Giving this it's own thread - this is what your kid's soccer should look like

[Anonymous]

There is nothing special about many of the nine year old kids on the Sterling (orange) team, except the way they have been coached, and (I'm guessing) the amount of practise they have done on their own to develop their techincal skills. Almost certainly the McLean (green) team will have drawn from a much larger pool of players and have been able to pick bigger, faster, stronger kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9YN2CrCf2E&feature=youtu.be

Most kids who are taught to play soccer by a good coach are capable of playing this way. If your kid's team does not play like this - and you want your kid to reach their potential (this may not be important to many folks and that's absolutely fine - everyone has different goals from participation in a youth team sport) - you need to look for a coach whose teams do play like this. This playing style both requires and develops the kids' soccer ability. Every kid becomes comfortable on the ball under pressure, develops a good first touch, is capable of making quick, accurate short passes (the Sterling goalkeeper is better at these skills than all the McLean players), and even by 9 years old you can see the kids have considerable understanding of game concepts.

It's important to understand that - if you join a team that wants to play this way and the coach is committed to developing the team properly - the team will likely lose quite a lot of games early on as they learn unless the vast majority of the team is returning from the previous year. Even half a dozen new players will throw quite a wrench into the works, but you should see rapid improvement in the way the kids play and the game results will likely reflect this by the end of a year.

There are several clubs/coaches in the area that teach good soccer - it's easy to tell just by watching them play.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting. I watched the beginning 10 minutes or so, and skipped around to other parts of the game.

All the boys on both sides were playing hard and it was fun to watch. But yes, great job by Sterling -- their possession and ability to move the ball around was very impressive; players off the ball knew where to be. They must have a good coach and be a good group of boys that fit well together.

I'll show this to my son (about the same age) as an example of good soccer! I wish we had good recording of his games like this -- I think all teams would benefit from being able to watch their games to see where they could improve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is nothing special about many of the nine year old kids on the Sterling (orange) team, except the way they have been coached, and (I'm guessing) the amount of practise they have done on their own to develop their techincal skills. Almost certainly the McLean (green) team will have drawn from a much larger pool of players and have been able to pick bigger, faster, stronger kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9YN2CrCf2E&feature=youtu.be

Most kids who are taught to play soccer by a good coach are capable of playing this way. If your kid's team does not play like this - and you want your kid to reach their potential (this may not be important to many folks and that's absolutely fine - everyone has different goals from participation in a youth team sport) - you need to look for a coach whose teams do play like this. This playing style both requires and develops the kids' soccer ability. Every kid becomes comfortable on the ball under pressure, develops a good first touch, is capable of making quick, accurate short passes (the Sterling goalkeeper is better at these skills than all the McLean players), and even by 9 years old you can see the kids have considerable understanding of game concepts.

It's important to understand that - if you join a team that wants to play this way and the coach is committed to developing the team properly - the team will likely lose quite a lot of games early on as they learn unless the vast majority of the team is returning from the previous year. Even half a dozen new players will throw quite a wrench into the works, but you should see rapid improvement in the way the kids play and the game results will likely reflect this by the end of a year.

There are several clubs/coaches in the area that teach good soccer - it's easy to tell just by watching them play.

nice vid, thanks for sharing. the Sterling kids have really good fundamentals in addition to being very comfortable playing as a team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for posting. I watched the beginning 10 minutes or so, and skipped around to other parts of the game.

All the boys on both sides were playing hard and it was fun to watch. But yes, great job by Sterling -- their possession and ability to move the ball around was very impressive; players off the ball knew where to be. They must have a good coach and be a good group of boys that fit well together.

I'll show this to my son (about the same age) as an example of good soccer! I wish we had good recording of his games like this -- I think all teams would benefit from being able to watch their games to see where they could improve.

Talk to your coach, team manager and other parents. It's not expensive. A few years ago I think it worked out to $40 per player to get home games taped for a whole season. You need the coach to be on board with spending some time analyzing video with the kids to make it really useful though.

[Anonymous]

For the love of all that's holy: its!!!!!! not it's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the love of all that's holy: its!!!!!! not it's.

Nice troll . You combine the spelling nazi troll trick with the getting-it-completely-wrong-when-rudely-correcting-someone-else troll trick. I'm not falling for your attempt to derail an otherwise useful thread though.

[Anonymous]

my kids soccer has 11 v 11 and a lot faster and much more movement.

my kids team is better than yours and our parents have a group text with everyone's starbucks order in it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. My kid's rec team looks nothing like this.

How do you do the filming for $40 per season? Asking because curious for another sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the love of all that's holy: its!!!!!! not it's.

Nice troll . You combine the spelling nazi troll trick with the getting-it-completely-wrong-when-rudely-correcting-someone-else troll trick. I'm not falling for your attempt to derail an otherwise useful thread though.

You need to go back to school. It’s —it is/its —possessive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you do the filming for $40 per season? Asking because curious for another sport.

$40 per player was his estimate ... some of the logistics of the fields may be tricky, but I wonder if there's anyone out there offering this service via drone. Could be a nice little niche business. Then again, I don't know the rules about drones flying above playing fields, whether people would freak out, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my kids soccer has 11 v 11 and a lot faster and much more movement.

my kids team is better than yours and our parents have a group text with everyone's starbucks order in it.

I'm the OP. I have zero connection to either team in the video. I posted it to help parents understand what good coaching looks like.

[Anonymous]

my kids team is better than both of these teams. This looks like amateur hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you do the filming for $40 per season? Asking because curious for another sport.

$40 per player was his estimate ... some of the logistics of the fields may be tricky, but I wonder if there's anyone out there offering this service via drone. Could be a nice little niche business. Then again, I don't know the rules about drones flying above playing fields, whether people would freak out, etc.

The companies that do it usually mount the camera on a tall pole at the half way line. I'm afraid I can't remember which one we used - but if you google "youth sports video production" you should get plenty of links. Quite a few clubs do this for their older teams - so your club/coach shoukd be able to find out which is the best/cheapest local service as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my kids team is better than both of these teams. This looks like amateur hour.

Sheesh - the soccer-crazy parents do more trash talking than any kids I've seen.

It's especially funny (albeit disturbing) to see the red-faced, hyperventilating screaming fathers (at games) and uber-nasty comments on here about ... girls soccer. For real? It's not very lady-like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my kids team is better than both of these teams. This looks like amateur hour.

Sheesh - the soccer-crazy parents do more trash talking than any kids I've seen.

It's especially funny (albeit disturbing) to see the red-faced, hyperventilating screaming fathers (at games) and uber-nasty comments on here about ... girls soccer. For real? It's not very lady-like.

Poe’s law at work