Hi all,

I am taking on my first team in football coaching next week. I'll be coaching an u8s team. Just wanting to get off to the best start as possible. I was wondering how I should structure my sessions over the next few months. I'm not sure when to focus on shape, fitness, technical ability etc. Just looking for a rough schedule over my first few months (season doesn't start until September). Here are my initial thoughts:

• First few weeks - focus on getting to know the players, looking at their technical ability and where they like to play. Keeping the sessions as fun as possible.
• Introducing dedicated technical training (week 3-4) - i.e. dribbling drills, passing drills, shooting drills.
• Focusing on shape and positional play (week 5 and beyond).

Where should I place fitness within this? Is it even strictly needed at this stage? These are just a few ideas, so if I'm missing anything glaringly obvious, please do let me know! Any other bits of advice for taking on a new time and structuring training over a set period of time would be much appreciated.

thanks,

George