How important is juggling?

[Anonymous]

it develops your first touch, that's why.

[Anonymous]

Who do you think the coaches will select? Player who can't or player who can

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who do you think the coaches will select? Player who can't or player who can

The biggest, fastest ones.

[Anonymous]

^ and I mean that in all seriousness through the early teen years.

My kid could juggle 1,000 by 10. He has excellent touch, great IQ, good ball skill—but he hasn’t hit puberty/growth spurt at age 13/U14. He will be 13/U15 this Fall and there are enormous boys in the first Division he plays. Being at the end of the birth year does no favors. Many of these big kids do not have a great first touch or ball skill, but they all are fast and go straight ahead physically dominating the field.

We have height/muscle in our family so hoping once he gains this hopefully he will dominate since he has the whole package. He’s not slow by any means, just when you are 5’0” playing against 5’11-6’0” kids with mustaches and full blown testosterone it does matter.

[Anonymous]

Maybe they meant real coaches looking for real footballers? They might not be professional freestylers, but they can all keep the ball in the air.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ and I mean that in all seriousness through the early teen years.

My kid could juggle 1,000 by 10. He has excellent touch, great IQ, good ball skill—but he hasn’t hit puberty/growth spurt at age 13/U14. He will be 13/U15 this Fall and there are enormous boys in the first Division he plays. Being at the end of the birth year does no favors. Many of these big kids do not have a great first touch or ball skill, but they all are fast and go straight ahead physically dominating the field.

We have height/muscle in our family so hoping once he gains this hopefully he will dominate since he has the whole package. He’s not slow by any means, just when you are 5’0” playing against 5’11-6’0” kids with mustaches and full blown testosterone it does matter.

You should ask the coaches to move him to a lower division so that he can develop better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ and I mean that in all seriousness through the early teen years.

My kid could juggle 1,000 by 10. He has excellent touch, great IQ, good ball skill—but he hasn’t hit puberty/growth spurt at age 13/U14. He will be 13/U15 this Fall and there are enormous boys in the first Division he plays. Being at the end of the birth year does no favors. Many of these big kids do not have a great first touch or ball skill, but they all are fast and go straight ahead physically dominating the field.

We have height/muscle in our family so hoping once he gains this hopefully he will dominate since he has the whole package. He’s not slow by any means, just when you are 5’0” playing against 5’11-6’0” kids with mustaches and full blown testosterone it does matter.

You should ask the coaches to move him to a lower division so that he can develop better.

This is a “big fish in a small pond vs small fish in a big pond argument. If he is able to use his skills & agility and survive against the big kids, I would leave him where he is. Better that he develops against faster/bigger kids.

[Anonymous]

My kid hit 1200 at 9 yrs and 1 month. He’s able to use both feet equally well and is now doing instep and outstep juggling. The biggest thing it’s helped him with is his first touch. He can handle a hard pass with ease and make it look routine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid hit 1200 at 9 yrs and 1 month. He’s able to use both feet equally well and is now doing instep and outstep juggling. The biggest thing it’s helped him with is his first touch. He can handle a hard pass with ease and make it look routine.

My 12 year old is and was a good juggler since he was little. Broke 100 when he was 7 and hit 1000 by 9. He can alternate feet, do ladders, just as good with his left as his right, around the worlds, thighs, hit it high every 3rd touch, over his head, etc. He's won a few juggling competitions at camps and tournaments, whatever...probably similar to your child. As you know or can imagine, my son has put ALOT of time into juggling. However, I often wonder if playing wall ball would have been just as productive or even more so. In other words, if he put in the same amount of time into just playing the ball off a wall and working on receiving with different surfaces, etc. would that have been better for him. I'd have to assume that wall ball develops touch way better than juggling. Anyone disagree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid hit 1200 at 9 yrs and 1 month. He’s able to use both feet equally well and is now doing instep and outstep juggling. The biggest thing it’s helped him with is his first touch. He can handle a hard pass with ease and make it look routine.

My 12 year old is and was a good juggler since he was little. Broke 100 when he was 7 and hit 1000 by 9. He can alternate feet, do ladders, just as good with his left as his right, around the worlds, thighs, hit it high every 3rd touch, over his head, etc. He's won a few juggling competitions at camps and tournaments, whatever...probably similar to your child. As you know or can imagine, my son has put ALOT of time into juggling. However, I often wonder if playing wall ball would have been just as productive or even more so. In other words, if he put in the same amount of time into just playing the ball off a wall and working on receiving with different surfaces, etc. would that have been better for him. I'd have to assume that wall ball develops touch way better than juggling. Anyone disagree?

