he has to play more and be more comfortable with the ball. Work on foot skills.

Anonymous wrote:This is where coaching can make such a huge difference.
Is he playing for a coach that encourages taking chances, and creativity?
Or is he playing with a coach that will scream the second he lose the ball for the first time, or bench him when he makes the wrong pass?

As to what you can do with him? The answer is nothing. The more you push, the more self-conscious he'll get about it, and the worst he will play. Just tell him to go out and have fun.

Agree. Our favorite coach used to scream "Relax!!!" at my son when he was approaching the goal if the coach thought he seemed to be over-thinking things or relying on speed too much. He would yell it so loud that it would startle the kids on the bench, which was kind of funny.

At that age most kids seem to build confidence when they do something good in a game (an assist, a goal, block a shot). You will notice after a goal kids come back guns a blazing. For that reason, my strategy has been to tell my child to remember a time when he did something amazing. Replay that awesome goal from a previous game or when he scored a penalty, etc for the duration of the game. In addition when he is getting subbed in or about to start a game to go in with a positive posture, head up, back straight, on your toes. You can tell some of the nervous players come in with arms folded and heads down sometimes....to me you are admitting defeat already.

Just some techniques we use. Perhaps even just talking about an awesome game in the car before a game will give him a boost with him not noticing.

My U11 DS is the same - my hunch is that he gets nervous and overthinks things, rather than just playing naturally. Personally I think he just needs time to get over his nerves and build confidence. I am hoping it improves as he matures.

How to help? Keep bringing him to the park to play. Tell other parents about the pickup games.

The game performance totally depends on the opponents. Drop a normal travel player to a normal rec league, he will look like star. Put a skilled player into a game with better or just faster player, he will look "bad".

No, that's not it. He looks better playing around against kids on the top team in our club at the park than against kids on mid-level teams during real games. Maybe its the additional structure that throws him off. His coach seems nice.

No need to over-think it. The game performance totally depends on the opponents. Drop a normal travel player to a normal rec league, he will look like star. Put a skilled player into a game with better or just faster player, he will look "bad".

This is where coaching can make such a huge difference.
Is he playing for a coach that encourages taking chances, and creativity?
Or is he playing with a coach that will scream the second he lose the ball for the first time, or bench him when he makes the wrong pass?

As to what you can do with him? The answer is nothing. The more you push, the more self-conscious he'll get about it, and the worst he will play. Just tell him to go out and have fun.

Leave him be. That confidence will come from playing, not because someone pressures him to relax.

DS is a U11, and made a fine travel team for next year. But when I watch him play soccer with friends at the park, I notice that he is significantly "looser" than when he plays in regular travel games, meaning that he seems nervous and unrelaxed for real games. This seems to cause him to be slower in real games, and to make more mistakes. Is there anything I can do to help increase his confidence over the summer, so that he can play more like he does when he is just with his buddies?