Crowding round the ball

Football CoachCoach

1) Do rememeber that at that age its all about `me my-self and I` so some bunching is to be expected.

2) You can devide your field for small sided games into halfs, with cones. Get them to understand the basic of defence and attack. Players should play inside their alocated grids (rememeber to switch the players around, poor Johnny doesnt want to be defender all the time)

Progression: devide the field into quarters, a top, bottom, left and right quarter. Now players get to understand "if coach tells me I am a right midfielder that I shouldnt switch over to the left side" and visa virsa.

Let me know how it goes

Football CoachCoach

I had thawith my under 8`s; I ended up playing a game of tag every week, with me blowing the whistle to stop them every now and then to point out who was in space and how well they were doing. Next I upgraded this to include a few balls and a small number of defenders, again stopping them regularly to point out who was in the right place and who wasn`t.

I`m not saying we`ve cracked it, but in the games after we do those drills in training they all definitely spread out more!

Pete EvansTeacher, England

Lovely thanks Glen and Andries

Football CoachCoach

Teach them how to play ultimate frisbee - great at teaching them the importance of spreading out, looking for space and how passing can cut down the need for dribbiling around players. To start with, you may need to call each catch (and make all players around the holder of the frisbee stand down), but after 2-3 games, they should get it.