Biggest challenge:  limited attention span and physical fatigue. They do not know how to pace themselves. They will go flat out till they drop. But: They will feel and express fatigue quicker when not stimulated, or bored. Don't train more than an hour.

Tools: Your own imagination, creativity and reaction to 'things' happening during practice. Have as many different activities ready as you can get in an hour. They don't have to all come out of a soccer coaching book, but they might be games you played at the boys and girls club, boy scouts, just adapted to where there are soccer balls involved.

Have them bring their own ball. Become very efficient in tying shoelaces.

Inform the parents during a meeting in the very beginning of the season about your (and YSI's) coaching philosophy, …

You need approximately 20 x 40 yards of open, preferably, grassy area.

You will be dealing with a wide spectrum of kids regarding their mental and physical development and endurance, different motivations to be on the team.

Concentrate on the three basic soccer skills: dribbling, passing, shooting.

Gradually introduce the rules of the game: throw-ins, goal kicks, punting. Emphasize the most basic once in the first two weeks. Let them touch the ball. Have at least 4 water breaks, but tell them they only last one minute. Otherwise there off playing with their sibling, pet, ant piles, … Make up names for your drills. Their concentration will last longer. Try to get into the psyche of the kids, adjust to their level, world.

Instead of running laps as a warm-up or conditioning drill,

• Have them dribble the ball over a well-defined obstacle course using the natural surroundings: standing and fallen trees, playgrounds with balance beams, things to climb over, under and through. Increase the distance and required skill level of the course throughout the season. Have team and individual time trials.
• Organize relay games.
• Play a tag game with or without the ball.

• Little kids living in Florida are warmed up by the time you get their attention. They jump out of their parents' car and run, jump, kick … Keep it to a minimum and include a ball. Use partners.
• Instead of kicking the ball over different distances to one partner or goals for long periods of time to work on shooting,

• Setting up a golf course with cones. Have them count how many shots it takes them to get through all the holes (or gates). Last shot can be into an open goal.
• Version of the 'around the world' basketball challenge. Place discs at different angles and distances of an open goal. Have one team compete for points against another. Add points for a goal, deduct for misses. Advance to where you put cones in the middle of the goal that can not be hit by the ball. The cones represent a goalie. This will teach them to aim for corners.
• Have to lines of players facing each other, all with a ball ready. Have coach and parents/volunteers run through the alley. The kids get a point if they can hip the parents below the knees (to keep it safe). Tell parents to jog slowly to avoid that they trip and fall.

Same set-up, but place a big ball in the middle and have the kids shoot at it, trying to push it over to the other team's side.

• Play shark and minnows, while dribbling ball. Encourage looking up. Progress to where sharks or minnows have run hand in had in pairs (blob)… Adjust size of the play area according to their skill level. Finish game with two or three winners instead of one.
• Play version of red light/green light
• Pac-man: one player or coach starts with ball in grid or circle. The others start without. If they get tagged they get their ball and also help tagging. Other version: 'Tagger' tries to kick the other players' ball out of grid. Players can return to grid three times. Advanced: When your ball gets kicked out, you stand in grid, legs spread and ball held overhead. You become 'untagged' if other player can dribble his ball through your legs. Or everybody tries to kick each other's ball out. Other version: two teams try to kick the other team's balls out of grid.
• Mine field: Have two teams in one grid. Place multiple discs in the grid. One team dribbles around and flips the discs up, the other one down. Stop to count every 30 seconds. Progress to where they have to dribble the ball through a designated area or the coaches' legs every time they flipped over a disc.
• Body part game: Dribble ball in grid. Coach calls out body part you need to use to control and stop the ball ASAP. Progress to just pointing at a body part, encouraging kids to look up while dribbling
• Put little gates or parents with spread out legs over an area. A point is scored every time they can dribble the ball through a gait. Note that you can not dribble the ball through the same gates twice in a row. Tell the human gates to change positions once in a while.
• Play frisbee soccer. Somebody throws a frisbee as far as they can. Everybody else dribbles to it. Whoever can place their ball on the frisbee first, gets to throw the frisbee next.
• Play Simon Says … Have them control or stop the ball with different parts of feet and body
• Give them some relative rest from all the running by working on juggling skills. Challenge them. Tell them to work on juggling after school.

• Place gates or parents with spread legs. Pair players up and have them collect points by passing the ball to each other through the gates.
• Shadow dribbling. Switch at sound of whistle or when coach puts up his arm.
• Play monkeys in the middle

• Have all players practice to be a goalie. You can do it in pairs or in one big circle with all the ball in the middle. Show them how to come out of the goal and how to keep their body behind the ball. Don't keep them in goal more than one quarter. Don't worry too much about formations, systems and tactics. This is not football. Give kids a basic idea (back, front, this or that half of the field) of where you want them to play and let them play.

Game day remarks:

Keep warm-up to less than 10 minutes or you will have lost their interest by the time the game starts.

No matter how loud you scream, they will not hear you.

Parents will produce more decibels than you will ever.

Passing the ball will only happen by accident during the Fall season

Just relax, laugh and have a good time. Your job at this age is just to make sure nobody gets seriously hurt and all players play about the same amount of time. You might want to make a little list of your players to check off which quarter they played.

Every player will be near the ball, a butterfly or their mom 20 seconds into the game.

A few months into the season you can work on passing and keep from swarming around the ball by having 4 v 4 games where half of each team has to stay on their half of the field. Use big cones to mark the halfway line. This will force them to pass to a teammate.

ENJOY IT.

Ludo De Wolf

YSI director of coaching

Coach of the U9 Audio outlet Boomers.

375-1299

Belgiekske@aol.com