--- title: "Cones Don't Move: Why Dribbling Around Cones Won't Teach Kids How to Play" description: "Todd Bean worked alongside Cruyff for 14 years before founding Tovo Academy. In a podcast interview, he raised a topic that makes a lot of coaches uncomfortable: we spend enormous amounts of team training time having kids line up and dribble around cones, but this has almost nothing to do with the real game." canonical: https://hobbit.football/academy/stop-using-cones-as-defenders language: en published: 2026-04-01T00:00:00+00:00 publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football) --- # Cones Don't Move: Why Dribbling Around Cones Won't Teach Kids How to Play > Todd Bean worked alongside Cruyff for 14 years before founding Tovo Academy. In a podcast interview, he raised a topic that makes a lot of coaches uncomfortable: we spend enormous amounts of team training time having kids line up and dribble around cones, but this has almost nothing to do with the real game. ### Cruyff's Son-in-Law Dropped a Truth Bomb Todd Bean is an American, but he lived in Spain for 22 years. It started when Cruyff invited him to Barcelona to work on a project. The original plan was to stay for one year. He ended up staying for 22. He worked with Cruyff for 14 years, married Cruyff's daughter Chantal, and had six children. After Cruyff passed away, he organized all the notes, ideas, and methodologies he had accumulated over the years and founded Tovo Academy. In an episode of the Soccer Queens podcast, he brought up a topic that makes a lot of coaches uncomfortable. What he said was pretty direct: > "Every year I ask on Twitter, is there any research showing that isolated technical training is more effective than training within a game context? Every year the answer is the same, silence. But the moment you even hint that Wednesday night's technical training session could be done differently, people immediately jump out to oppose you. And the opposition isn't about child development, it's about politics, it's about money." That's about as blunt as it gets. But he wasn't trying to pick a fight. He was simply asking a very straightforward question: If we all agree that the game demands everything from a player, technical skill, cognitive ability, physical capacity, mental strength, then why isn't our training equally comprehensive? ### The Most Frequent Action in a Game Isn't Passing Bean cited a set of research data on professional matches: A player has the ball for approximately 53 seconds per game. Each time they have the ball, they average 2 touches. 53 seconds. In a 90-minute match, you have the ball for less than 1 minute. So what are you doing for the other 89 minutes? You're running, scanning, reading the positions of teammates and opponents, deciding where to move, choosing when to accelerate and when to slow down. In other words, the most frequent action in a game isn't passing, isn't shooting, isn't dribbling, it's making decisions. Bean's logic is this: if that's what the game actually demands, then training should be faithful to the game, cognitively, physically, socially-emotionally, and technically. That's what he means by "holistic training", it's not some lofty theory. He even says it himself: it sounds like grandma's common sense. But the problem is, most training sessions in practice do the exact opposite of this common sense. ### The Definition of "Technical Fundamentals" Is Itself the Problem In the American market (and honestly, in the Chinese market too), when you say "soccer fundamentals," people will rattle off a list: passing, receiving, shooting, dribbling, heading. Bean says, hold on. That's it? Isn't running ability a fundamental? Isn't agility a fundamental? Isn't body stability a fundamental? What about scanning the environment, making choices, evaluating whether your actions were effective, aren't those fundamentals? If we define "fundamentals" as only those five actions, then our training will be designed around those five actions, and so we get passing drills, shooting drills, dribbling drills, all done in isolation. But if we expand the definition to include scanning, choosing, decision-making, evaluating, coordinating with teammates, and off-the-ball movement as part of "fundamentals," then the entire approach to designing training looks completely different. This isn't an abstract discussion. This definition directly determines what your Wednesday night training session looks like. ### The "Technical Training Night" with 50 Kids Bean was asked a very specific question: a lot of American clubs run "technical training nights" where 30 to 50 kids rotate from station to station on the field, dribbling around cones and practicing 1v1 moves. Is this kind of training effective? He gave a little disclaimer first: "Do you want me to be honest or polite?" Then he said: > "If the kids are having fun, then it's not a waste of time. But if you're asking me whether this is the most effective way to develop technically skilled players, it's not. No research in the world says it is." > "If you have 50 kids, oh my God, what an incredible opportunity. You know how happy they'd be going home and telling their grandparents how many goals they scored? Standing in line in the cold wind waiting to dribble around cones, that's not truly applying technique." > "If you have 6 kids, play 3v3. If you have 4 kids, play 2v2. If you have 50 kids, play small-sided games." He then explained a crucial distinction: many people think "technical training" means isolated ball-touching exercises. But what is real technique? It's the ability to apply skills within the context of a game. He gave a real example: a boy from Auckland, New Zealand came to Spain to train with Tovo for a period. Their training method was Rondo, small-sided games with defenders, changing fields, changing numbers, entirely