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How should I organise subs for equal game time at 9v9

Matthew Archer

I coach a team of U12 boys who play 9-a-side.

We're aiming for equal game time across the season and everyone is bought in.

What I can't decide is how to organise the subs to make it work.

We have a squad of 12, but often only 10 are available on match day for various reasons, not the same two boys. This leaves one sub.

When I started coaching the team towards the end of last season I tried introducing rolling subs, so a different boy would start as sub each week and then after 10 minutes I'd sub someone off and the boy who started as sub would go on. Every 10 minutes after I'd do the same again, so after 60 minutes, 6 boys would've been subbed. 10 minutes felt more sensible than trying to sub somebody every 6 minutes so all 10 boys got to be subbed at one point. Picking a different 6 boys each week means we had roughly equal game time across the final part of the season.

The only thing that didn't seem to work as well was rolling subs on and off gradually muddled up the formation, so a boy that started in defence and settled into that role for the first 10 minutes, could then spend 10 minutes as a sub and return to the match in midfield. Great for learning all the areas of the game but also confusing for the boys!

So this season I'm thinking of trying something different and if I have 10 boys for a match, selecting two boys to be the subs that week and then swapping them every 15 minutes. They'll end up playing half a match each, 15 minutes in the first half and 15 minutes in the second. I'd then pick a different pair of boys the following week so the first pair wouldn't be subs again for another month or so. It'll allow for equal game time across the season and having two boys each match rotate in and out of the same position on the pitch will help keep the formation more consistent and less confusing for the boys, but I wasn't sure if 15 minutes was too long to be subbed and also when it was "your week" whether that pair of boys would feel a bit demotivated as something felt worse about being the only two subs in a match compared to being one of six subs in a match, like we had before. Obviously over the course of the season it'd be fair and equal.

Thoughts and ideas welcome?

How does everyone else manage their subs at U12 for equal game time?

Parents
  • 0

    Hi Matthew

    It sounds like you have a decent system already and aiming for equal playing time across the season seems to be what a lot do.

    One thing I find that helps at younger age groups is to prepare a gameplan using 'Children Equal Playing Time Calculator' online (others exist too).

    It makes game management less stressful and I show the players the plan before the game. Its not perfect but it's better than hesitantly choosing at random on the sidelines.

Reply
  • 0

    Hi Matthew

    It sounds like you have a decent system already and aiming for equal playing time across the season seems to be what a lot do.

    One thing I find that helps at younger age groups is to prepare a gameplan using 'Children Equal Playing Time Calculator' online (others exist too).

    It makes game management less stressful and I show the players the plan before the game. Its not perfect but it's better than hesitantly choosing at random on the sidelines.

Children
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