Anonymous wrote:I thought this thread was going to be about how many soccer balls parents have to buy every year because their kid loses their soccer ball at practice/games lol

Lost or stolen? If it's a nice ball at practice, it may simply walk off with a lurker hanging around the field, especially in a more dense area of the city.

It's not about playing one touch, 2 touches or more. It's about knowing you can if you need to. It's a mentality, not a rule.

If you know your surroundings, your teammates, and the opponents and understand how much time you have, where your support is, where the pressure is coming from, etc. and you "see" what's going to happen you can successfully play one-touch or how ever many touches you need to.

But in knowing all that, you also have the ability to make a good decision, which could mean two touches, or three, or dribbling past a defender (or two) before making a pass or taking a shot. Or, it could mean one touch is truly the best option.

Vision, awareness, anticipation, and decision-making. All that BEFORE you take a touch.
Those are all in your head. If you become above average with those four mental skills, you will go quite far, even if your technical skills are average.

If you embrace none of that and try to do all those things after your first touch, you could be the most technical player in the world and you will be terrible.

Vision, awareness, anticipation, and decision-making. Know those things. The key to becoming great at these skills is to become great with the ball at your feet. When you are so comfortable with the ball at your feet that it's become a part of you, you can give your mental power over to vision, awareness, anticipation, and decision-making. Then you will be unstoppable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your child should not be touching the ball more than 4 times per possession. Most times it should be 2-3 touches.

Why is your child holding the ball so long. Maybe ask the coach what your child is doing wrong, but you stop the ball, send the ball... or stop, 1 touch, send the ball.

I'm confused why your child is possessing the ball long enough for someone to take it.

This depends on the style of play of the club. All clubs don't play possession style soccer with quick short passes.

DP. No travel clubs play possession. The point of passing after 2-3 touches is increasing the speed of play and break down the defense. When you dribble you slow the speed of play allowing defenders to recover and react. As player age, there are less and less long run/long balls that lead to scoring opportunities. This is because the defenders and defense get better. The players have to be able to play in tight spaces and make pass under pressure in tight spaces. Holding the ball allows the defender to make contact and at that point it is over.

Passing is a part of the game, not the game.
Tactical and Winning are the last phases of soccer development.

Every highly ranked academy/club in the World focuses on Ball Mastery, 1v1, Dribbling, Technical skills from U6 to U12... before Game Management takes more importance.

Manchester City team possession begins with Individual possession skills.