within game contexts. When the boy went back to Auckland, his coach said: "Wow, your technique has improved enormously." Of course it had. He was indeed doing technical training, just not between cones. He developed his skills in real competitive situations, in contexts that required decision-making. When Bean summed up this logic, he said something I think is exceptionally precise: > "An exercise that doesn't require you to apply what I'm teaching is not a useful exercise." ### Cones Don't Move This was the part of the entire interview that hit me the hardest. Bean said, look at Brazil, look at the streets of Amsterdam, those places produced the most technically gifted players in history. How did they develop their skills? Not by standing in lines. Not with someone standing on the sideline barking instructions at them. They went outside, found their friends, and played. In games, in competition, in interaction with their peers. Then he asked a question: > "Kids in America (and in China too) don't play soccer in the streets anymore, that's a fact. So what's our solution? Our solution is to bring them to a field, line them up, and have them dribble around cones." > "I take what was originally a complete game, one that has technique, intelligence, competitive spirit, I break it apart, and then I use cones to replace everything that was in the game. Cones don't move. Cones don't press you. Cones don't fake you out. Cones don't suddenly appear behind you when you turn around." > "I just don't understand this logic. And I've asked everyone to explain it to me. To this day, no one has been able to." ### Where Isolated Training Belongs: At Home Let's be clear on one thing here. Bean is not saying isolated ball-touching practice has zero value. He said it explicitly: building a relationship with the ball is something every player needs. Cruyff used to say "make the ball your friend." Bean's own son juggles and kicks against the wall in the yard, that's play, not training, but he is building a relationship with the ball. His point is: these things belong to personal time, at home, in the garage, in the park, or even in a one-on-one session with a private coach. But team training time is different. You might only have four and a half hours a week, an hour and a half a day, three days a week. Those four and a half hours are the time kids get to be together, to collaborate, to compete, to interact. That time should be used for things that can only be done in a team setting: improving technique together within game contexts, building cognitive awareness, developing relationships. > "Individual training has its place. Team training is a different place. I just don't think team training is the best time for isolated exercises." ### Where Did Free Play Go? The second half of the interview touched on an even bigger topic: the disappearance of free play. Bean said that when his generation was growing up, the daily routine was simply going outside to play, street hockey, soccer, all kinds of games. You'd get yelled at if you didn't come home for dinner. There was no pathway planning, no performance pressure, no showcases, no ID camps. Just pure play. > "The interesting thing is, in that environment, we became skilled. We became self-regulated. We became resilient. All the qualities my parents hoped I'd have, we acquired them through play, without scrutiny, without spotlights, without constant expectations and criticism." Then he took his sons on a road trip through California and passed through Santa Cruz. He wanted to take the kids to see the pier, but near where they parked there was an empty artificial turf field. His kids (who grew up in Barcelona) couldn't believe it, "This field is open? Nobody's using it?" Bean went to Walmart and bought a purple ball, the last one on the shelf, and the kids played on that field for over two hours. He went to the pier himself, took photos, watched the seals, grabbed some food, and when he came back he had to drag the kids away. His takeaway was this: America (and China too) has plenty of fields, plenty of space, but those fields sit empty because kids are at home playing PlayStation. ### The Meaning of Sports Is Far Greater Than Making a Professional Team Bean said something near the end of the interview that I think deserves to be recorded in full: > "We want to reduce dropout rates because we know what sports mean to a society. Every extra day a child stays in sports, we reduce crime rates a little, we reduce suicide rates a little, we reduce substance dependency a little." > "Now ask yourself a question: does lining kids up to dribble around cones accomplish that, or does letting kids play soccer with their friends accomplish that?" > "For me, the meaning of soccer goes far beyond professional teams or college scholarships. This is what Cruyff taught me. Soccer is an opportunity, a real opportunity to address social problems and to raise children who can live positive, fulfilling lives. That is the value of sports." > "As for the small percentage of kids who do go on to a professional path, wonderful. But that's an entirely different world. A 12-year-old playing soccer in Tampa is not the same thing as professional football." --- We've written many articles before about training session design, the 3L framework, over-coaching, game-based training, coach behavior. Todd Bean said the same things in his own words. His language might be more direct, more unsparing, but the underlying logic is identical: Let kids play. Learn the game in the game. Cones are not opponents, and teammates are not cones. Or as Cruyff would put it: make the ball your friend, but you don't make friends standing in line. You make friends by playing together. --- *This article is based on Todd Bean's interview on the Soccer Queens podcast. 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