How a session is built: games, practices, warm-ups, constraints, how often players touch the ball · 20 stories
Stories that name no age are only under all ages. A story for U8 to U12 is in both of those bands.
A coach with a strong U7 team asks how to make them more aggressive in attacking the ball. Most replies suggest lots of 1v1s: duels for a 50/50 ball between cones, or two players racing to score on the same goal. One reply argues you should not coach aggression at this age and should focus on fun and ball control instead.
In a Coach United Academy video for U8 to U12 coaches, M&A Soccer School coach Masaki Arano builds 2v2 defending from body positioning and prediction to the second defender's cover and intercepting. The session uses 2v2 plus one free player to keep possession, then 2v2 plus two servers where dribbling over the goal line scores, teaching challenge and cover.
Coach Kazu of Junior Soccer College argues that youth coaches should analyse their team before choosing or creating a training menu, because the menu follows what the analysis says the team needs. He describes prioritising the many things players cannot yet do, picking out repeated patterns in games for reliability, and translating a 3-3-1 example into sessions, using a yearly plan split into three to four month cycles.
ジュニアサッカーカレッジ ↗Also reported byAprende Entrenando
An U7/U8 coach asks whether one practice a season falls apart, after a session ended 15 minutes early with kids bickering and unfocused. Most replies say it happens, urge leniency, and suggest 75 minutes and one 15 minute drill are too long, with an extra parent helping.
Aprende Entrenando published a step-by-step method for planning youth football sessions, matching content to each age group from benjamín (8-9) to juvenil (16-18). Sessions should last 75 to 90 minutes, built as a 15-minute ball-based warm-up, 45 to 50 minutes of two or three progressive tasks and a 10-minute cool-down with questions.
A parent with no soccer background ended up coaching 8U and dreads practice. Most replies say yes: warm up with a ball game, then small sided games and scrimmages, keeping the same session structure each week. One reply says a warm up plus scrimmaging is enough for U8.
MORI FOOTBALL ACADEMY's Kazuya Mori, a former Kawasaki Frontale academy coach and now南葛SC U-15 manager, shows drills that improve the quality of stopping, kicking and carrying the ball. The session uses three-player groups in a 90-degree set, a straight line and a triangle, and stresses stopping the ball with the sole on the opposite side of the roll, passing so the receiver does not move, keeping ball and body together, and turning the belly button forward before passing.
A coach of strong, fast U12 girls says practice effort is low but match day spark is high, and wants fun tactical sessions. Most replies say use small-sided, game-based formats with scoring, uneven teams and rule conditions instead of cone drills; a few suggest linking poor practice to poor games and keeping tactics to shape and spacing.
A coaching guide from Aprende Entrenando says isolated technique work fails under pressure and offers four exercises built on perception, decision and execution. It recommends cutting space, limiting touches, using overloads and adding rules such as a double goal after a one-two to raise the cognitive load in sessions for U7s to U16s.
A coach with more than fifteen years on the field sets out how to plan grassroots football training by stage: initiation at 6 to 9, development at 10 to 13 and perfection at 14 to 18. Sessions of 75 to 90 minutes split into a 15 minute warm-up, two or three linked main tasks and 10 minutes of cool-down and reflection, with content spread across weekly macros and microcycles.
Coach Kazu says a session needs both volume (time, touches, intensity) and quality (the phenomenon you aimed for). If the phenomenon does not appear, change the organization (numbers, space, rules) instead of coaching harder, even 30 seconds in; tag and 1v1 examples show too few taggers or a too narrow pitch killing the target play. Keep a second plan ready, and if the change fails, switch the whole menu.
A coach's U12 rec boys talk through practice, so attention takes several tries and a whistle. Most replies say talk less and play more, using small sided games and short instructions, with quick attention cues such as two claps. Some still use laps or up downs as needed, but others call running them counter-productive.
r/SoccerCoachResources · 30 comments ↗Also reported byr/CoachingYouthSports
A youth coaching site explains how coaches can film their own sessions cheaply and use the footage to fix session flaws. It covers a phone or action camera on a tripod at least 2.5 metres high, a clip-on wide-angle lens for under 20 euros, camera positions for rondos, 7v7 and 11v11, and what to check: wasted time between tasks, space sizes, your own feedback and individual tactical behaviour.
Coach Kazu explains that two causes keep training gains from showing up in matches: representativeness (how close practice is to the game) and mismatched assumptions (drills whose structure makes success too easy). Crosses without defenders, directionless possession and two-goal 1v1s all differ from matches, where opponents press and space is tight.
A grassroots coaching guide says training tasks must be representative of real football, with ball, teammates, opponents, defined space and direction, not copied drills or queue-based circuits. It gives four principles, a five-step design process and progressions and regressions per age group, from 1v1 and small-sided games up to collective tactics.
Coach Kazu writes that in drill training, players should touch the ball roughly once every 6 seconds, yet long shooting queues often leave them waiting 30 seconds per touch. In a 10-minute drill, 6 seconds per touch gives 100 touches versus 20 on a 30-second wait; splitting into two groups or using two balls fixes it.
Coach Kazu explains that drills (analitico) are one of three teaching methods in Spanish coaching schools, alongside global and systemic, and that the Dutch debate over Coerver training versus learning by playing still shapes how coaches see them. He says drills suit warm-ups, the first part of a session, and raising technique in young players who cannot yet stop, pass and carry the ball well.
A coach's team warms up, then talks tactics, and starts both games flat; yelling at halftime transforms them. Most replies blame the order and the warmup: talk first, then build intensity to game speed, with short, intense, game-like drills finishing near kickoff. Arriving an hour early may also be too long.
A coach and researcher argues that youth sport often has children queue for drills, which keeps them active but gives them little to think about, and that game-based approaches where children solve problems in realistic games develop decision-makers. The coach's role becomes more demanding, not smaller: asking the right question at the right moment takes as much skill as demonstrating technique.
Former futsal Japan international Toshi Nagashima, who runs AMBER FA, shows U8 to U12 coaches how to build receiving and dribbling training. The session covers controlling with the far foot, a soft knee to absorb the ball, and a 2v2 plus two vertical servers game that links receiving, turning and finishing.