OK, I assume then you re not talking about competitive games where league tables are kept.

Ten year old's require guidance, especially when an individual is getting hammered/skinned/outplayed by an opposing player.

A coach can shuffle personnel.

One can also change a formation. Again it is important not to make things to complex for 10 year olds, if one follows KNVB TIC or contemporary FFA TIC.

I was forced to complicate things in an under 12 rep team. Half the team was underage.

State Championships for under 12s were 11 v 11.

10 year olds played 9 v9, which was more comfortable and age appropriate.

I have been criticised publicly, using my real name, by the coach the following year for my under 11 and under 12 players not understanding why they played 4-3-3.

One always learns from constructive criticism. I would have preferred them to play 9 v9, but that was taken out of my hands.

The tactical work we did on the training track, with the limited opportunities when the whole team trained together, was decisive in performance.
The kids probably didn't enjoy trying to learn midfield triangles and the nuances of 4-3-3 at 10 years of age either. It was very challenging. They did enjoy success in competition though, winning the ultimate prize.

Fun and games where skill is paramount are important ingredients for 10 year olds.

I like the way Krones always tries to play attacking football. His players will enjoy it. I would like to emulate him, but in bigger competitions, results can take precedence. Unfortunately, it is how coaches and players are appraised by too many in the football milieu.

Yet junior football should always be about development. I'm guilty of playing a defensive combination in the latter parts of a match to win a state competition. If we had pursued all out attack all the time, other teams had better players and we wouldn't have won any games at all.

Had this argument with a P22 coach just before pulling my son out. His last game down in Sydney he was playing in a mix matched side up an age group and was getting absolutely skinned playing left back. He was 8 years old and lets just say game sense wasn't his strong suit back then. In a situation like that some coaching input from the sideline would have been very beneficial for him at that stage of his development. Most adults still need a reminder from time to time so I'm not sure why they strictly forbid it at P22. In saying that I like the idea of a coach having a reduced role and parents no role at all on game day.

Absolutely.



Probably due to the ineptitude of the coaches atb at P22 - easier for them to say or do nothing.



It's really not overly difficult to communicate with your players during the course of a match without looking like an armwaving sideline lunatic. If the kids respect the coach (and respects needs to be earnt, even from juniors) they will fully understand and appreciate the sideline guidance.

As for the role of parents? They are no more than taxi drivers for your players. They should not be engaged in convo at any level (I'm taking elite level football here).

Judy Free (whose comments I read and I like immensely) is now called the Playing Standards Bitter :)

To be fair Judy the P22 coaches at the Central Coast are brilliant. It is run out of the mariners academy and there is a lot of personal development being taught as well. I used to have a laugh at my sons old coach because he wasn't allowed to give instruction but most of the time his body language would get the message across to the boys anyway.

Hi Decentric,

If you playing 9-A-Side introduce 6 consecutive passes before the goal can be scored...ensure that 1 each of the passes comes out of your formation..assuming you are playing 3-2-3 IE: one pass from the back three, one from the middle & one from the front.
Or take the gloves & GK strip off your GK and play the GK in the box with feet only...sure the opponenet will go over the top and may be able to score a hand full of goals during the game but best to conceed a few goals if you are scoring many.

Good day.

Have we met before on the Science of Football?

The 6 pass sequence with each line counting sounds complex.

Nevertheless, the keeper with no gloves and just feet is an excellent idea and easy to do. Why didn't I think of it?
#-o

I would much rather give the opponent more players.
1 it allows me to, maintain the integrity of my style of play
2 it allows me to hone the skills of my players
3 it places my players under major pressure in less space.

All of this I do on the training field when I wish to expose my player’s weaker points.
Increase pressure and reduce space.

Guidance comes on the training pitch i would not let a kid get skinned but i would never rob him of his right to learn for himself or the opportunity to strive for better from himself.

The teaching and learning process does not stop when the ref blows his whistle at match kickoff. Match day guidance not only reinforces good habbits but accelerates the learning process. You don't want to give up this opportunity, krones.

I think the prob with 99% of junior coaches (even some knowledgeable ones) at Sat morning kickoff, their blood pressure rises, they ball watch, and become completely incapable of imparting anything of genuine assistance to the kids.

League tables are totally unnecessary for juniors.

At rep level for state championships, they are needed, but that is all.

3-2-3 is by far the best

Roles change when you have the ball compared to when you don't have the ball.

Gk - 1/3/4

back 3 = 5/4 - 3/4 - 3/2

Mid 2 = 6 - 8

Front 3 = 7- 9/10 - 11

Thats how I describe the roles.

GK becomes a CB once he makes the first pass from a GK.

[quote=FMVS]3-2-3 is by far the best

quote]
LOL :oops: :oops: :oops:

the 2 midfielders would become attacking in a 433 so i would go to a point backwards midfield , the centre back in the 3 can become dm or cb at 11 aside, the rest is self explanotory.

I've posted this on another thread but I'll copy it here as the original poster has asked for coaches experiences at this level and it seems this may be the appropriate thread.

