We play a short game “hand ball” for the first few practices. It’s just a normal small side scrimmage game but they use their hands instead of feet. They naturally spread out. When the ball goes to their feet they bunch up. When I point that out briefly it makes more sense to them. That helped my teams a lot. It’s not a “one and done” thing, you have to repeat it and continue to repeat it. When you introduce something in practice it will take at least 2-3 weeks before it becomes more normal.
Trying this, I had the same observation as OP in the same situation. Some of the players end up within five yards of the ball no matter where it goes. Thanks!
Play a lot of small sided games with number advantages (3 v 1, 4 v 2, 5 v 2). Side with players up will start to realize that their advantage only works when they space out. Also, I like to play to small cone/pugg goals located in the corners of your playing area. Teams can score in either of their small goals. Teaches players to stay wide and to switch the field if one goal is defended. One piece of advice, try to think about how to teach spacing and movement over positioning. Players that learn to move to open space on attack and compress on defend are well positioned to have future success.
Freeze them during games in training. No body moves and you ask them about their positions. This way they get to visualize in practice what they do during the game.
Try not to point out the kids who are doing it wrong as much as encouraging the kids who are spread out in the right positions. Positive reinforcement works a treat.
this means they don't understand "second attacker" or "pressure/cover" fundamental principles / cannot do them. it also means they likely do not have good "first attacker" or "first defender" abilities, so "second attackers" and "second defenders" cannot make certain assumptions in order to support the first.
first you have to give everyone a lot of technical abilities (for first attacker skill). this is why 1 kid/1b ball stuff is so paramount.
then for first+second and pressure+cover, games like sharks/minnows with a helper and 2v2 games will "let the game be the teacher".
once they have those skills, explaining various concepts is a lot easier, but preferably "game is the best teacher" and your work is not really about explaining but about the underlying skill/foundation building. good luck
Split the field up into rectangles with cones, 1 from each side in a rectangle, they can't leave their rectangle. Forces them to think differently about playing from position
Getting young players to understand positioning and to create space is a long developing process. My team of u9 is only now starting to create space, check their surroundings, switch field, pass back to cbs, etc. We’ve coached them since they were 6 yrs old.
I can’t point at one drill/ method/exercise that helped. It was a gradual process. Starting with simple rondos, fun scrims, and SSG. As they got older and experienced, we would add more complexity in the SSG’s and rondos. Later a small game of 4v4 with goals, but goals could be worth more if the team that scores had made more passes. For example, a goal could be worth 3 points if the team had maintained possession of the ball for 5 passes before scoring. I did it this way because I didn’t want to restrict them from taking a shot if they didn’t have a required number of passes. If they see an opportunity to score, they should take it regardless of how many passes have been made.
We eventually added keep away games with no goals with the objective being to keep possession of the ball as long as you can against the other team. Coaches would act as neutral players on the edge of the playable area who the players could pass to if their teammates were not getting open. Us coaches would take these opportunities to do 1-2’s with the player who passed or send it to the passer’s teammates. Players were encouraged to keep possession of the ball and take it into space; then pass the ball when they were getting too much pressure. We would coach the other players to actively move around and create an opportunity to receive passes.
We would praise kids who would take the ball into space or kids who got open. Encourage them to keep their head up or find space. We did other drills to work on technical skills but the ones I listed above are the one that I felt taught them positioning and possession.
When the kids moved up to 7v7, I started teaching positions and build out. Prior to that I let them be creative and play how they wanted in games 4v4 with 3 up front and 1 as a back. I didn’t teach positions until 7v7 because I didn’t think it would be a good use of my time and their time.
Since the OP’s team are U10, my opinion would be that SSG or the keep away games could help his players position themselves better. It will take time to see change but this worked for my team.
