Reply to Soccer Coach in Northern VA

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Soccer Coach in Northern VA - Ask me anything"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=asksoccernova]Most likely, a U8 coach is not timing subs and tracking time at specific positions. At U8 they play small-sided so the ball is always close by every player and they will all get a lot of touches.

At U9 they move to a larger field (7v7) and its a completely different game... players definitely need to be rotated in 7v7 or they start to become more narrow-minded players and 1-dimensional if only playing the same position.

It's a volunteer / rec coach. Just let your player enjoy the game and sign him up for a training program, which is where he will actually learn skills. You don't learn any new skills during games, especially at U8. Players can't even process spatial information very well at that age and don't really understand positions or roles beyond 1 simple instructional point at a time.

Halfway through the season if your player keeps playing in the exact same position, then mention it in a nice way to the coach. That's all you need to do.[/quote]

As a rec coach, I would often start each game with a spreadsheet of planned playing time. Then someone would be late or need to come off the field for a minor injury or something, and it would all be wiped out.

But on at least one occasion, it helped me respond to a parent accusing me of stressing winning over development. (In this case, the kid showed up late to the game. Not sure what they expect me to do about that.)[/quote]

Happens every time.  Best parents are the ones that support and trust the volunteer rec coach.  If your kid is not exactly getting the playing time or position you want, then you can either step up and coach the team the next season, or request to switch teams.  At U8, positions don't matter anyway.  Parents who think they do do not understand.  It is very hard to adjust and keep track of 8 players and who got subbed out when, for shoelaces, for brief injury, etc., etc.  Positions are the last thing to worry about and at the beginning of each game I try to start players out in new spots basically from an overall sense of what I recall them spending too much time at before in the season.  That is about it at U8.  Players who show up late or miss warm ups play a few minutes less than others, but are not otherwise penalized.  It's rec after all.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics