How did your children pick a position? Was it a "match" for their personality?

[Anonymous]

As a coach, at earlier ages , U9-U11, the first few weeks of practice I will penny the players up into two teams and let them sort themselves out positionally for scrimmages. It will start off pretty chaotic, but players will eventually gravitate into defensive or offensive positions. After getting a good baseline, we will start to assign positions and see how the players respond. Does the natural centerback gravitate back into a defensive position or will they push forward? Will they play in front of the defensive line if assigned a midfield position or will they drop back behind the D-line? Same for offensive leaning players. Will they push forward when placed on defensive or will they stay put. You can pretty quickly sort out the players tendencies.

As with most coaches, first I try to identify the strongest centerback pairing, then the 6, then the 10, then the 9 and then fill in the remaining positions. During the season, players will rotate and play multiple positions, but every coach will try to identify his/her strongest starting line up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a coach, at earlier ages , U9-U11, the first few weeks of practice I will penny the players up into two teams and let them sort themselves out positionally for scrimmages. It will start off pretty chaotic, but players will eventually gravitate into defensive or offensive positions. After getting a good baseline, we will start to assign positions and see how the players respond. Does the natural centerback gravitate back into a defensive position or will they push forward? Will they play in front of the defensive line if assigned a midfield position or will they drop back behind the D-line? Same for offensive leaning players. Will they push forward when placed on defensive or will they stay put. You can pretty quickly sort out the players tendencies.

As with most coaches, first I try to identify the strongest centerback pairing, then the 6, then the 10, then the 9 and then fill in the remaining positions. During the season, players will rotate and play multiple positions, but every coach will try to identify his/her strongest starting line up.

Coach,

If my U11 DD is places mostly as Center Forward, sometimes as an Attacking Midfielder, and on occasion as a Holding Midfielder. She’s never placed at Defensive Positions.

What can you share about her typical tendencies, skill sets and/or personalities?

Should I ask her coach to rotate her to defense positions more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a coach, at earlier ages , U9-U11, the first few weeks of practice I will penny the players up into two teams and let them sort themselves out positionally for scrimmages. It will start off pretty chaotic, but players will eventually gravitate into defensive or offensive positions. After getting a good baseline, we will start to assign positions and see how the players respond. Does the natural centerback gravitate back into a defensive position or will they push forward? Will they play in front of the defensive line if assigned a midfield position or will they drop back behind the D-line? Same for offensive leaning players. Will they push forward when placed on defensive or will they stay put. You can pretty quickly sort out the players tendencies.

As with most coaches, first I try to identify the strongest centerback pairing, then the 6, then the 10, then the 9 and then fill in the remaining positions. During the season, players will rotate and play multiple positions, but every coach will try to identify his/her strongest starting line up.

Coach,

If my U11 DD is places mostly as Center Forward, sometimes as an Attacking Midfielder, and on occasion as a Holding Midfielder. She’s never placed at Defensive Positions.

What can you share about her typical tendencies, skill sets and/or personalities?

Should I ask her coach to rotate her to defense positions more?

Not "Coach", but if you want your DD to rotate to defense, I'd probably ask. If you don't want that, keep silent and have your DD step back when volunteers are asked to step forward.

[Anonymous]

What should the Myers Briggs personality type be specifically for a right-footed left winger playing up a year at U10

[Anonymous]

plenty of discussion on this. start early!

https://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/showthread.php/24562-Football-Players-(Soccer-players)

[Anonymous]

Play lots of positions all the way to u18. Play wherever in college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What should the Myers Briggs personality type be specifically for a right-footed left winger playing up a year at U10

If playing 4 years up..CSPR(Crazy soccer parents rule).

[Anonymous]

^ my youngest was very technically sound early, equally uses both feet, fast and was usually played as a left wing or center mid U9/U10. He went to a possession based team at U11 that put him at Center D and never move him. he plays the whole game. The very few times they move him, the entire defense collapses. They have a bunch of kids they cannot play in the back for liability reasons , but they are weak forwards against tough teams and miss a ton of opportunities—Charlie Brown perfect balls. Against tough teams they just cannot score with these less technically sound kids they are afraid to put in the back.

It’s frustrating to see your 10/11-year old lose opportunity when they are a very good attacking mid/forward and better than teammates playing those positions because the team would let up 20 goals if they take them out of the back. Also, he probably won’t have the physicality/height needed as a center defender after puberty. He also is not happy and getting frustrated he doesn’t get opportunity to play up front and is bored in the back. When he asked the Coach if he could play mid/forward sometimes, he was told they don’t trust anyone else back there.

I hate coaches/clubs that don’t rotate their u9-u12 players frequently. I don’t give a shit about team results, I just want my kid developed as an all around player. I’ve seen my other kid lose some attacking instincts and start hanging too far back as a forward when he’s been played as a back too long. This will likely be a reason to exit this spring.