I’d say that the sooner your team starts to lose a few matches the sooner you can start to deal with psychological side of the game and that age group learning to lose is as valuable as any other lesson you could teach.

 I wouldn’t overly think about formations, most teams start 2-3-1 as it balances quite nicely, but often adapts from there. At some point you might want to cover the wing back role, so would need to adapt it to 3-2-1, or if you want to work on emergency defending and getting back you could load the midfield and attack more.

obviously you wouldn’t change to a new formation every week, but introduce a formation that helps your next two/three topics.

id try, based on your players current characteristics, to give players 2-3 set positions, where they will play the majority of the time. Don’t just stick your weakest in defence, but try snd put a strong and weaker player near each other so they have a good learning opportunity.

I’d only start to fix players positions after they are fully physically developed, so roughly u14’s onwards, but I know teams that do this from U8, personally I don’t think this helps develop players in the long term.

Hi Christopher.

Context is everything. Some things to consider when making your decisions...

- How much of trying to win (picking the players a formation and positions to win) are you willing to compromise for the benefit of player development? (do the parents know and understand what you're trying to achieve?

- What psychological development benefits may indirectly come as a result of experiencing success and failure?

 - If your tallest player is always played as a central defender... when the other players become a similar height if not taller and you want to play that players in a different position, what potential challenges may they have?

The game is littered with situations where players are outnumbered and overloaded (1v2, 3v1,3v2 4v2 etc.). How will your formation(s) support the children to deal with different scenarios? 

Hopefully these give you some ideas to base your decisions around

Lee

Hi chris , the only advice is I have is to try and think in regards to wider and deeper areas to impact the opposition ,but not forgetting about how we impact learning for others , the older they get the more areas or zones we need to cover , practice designs will change and units start to form and how each player can create positive ways to link with each other and units ,there is no right answer but only understanding your players and how they fit into your thinking and some players may need to adapt and change but always be and treated has a whole and always valued has individuals they are still in the foundation phase and requires thier priorities staying on ball, protecting ,team work ect ,