Hi Samantha. 

Regarding the fairness, I think it comes down to the expectations of the parents, club and you as a coach. My son plays in an u10's team and it's his first year playing matches. All of the team are players that other clubs thought weren't good enough. Our focus is purely on their development and enjoyment. They have taken some heavy pre-season losses but because we are not putting pressure on to win the game they are all having a great time. I chat with the parents every training session and matchday, explaining what we are doing in line with the DNA messages. During the games we are just encouraging but giving very little instruction. Just emphasising a key point from training. If we see that in the match we have won! The kids are under no pressure.

Regarding technical ability, we play lots of small sided games to maximise ball contact. It's also means practising everything realistically to the way the game is played. The smaller space teaches them to try and take care of the ball too. We encourage players to dribble a lot and take opponents on. We also share skills to practice away from training to help with their touch and co-ordination. If you look up 'Coever techniques of the week' on Youtube you will see these.  Also, though it is currently quite difficult ,do you have a futsal club near you running kids sessions? That would help supplement their technical ability.

The whole 9v9 and bigger pitches drives me crazy. It just encourages the stronger players to dominate and for the most part teams kick the ball long. I wish they played smaller sided games on smaller pitches for longer.

Please feel free to ask anything else and I would be happy to share planning.

Regards

Steve

Hi Samantha. 

Regarding the fairness, I think it comes down to the expectations of the parents, club and you as a coach. My son plays in an u10's team and it's his first year playing matches. All of the team are players that other clubs thought weren't good enough. Our focus is purely on their development and enjoyment. They have taken some heavy pre-season losses but because we are not putting pressure on to win the game they are all having a great time. I chat with the parents every training session and matchday, explaining what we are doing in line with the DNA messages. During the games we are just encouraging but giving very little instruction. Just emphasising a key point from training. If we see that in the match we have won! The kids are under no pressure.

Regarding technical ability, we play lots of small sided games to maximise ball contact. It's also means practising everything realistically to the way the game is played. The smaller space teaches them to try and take care of the ball too. We encourage players to dribble a lot and take opponents on. We also share skills to practice away from training to help with their touch and co-ordination. If you look up 'Coever techniques of the week' on Youtube you will see these.  Also, though it is currently quite difficult ,do you have a futsal club near you running kids sessions? That would help supplement their technical ability.

The whole 9v9 and bigger pitches drives me crazy. It just encourages the stronger players to dominate and for the most part teams kick the ball long. I wish they played smaller sided games on smaller pitches for longer.

Please feel free to ask anything else and I would be happy to share planning.

Regards

Steve

Hi Stephen

Firstly, thank you for replying. I do hear you regarding expectations, I also think you missed the expectations of the player which I would bring self motivation into that too. I am not talking about children that have just begun their footballing journey. We are considering children that have been playing between 4 and 6 years already. The syllabus followed is the England DNA and although I do see some of it that works, my other thought is....What have the England Football national won in the last 50 years or so.

I will be interested on giving homework now to see improvements. I did look at the coever weekly techniques which I will also add to homework. Futsal is played over the winter months (2), however we will see what transpires then as we have a squad of 23.

I do think the 7aside size to the 9aside is quite a big jump especially like you mentioned a stronger player as I'm feeling the others are just left in no man's 

Thank for your advice

Samo