playing for the National Team because her U-10 team won the state championship. She is in the national team because she has developed into a skillful and athletic player. Your child might develop into a high level player or he/she might not. As long as he/she is having fun and developing a lifetime habit of healthy participation in sport, that’s all you can ask for. The team is there to serve your CHILD’S needs. Your child is not there to serve the team’s needs. If the team’s performance produces strong emotions in you, you need to step back and take a deep breath and suppress these emotions. The team is just a way to engage abunch of kids in play. Nothing more, nothing less. Tomorrow, your child willbe part of another team.
Parents must beware of coaches who seem intent in building a ‘dynasty’ at these young ages. If a coach approaches you with the intent to recruit your child into his/her team because “He wants to build a strong team”, you should question his agenda. The chances are he/she will emphasize the wrong type of development and training. The chances are that he/she will replace your child down the road when a better player crops up.
increase the number of ball touches by all the players
The ‘new ball method’ eliminates restarts such as throw-ins and corner kicks and keeps the ball in play continuously. Restarts might be important to the game results at the highest level of play, but they have no relevance or developmental benefits at the U-6 or U-8 level. Since the objective of the KINS Program is to teach players to dribble, every aspect of the traditional game that reduces the opportunity to dribble is removed.
The basic principle of this method is that, when a ball goes out of bounds, the coach throws a new ball into play. Experiments with this method, proved that, on average, players’ ball touches increased two and threefold. This was determined by counting the number of touches per player under the traditional rules and comparing to the number of touches under the ‘new ball method’. Tracking the amount of actual playing time revealed that the ball was in play for only 45% of the time under traditional rules, and almost 100% of the time under the ‘new ball method’.
To implement the ‘new ball method’, use either one coach, or two coaches, to throw the balls. If using two coaches, each coach should be in charge of half a field. The coach(s) should hold a number of balls, ready to be thrown, one at a time.
When a ball goes out of bounds, the coach yells “new ball!” and throws a new one in. The players will learn quickly to react to the new ball.
Always throw the ball into the unoccupied space. Players will learn to move towards the ball (Do not throw the ball too high in the air since the players are not yet skilled enough to control a bouncing ball).
Use this method to get the non-assertive players involved, by throwing the ball towards them. This will help bring them out of their shell. If the players are really shy, simply place the ball at their feet.
If one team is dominating the game, the advantage can be shifted to the other team by throwing the ball accordingly.
Use this to break up a ‘beehive’. If all the players are bunched up around the ball, shout “new ball” and throw one into the open space.
Remember to always praise the players for every attempt. Keep them excited and motivated. This method will speed up the game; will produce more goals and more excitement.
