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Ball Mastery in the Foundation Phase

Cameron Moulton

Hi all hoping to get some clarification on what good ball mastery practice looks like for foundation phase players. I currently work with an U8s grassroots team and I want to help my young players to master the ball. In every training session, part of our practice is dedicated to every player having a ball and I would like some guidance on the type of practice that is effective at improving players' technical skills

Is effective ball mastery the coach showing the players different skills/moves for them to repeat and practice? Or can effective ball mastery be a playground game (tag for example) but with a football and the players being dribblers?

I have tended to use a game of tag as our ball mastery practice instead of practicing skills (turns, 1v1 moves) and I am worried that as a result, I am not achieving my goal of helping the players to master the ball.

 Any opinions on how other coaches approach ball mastery or what I should do would be really helpful

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  • 0

    Hi Cameron

    Not an exact science here - I would say anything that makes the players use lots of different parts of both feet.  So tag with balls at their feet can go towards it but the players default will be to use the foot and technique coming easiest to them - so whilst this will improve it may not improve other areas needed for all round ball mastery.

    In  the past I have used the 10-2-1 challenge with some good success 10-2-1 Soccer Challenge - YouTube.  This takes 10 fundamental foot touches/techniques and challenges young players to record how many repetitions of each they can do in 1 minute (you can reduce the time if too tiring for very littlies).   By repeating regularly the improvement can be quite impressive.

    Hope it helps

  • 0 in reply to Kevin Tarver

    I agree Kevin. I think the downside of using tag with balls at their feet is that the coach gives up ownership of the types of touches each player takes which means the players aren't being pushed out of their comfort zone/ trying new things.

    For example, I'd like the players to be able to turn over both shoulders with an inside and outside cut. Most kids default to the inside cut because it's easier

    Did you use the 10-2-1 challenge in every training session? How did the players respond to this type of activity? I've found that player engagement with the team goes down but I feel like it could benefit all the players long term

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  • 0 in reply to Kevin Tarver

    I agree Kevin. I think the downside of using tag with balls at their feet is that the coach gives up ownership of the types of touches each player takes which means the players aren't being pushed out of their comfort zone/ trying new things.

    For example, I'd like the players to be able to turn over both shoulders with an inside and outside cut. Most kids default to the inside cut because it's easier

    Did you use the 10-2-1 challenge in every training session? How did the players respond to this type of activity? I've found that player engagement with the team goes down but I feel like it could benefit all the players long term

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