One more thing to note....I did build him a wall for the back yard but he just didn't like it as much as juggling in the basement. I built a smaller wall for the basement and he still didn't use it much. Always preferred juggling or something else like passing with me or footskills, etc.

[Anonymous]

I look at it as a number of soccer touches type of thing. Juggling gets you lots of touches in short period of time. Over time, it’s like compounding interest. I read an article somewhere comparing number of touches for US born player vs South American by the age of 18. The difference was staggering. So my thought is wall ball using different parts of the feet would do same thing as juggling. Soccer tennis in a small place is another good approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ and I mean that in all seriousness through the early teen years.

My kid could juggle 1,000 by 10. He has excellent touch, great IQ, good ball skill—but he hasn’t hit puberty/growth spurt at age 13/U14. He will be 13/U15 this Fall and there are enormous boys in the first Division he plays. Being at the end of the birth year does no favors. Many of these big kids do not have a great first touch or ball skill, but they all are fast and go straight ahead physically dominating the field.

We have height/muscle in our family so hoping once he gains this hopefully he will dominate since he has the whole package. He’s not slow by any means, just when you are 5’0” playing against 5’11-6’0” kids with mustaches and full blown testosterone it does matter.

You should ask the coaches to move him to a lower division so that he can develop better.

To be fair, the entire team is small and composed primarily of late bdays. He is nowhere near the smallest on the team. The team did move out of the first division this Spring and did much better. The teams they played were more size proportioned than the first division where almost every team had giants. They also were beginning to be able to play around the bigger teams by the end of the year, using possession, etc. It will be a different landscape in another year or so when these guys hit their growth.

Younger sibling also has a very small/tiny team, but at 10/11-years old it matters a lot less since the boys don't have testosterone and they do just fine against big teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid hit 1200 at 9 yrs and 1 month. He’s able to use both feet equally well and is now doing instep and outstep juggling. The biggest thing it’s helped him with is his first touch. He can handle a hard pass with ease and make it look routine.

My 12 year old is and was a good juggler since he was little. Broke 100 when he was 7 and hit 1000 by 9. He can alternate feet, do ladders, just as good with his left as his right, around the worlds, thighs, hit it high every 3rd touch, over his head, etc. He's won a few juggling competitions at camps and tournaments, whatever...probably similar to your child. As you know or can imagine, my son has put ALOT of time into juggling. However, I often wonder if playing wall ball would have been just as productive or even more so. In other words, if he put in the same amount of time into just playing the ball off a wall and working on receiving with different surfaces, etc. would that have been better for him. I'd have to assume that wall ball develops touch way better than juggling. Anyone disagree?

One more thing to note....I did build him a wall for the back yard but he just didn't like it as much as juggling in the basement. I built a smaller wall for the basement and he still didn't use it much. Always preferred juggling or something else like passing with me or footskills, etc.

I think kids do what they want. They arent robots that can be programmed. And inputting 10000 touches or juggles etc. will improve that static control of a ball that you serve to yourself. I think juggling is fine but I think it is about touch not #s. One can do 1000 keep ups on the tips of both feet. How many single keep ups will you perform in a game.
We always juggled at the top of the box, and whenever you dropped it or got tired you volleyed into goal (hoepfully). If a kid likes juggling overall it will improve control and touch. But if you can somehow get a kid to focus on quality of touch and make it non-static I think that is better. So: juggle and hit that wall, receive and juggle, repeat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if a player starts juggling during their next tryout, it will impress the coach? Will juggling be the deciding factor between two players of similar skill levels?

Sorry to bring up this old thread and topic, however no one answered the question above. Can I please get your opinions? Thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if a player starts juggling during their next tryout, it will impress the coach? Will juggling be the deciding factor between two players of similar skill levels?

Sorry to bring up this old thread and topic, however no one answered the question above. Can I please get your opinions? Thanks

There are likely very few kids of similar skill levels where one of the kids can juggle and the other player can't juggle. The kid who juggles will have better touch and comfort with the ball than the non-juggling player.

They may exhibit similar game IQ and physical attributes but in higher and higher pressure situations the player who can juggle will likely separate themselves from the non-juggling player. The juggling as a matter of pre-tryout routine will not stand out in and of itself. What will stand out is NOT being able to juggle if as a part of warm up kids are asked to do so.