The way I have found works is that if one of the kids has done something really well (or tried) I make sure everyone knows about it at the interval. The positive feedback encourages the child to try it again and the rest of the team acknowledge the praise. When it comes to the end of the match, at least half of them will say "He/She did really well"  and it sorts itself out

It's by no means a big thing, they seem to prefer the penalty shoot out at the end!

We are u8 so the main things I find myself trying to put an emphasis on is supporting/encouraging each other (vocally) as well as the bravery on the ball stuff too

There are a million ways to do it IMO

sounds like a lot of over thinking it in my opinion, my group love to hear who has got MOTM and all the team react well with it especially as it is an 'external' selection from the 'fans' (parents) watching. the individual challenges we set are for over longer periods so i like to asses them in that way and not by the weekly reward.

every team and group are different i guess so its what works well for you and your players in that time.

I have done something similar, although i will nominate 3 players who have met the challenges set and then let the team vote on 1 of those players

For my u9s I give out a player of the week certificate after training, for the player that excels with the team philosophy- it basically boils down to best behaved!

On match days, i discuss with my assistant who deserves motm and we either agree on one player or put two players up for the lads to vote on at the end. I used to also ask the captain (which rotates) to give a medal to the opposition player who he thought was their motm but we have stopped doing that for the moment, given current situation.

There's always that 1 that wants their kid to win it every week :-)

Yeah I guess it depends on the group of players you have as much as any predisposed idea.  What works well for one team wont work for another.  My boys team the parents used get a vote each for someone other than their own child help to prevent favouritism (one grandad always complained if his grandson didnt get it!).  Worked well for them and most of the time the hardest working player or the one who did the best on what our training topic was got the award.

Hello Darren, 

The bit about "try to make it feel like the kids came to it"...

That's something I'm particularly interested in and I symptomatic of a rewards systems can failing.

If you think of it as -- it causes us grown ups to lie to children (that's extreme and provocative I know, but bear with me please)

So we model lieing and the kids know fine rightly what's going on, or at least some of them will. So they see that it's okay to lie... 

Or the ones that get it because we feel sorry for them... They know they haven't genuinely won that thing... 

That's the danger anyway! Maybe you've not experienced those issues... I think it can work, but it can go wrong.

Interested to hear what you think. 

That works some of the times, but sometimes it can just be the popular kid that gets it rather than the player thats improving but not the super start, or that player that isnt in the main friends group.  Older kids I think are more likely to recognise who should get it, younger ones will just vote for their friends

My daughters girls team allow the players to choose who their player of the match is.  So far they've played 3 matches and a different player has unanimously won it each match.  They love it.  U13.

Was chuffed to come on and see that folk have engaged with this. I'm more of the mindset of Stephen Gibbs below and want to be more conscious even of how I praise the players. 

I find I get carried away and start over praising by which I mean saying we'll done to everyone for everything. In the end they might hear nothing as it can be superficial - we'll intentioned obviously.

Thanks so far for the discussion points...