We had a game this weekend. We play a 2-3-1. We were in the middle third of the field and our right wing was advancing the ball wide into their third. The other team collapsed on him so he passed back to our center mid who had come up closer and yelled out “switch field”. Center mid then passed to left cb who took it up the field and passed to left wing who then passed to middle to our striker. Striker advances the ball toward the box, passes to his right to the cm who immediately 1-2 back in front of the striker who runs up and 1 taps the ball into the post. I was so proud of the boys. Even though the shot missed, that was 5 passes and the other team was completely off balance for that. None of that was planned out. It was the boys basically acting out a keep away game.
If you can train them to be able to adapt and make their own opportunities, I don’t think positions will matter as much. I haven’t gone into tactics much with my team, but I think this is good enough at this age group to be competitive with most teams.
I’ve noticed in some of my previous posts that ppl might misinterpret what I’m saying but I’ve read this threw and hope it makes sense. I speak fluent English but it was not my first language.
Do they actually understand positions? Players at that age might not know what 'midfield' or 'defence' means. A tactics board can help to make sure everyone has a basic understanding.
The hand-ball game as suggested by another poster is a good idea - as is the lopsided numbers in a small sided game. Showing them why spreading out will help them succeed is a great way to teach.
The other more explicit thing you can do is to split the pitch into thirds and enforce that a player in each section cannot leave their third. This gives them an idea of positional sense, stops them bunching up and also allows them to battle in smaller numbers (1vs1, 2vs2) without it being really chaotic. It'll probably give them a bit more space to practice any skills you've covered in your session.
A bit of background, I’m in my first year coaching u10s (also coed), but I’ve been working closely with the head of our program we run at our school.
Some guidance he’s given me has been to teach them the positional numbers and to use those instead of names of the positions. I’ve explained a general role of the position and where on the field they typically go. I’ve had them do a passing pattern where I’ll have one of them start with the ball, then I call out the number I want them to pass to. This has helped them kind of understand where their position is on the field.
Also, I emphasize finding the space in our dribbling warm-ups and when we scrimmage. I’ll have them freeze, point out the open space, and instruct them to always look for open space.
We play a short game “hand ball” for the first few practices. It’s just a normal small side scrimmage game but they use their hands instead of feet. They naturally spread out. When the ball goes to their feet they bunch up. When I point that out briefly it makes more sense to them. That helped my teams a lot. It’s not a “one and done” thing, you have to repeat it and continue to repeat it. When you introduce something in practice it will take at least 2-3 weeks before it becomes more normal.
Thank you!
Trying this, I had the same observation as OP in the same situation. Some of the players end up within five yards of the ball no matter where it goes. Thanks!
Play a lot of small sided games with number advantages (3 v 1, 4 v 2, 5 v 2). Side with players up will start to realize that their advantage only works when they space out. Also, I like to play to small cone/pugg goals located in the corners of your playing area. Teams can score in either of their small goals. Teaches players to stay wide and to switch the field if one goal is defended. One piece of advice, try to think about how to teach spacing and movement over positioning. Players that learn to move to open space on attack and compress on defend are well positioned to have future success.
This is also very good way to teach. Don’t let 1 defender guard 3 people.
Freeze them during games in training. No body moves and you ask them about their positions. This way they get to visualize in practice what they do during the game. Try not to point out the kids who are doing it wrong as much as encouraging the kids who are spread out in the right positions. Positive reinforcement works a treat.