I coach under 8's and 10's and have found the 10's a lot of fun now that they are playing "positions" and "strategy" albeit on a small scale.

I tend to set my under 10's up (only 9 on the field) as a 1-3-3-2 against opposition that are equal to us (or our skill level) and 1-1-3-2-1 against some of the better teams. The one at the back being a sweeper and not marking which means they play a lone striker. I've only adopted this formation twice this season after copping a 9-nil shellacking off one of the better sides in Brisbane. I've told my boys I don't mind them losing as long as we're competitive. That game wasn't competitive.

The week after we adopted the sweeper formation and only went down 2-nil to another good side. The advantage I've found with playing the 2 formations is that if you want to revert to only 3 at the back with no sweeper you simply move the "spine" forward one position. So your central midfielder goes forward to make up 2 at the front and your sweeper moves into centre defence. Alternatively you can just throw your sweeper up front and it reverts to 1-3-3-2 because, lets face it, every 9 year old wants to score goals and thinks they're Lionel Messi.

I may or may not be on the right track but I tell my lads to compress (move up the park) when they have the ball to give them less space and to spread out when we've got it for the converse reasons. (This is simplified of course but remember they are only 9 years old.)

Edited by munrubenmuz: 27/6/2011 02:19:54 PM

I'm new to this section of the forum and I'm enjoying it immensely except for the mindless trolling that seems to be occurring between 2 or 3 posters against 1 particular bloke over a number of threads. As a rule of thumb if your post doesn't add any value to the thread how about you keep it to yourself?

Disagreements about certain points, outright rebuttals, drawn out analysis all good but simply saying "that's shit" or "you're dreaming" or "what would you know" adds nothing to the conversation.

The above quoted post is a perfect example but I could've easily selected dozens more.

I've read about 200 of you comments Judy Free and out of those you could count on 1 hand the number of times you've contributed positively and imparted some knowledge to the topic at hand. It's obvious you have an axe to grind against some posters. Just start up a big fat website that says I don't like X, Y, Z and be done with it.

You're driving the rest of us nuts.

Say your piece, disagree with it all you like but at least explain why you are disagreeing so we can then make a judgement about which of you blokes are talking out of your arses and which of you are just shit-stirring wankers.

Flame away. (I've got big shoulders.)

Edited by munrubenmuz: 27/6/2011 02:43:58 PM

New dawn.

You're hardly worth it.

True to form. Added nothing of value.

Catatonic yawn.

Get over yaself, mate.

True to form. Added nothing of value AGAIN.

Thought I was hardly worth it? Obviously 'worth it' enough to post more inane rambling nonsense.

Peanut!

Isn't it ironic, dontcha think.

Derailed a half decent thread.

Three pips, tiger.

I'd disagree. All junior sports I ever played at a school or club level had league tables. It gives you a sense of competitiveness and allows you to measure against the opposition. Everyone likes a bit of friendly competition - it's the ugly kids, coaches, and parents that make it a liability.




This. I remember one of my high school coaches would give us a pep talk, some quick instructions before the match, then sit down and have a fag and open his thermos whilst we ran around like headless chooks.

[quote=
I'd disagree. All junior sports I ever played at a school or club level had league tables. It gives you a sense of competitiveness and allows you to measure against the opposition. Everyone likes a bit of friendly competition - it's the ugly kids, coaches, and parents that make it a liability.


[quote]

nothing like adding the fear factor for 3 points at u7 to stifle creatvity. England only just got rid of leagues for u7/8 thanks to the effort of one coach in cirencester.

In the lineker post mortum of the 2010 world cup he interviewed the special one
In England, you teach your kids how to win. In Portugal and Spain they teach their kids how to play” Jose Mourinho

That's up to the coaches to teach creativity and technique and not just strength and booting it to the tall, fast kid. You can easily do that with a league table and a little trophy at season's end.

Australia dominated cricket for 15 years or so against England or so because of the fact that we do teach kids to win, not just "have a jolly good time, won't you". It's quite possible to do both and IMHO anyone who says otherwise is as bad as the "kick it long to Jimmy" coaches themselves.

IMO you are wrong
We have no table in the outdoor winter comp and unfortunately a table in the summer futsal comp.
No table is important to creativity.
We can not control the actions of over the top coaches or parents but not having a table seems to help.

Fair enough, we'll agree to disagree.

as we now have the small sided games/football, as a progression up the field sizes there should be a progression up to a competive level. In Nepean (Penrith NSW) competition starts at U10, and I have followed the U10s tables for the couple of year' prior. It is my opinion that grading can never be right, as we talking about kids for which we have no prior years games to compare history. It also generaly the lower grades that have obvious teams that dont belong.

I would suggest that U10 & U11s could play under a swiss pairing system. This way it means that over the year the teams would sort themselves out and then teams would have more close games. This would mean that chances are your team can't win the comp and can concentrate on improving your team.

Then as the ages progres you can have the better teams playing regular comp and the lower grades remaining in the swiss pairing system.

This gives kids a step between non competitive and traditional competitive.

great ideas but it is not the kids that have a problem.