Comments on: Laws of the playground NOT good for footballers

By: Per

Per — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:47:41 +0000

I believe that kids spend too little time in the playground playing football, but just like Dave I think that the LAW of the playground isn´t fair for the kids.
I coach a group of G10, we are about 30-35 at each training session. These girls I every week rotate in the three teams we have in matchplay.
Right from the start (G6) I was firm that every girl shall play at all positions.
The “born” striker have to be defender and goalkeeper.
The kid who want to be goalkeeper shall have the opportunity to score goal as a striker.

By: Louis

Louis — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:17:52 +0000

I love the idea of rotating players to new positions. None the less I find it very difficult to do so. It takes forethought and planning. I see that it’s a lot easier to do it the way my coaches did it and if you were a forward that’s what you only play. Same if you were defense. I like to see the children learn all positions and not just have the “slow, hard to move kid” in goal.

By: Jorgen

Jorgen — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:10:55 +0000

Just had the first training session U’11 on the proper match pitch (not allowed earlier) and with a new mix of boys how long would you try to keep trying the new attackers until you realize they are better off in midfield or defence and let better more suited player play up front. Leauge starts this weekend.

By: LEON

LEON — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:12:50 +0000

How does a coach teach his defenders to approach attacking players without committing themselves to early to win the ball.

By: coach L

coach L — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:44:00 +0000

I coach a fair amount of u14 soccer also and I have found it is very imporant to rotate front players to mid and back especially after they score. They also can take a turn or 2 in the goal so they can learn all the positions and what happens if they don’t change fields and if they don’t mark their man well enough the goalkeeper looks bad. many a scorer got imbarresed on defence when he was resting instead of hustling. Lastly it helps discourage running up the score and making offensive mismaatches too obvious, I’ve often wondered why an all star forward was still shooting and scoring when his team is up by 5 or 6 goals evan if the team has a small bench that can only lead to bad blood and if a less skilled player is playing more physically that can only lead to yellow/red cards or injuries.