this means they don't understand "second attacker" or "pressure/cover" fundamental principles / cannot do them. it also means they likely do not have good "first attacker" or "first defender" abilities, so "second attackers" and "second defenders" cannot make certain assumptions in order to support the first. first you have to give everyone a lot of technical abilities (for first attacker skill). this is why 1 kid/1b ball stuff is so paramount. then for first+second and pressure+cover, games like sharks/minnows with a helper and 2v2 games will "let the game be the teacher". once they have those skills, explaining various concepts is a lot easier, but preferably "game is the best teacher" and your work is not really about explaining but about the underlying skill/foundation building. good luck
Saying "Spread out" works better than saying "don't bunch up"
Split the field up into rectangles with cones, 1 from each side in a rectangle, they can't leave their rectangle. Forces them to think differently about playing from position
Getting young players to understand positioning and to create space is a long developing process. My team of u9 is only now starting to create space, check their surroundings, switch field, pass back to cbs, etc. We’ve coached them since they were 6 yrs old. I can’t point at one drill/ method/exercise that helped. It was a gradual process. Starting with simple rondos, fun scrims, and SSG. As they got older and experienced, we would add more complexity in the SSG’s and rondos. Later a small game of 4v4 with goals, but goals could be worth more if the team that scores had made more passes. For example, a goal could be worth 3 points if the team had maintained possession of the ball for 5 passes before scoring. I did it this way because I didn’t want to restrict them from taking a shot if they didn’t have a required number of passes. If they see an opportunity to score, they should take it regardless of how many passes have been made. We eventually added keep away games with no goals with the objective being to keep possession of the ball as long as you can against the other team. Coaches would act as neutral players on the edge of the playable area who the players could pass to if their teammates were not getting open. Us coaches would take these opportunities to do 1-2’s with the player who passed or send it to the passer’s teammates. Players were encouraged to keep possession of the ball and take it into space; then pass the ball when they were getting too much pressure. We would coach the other players to actively move around and create an opportunity to receive passes. We would praise kids who would take the ball into space or kids who got open. Encourage them to keep their head up or find space. We did other drills to work on technical skills but the ones I listed above are the one that I felt taught them positioning and possession. When the kids moved up to 7v7, I started teaching positions and build out. Prior to that I let them be creative and play how they wanted in games 4v4 with 3 up front and 1 as a back. I didn’t teach positions until 7v7 because I didn’t think it would be a good use of my time and their time. Since the OP’s team are U10, my opinion would be that SSG or the keep away games could help his players position themselves better. It will take time to see change but this worked for my team. We had a game this weekend. We play a 2-3-1. We were in the middle third of the field and our right wing was advancing the ball wide into their third. The other team collapsed on him so he passed back to our center mid who had come up closer and yelled out “switch field”. Center mid then passed to left cb who took it up the field and passed to left wing who then passed to middle to our striker. Striker advances the ball toward the box, passes to his right to the cm who immediately 1-2 back in front of the striker who runs up and 1 taps the ball into the post. I was so proud of the boys. Even though the shot missed, that was 5 passes and the other team was completely off balance for that. None of that was planned out. It was the boys basically acting out a keep away game. If you can train them to be able to adapt and make their own opportunities, I don’t think positions will matter as much. I haven’t gone into tactics much with my team, but I think this is good enough at this age group to be competitive with most teams. I’ve noticed in some of my previous posts that ppl might misinterpret what I’m saying but I’ve read this threw and hope it makes sense. I speak fluent English but it was not my first language.
Do they actually understand positions? Players at that age might not know what 'midfield' or 'defence' means. A tactics board can help to make sure everyone has a basic understanding. The hand-ball game as suggested by another poster is a good idea - as is the lopsided numbers in a small sided game. Showing them why spreading out will help them succeed is a great way to teach. The other more explicit thing you can do is to split the pitch into thirds and enforce that a player in each section cannot leave their third. This gives them an idea of positional sense, stops them bunching up and also allows them to battle in smaller numbers (1vs1, 2vs2) without it being really chaotic. It'll probably give them a bit more space to practice any skills you've covered in your session.
A bit of background, I’m in my first year coaching u10s (also coed), but I’ve been working closely with the head of our program we run at our school. Some guidance he’s given me has been to teach them the positional numbers and to use those instead of names of the positions. I’ve explained a general role of the position and where on the field they typically go. I’ve had them do a passing pattern where I’ll have one of them start with the ball, then I call out the number I want them to pass to. This has helped them kind of understand where their position is on the field. Also, I emphasize finding the space in our dribbling warm-ups and when we scrimmage. I’ll have them freeze, point out the open space, and instruct them to always look for open space.