I never award man of the match as not only are they not men, but they arent all male either 

We don't do player of the match. Nor do we give out awards at the end of a season. I think if the right praise is given then that should be enough. Players play because they love the game.

We try to build a culture where players want to improve because they love playing. Keeping sessions and matches fun keeps the motivation. I set the challenges for individuals based on the review of previous learning and knowledge of the child's responses and motivation to those challenges. 

Its important to  link the parents into those challenges and that culture too. 

It works for us but that's not to say you can't use rewards. 

I have a mixed team of boys and girls and I award a player off the match based on our team agreements. Hard work, trying something new, daring to be creative, making yourself hard to beat, how well we play and our values of persistence, respect and teamwork. Not the scoreline or assists. First match of the season we won 4-3. My main striker got all 4 goals but I awarded to my defender who in one individual moment lost the balk but then immediately won it back, controlled the ball, shielded from the press, beat her opponent, dribbled forward and started an attack that led to a goal. Point is if you use it in the right way and have the team and parents bought into it, it can be a very powerful and motivating way to reward and recognise development, build confidence and self belief 

We are U9s and this season and last we gave the armband to one player for how well they trained, then every week after the captain chose the next captain for the next match. We set guidelines and although every now and then it went to best friends, usually there was sound reasoning around effort, trying new things, and general improvement. They also k ow that once they’ve been captain they can’t again until the whole team has.
Someone else mentioned end of season awards and so far although having a team celebration we’ve not given individual awards.

I have 3 U9's teams and we all have a player of the match (MOTM), this is awarded by the parents in our first game of the season. That player is then the team captain in the following game and his (we only have boys) parents select the player of the match in that weeks game. This works really well as the parents have involvement and  the player loves the opportunity to be captain.

i give the parents a brief on the criteria so that its not just the player who scored the most goals for example, effort, listening and team play is of importance.

Really like some of the ideas here

We have a 'special ball' that we hand out at the end of each match. 
Each player has a target that they say they want to work on and the ball is awarded to whoever the kids decide tried the best. Obviously we guide this so that everyone gets the ball but try to make it feel like the kids came to it

Love the idea of getting parents involved too

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... 

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.

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

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.