Player Development and Playing Time for U12s

Below is a letter to my team regarding my philosophy on player development and match applications. Please comment if you agree or disagree.


Parents and Players,

I recently received some comments regarding playing time and player development in the 8v8 format where the question was that the player could not "develop" as fast or as well if they weren't playing in the 8v8 format as much as others. I wanted to re-emphasize my stance on player development, playing time and coaching philosophy and how it impacts the player learning a modern playing style, or how to play beautiful soccer.

This is a common question among players and parents that "I or 'Sally' did not play in the game, therefore I'm not developing as a player." Quite the opposite; the game on Saturday or the match application is the final exam of the week, the weekly quiz/test environment that a player can apply their learning from the week to a match situation.

First of all let me address playing time since I may not have been clear about my coaching philosophy at the time. I do not believe that at C1 playing time is equal in any regard or situation. A player must earn playing time in practice and attendance to sessions relative to her peers. I do expect attendance at games and practice to be close to 90-95%, if not at 100%. Anything below 85% at the C1 level results in significant playing time reduction. Attendance is on a binary systems: 1 for there, 0 for not there. I have given pardons to Sundays but not complete pardons--below 50% is unacceptable. You will hear from me when attendance percentages drop below 85%

In the "D"league I do try to spread out more time, but I do still play towards ability and understanding of the requested style of play. Players are limited on playing time based on learning at practice so let me explain why.

In my approach to coaching I synchronize the game formats from practice to the match where the 8v8 formation (2-3-2) is a perfect "fractal' of the 4v4 (1-2-1) learning. A 5v5 game formation is learned in practice as a 3-2 where players replicate the midfield and forward positions of the 8v8 model emphasizing attacking and creativity. Wherein the 3v3 model replicates the Center Mid and forwards as well as the goalie and two defenders. ( it's also an infinite number of relationships on the field but those are just the basics) A typical practice format may progress from 1v1 to 3v2 to 4v4 or 3v3 to 5v5 to 7v7 and all the variations. Since we're still working a bit more lately on 1v1 we move from 1v0 to 1v1 passive to 1v1 conditioned and finish with 1v1 or 2v2 applications.

In this model, players must first develop an understanding of roles within the concept of creating space as a team and a player. (the ole' spread out when you have the ball becomes much more organized as creating depth before width, moving toward support angles off the ball, having an open body stance, being able to see the ball when making runs, first touch into space and when to dribble and when to pass coaching points, and individually on the ball focusing on changes of direction, rhythm and speed.) As a player understands these basic skills more advanced tactical elements such as combination play, deception, switching the field, crossing & finishing, can be developed, etc.) I've introduced these topics several times in our 18 sessions and they are being constantly stressed. How a player understands this is based off the players comfort on the ball and ability to solve problems by themselves on the ball.

This is why 3v3 and 4v4 become such important elements in a players development rather than an 8v8 format where space, time and pressure are intensified and most players without the fundamentals begin to stagnate or even disappear from the game completely because they cannot involve themselves in the game. (this is amplified when a player moves to 11v11 at too young of an age, especially when possession is not part of the team style of play. My high school boys, state champs of 2006, were awful at understanding the complexities and organization of 8v8; however, because we focused on their 3v3 and 4v4 contexts of play daily we were more tactically sophisticated than most teams!--We also had great players, which helps too! 11v11 essentially breaks down into smaller units of the game which is why youth development most often employs 3v3 and 4v4 as the primary teaching tool.

Tactically, some players focus on the ball and do not get involved in the 3v3 and 4v4 formats because they cannot read the complex spatial movements of several players on and off the ball and so become even more lost at 8v8. I may limit their playing time in the 8v8 not because of the result of the game at hand but rather the learning of the player in the smaller game formats is not as mature or developed enough to handle the complexity of an 8v8 situation. Maybe the player still does not understand their role in creating width with an open body stance, maybe they do not understand how and why to create depth. This shows up most dramatically in the 8v8 but is constantly practiced in the 4v4 if the player places themselves in different contexts to learn to solve problems from different angles.

What happens is that a player may only play "defense" and so never experiences how to create space since the back spot has little function in creating depth and width in penetration. Typically this is based on the players confidence to attack, their spatial orientation to complex problems and the ability to read the game situations based on their experience. How this often translates to parents watching the game is that U14 and under must learn different positions; which superficially is another way of saying the player must learn to solve problems from a number of vantage points on the field based off of the principles of play. if they don't understand the principles of attacking and defending in 4v4 they won't in 11v11 and therefore can't play numerous positions. It all goes back to 4v4.

In my experience you get a host of players who can solve problems when facing the ball in the back, when away from the ball up top and when seeing the whole field and playing the wings. What happens is a player gets locked into learning the solutions to game play based on those roles too early in their soccer life and the resulting ball skills are reinforced from those roles.

I thought I'd expound on some of this because it seems that often times you may look and ask yourself why is my daughter playing that "position" or how can she learn to play the position better, or can she play somewhere else? At this age with their cognitive development moving from concrete to abstract it's important to emphasize concrete roles rather than positions on the field: Can you identify where pressure is and support a player by creating space away from the pressure on the ball, can you maintain eye contact with a teammate, can you always see the ball, can you take your first touch into space, etc? These are all concrete tactical cues that U12's need to learn and apply to many of the problems they face on the field and prepare them for the next stage of development at U14. How they solve the decision is within their technical and mental capacities as well as their experience seeing possible solutions fail or succeed.

With this I organize my "match tests". How has the player developed over the course of the week? Fundamentally, what was their effort in SSG (small sided games), did they practice skills without excessive coaching, did they demonstrate understanding both technically and tactically this week, what was their attitude this week in practice? of course I reward effort and attitude first, then skills, ability and confidence in executing the coaching requests: typically, can you win your 1v1's, can you provide a support angle to teammates, can you defend as a pack of wolves?)

Thus, the reason I demand attendance much more from a player at practice than for games. I'd rather coach players who make 100% of practices and only make 80% of their games than the other way around.

The more technical the player, the more task oriented they are in manipulating the ball, juggling, practicing moves-- the more creative their solutions in solving problems whether it be as an individual, in pairs or in small groups of 3 all fundamentals of U12 soccer.

The same as result orientation in 8v8, which I focus more so in practice than in games. Yo ay heard the comments, "what's the score? Who cares!" Players at this age are learning how to train to compete. Not learning how to train to win games. Learning how to train requires a specific attitude toward practice and many U14 and below are not "practice players" because they never learned good "practice" habits. Some players believe that practice is only supposed to be fun, social games rather than developing discipline to decrease mistakes or experiment and take risks with new skills. Different sessions are run with different cues to the player; today-excellence; tomorrow-risk.

All of this is included in the time it takes for me to write down my session preparation and reflections, my game preparation and review. What, when, and how a player is preforming, putting forth effort to risk and control as well as positive attitudes to accept responsibility to make mistakes and understand demands. All of this goes into where a player plays and how much playing time is experienced.

What you should look at is how many touches on the ball your daughter went after, how many tackles did she win(meaning regained possession of the ball), how many passes did she connect, how many players did she beat off the ball and in 1v1 situations, how many "tricks" did she do? These are far more important questions than what position did she play, did she play a lot, did she score, or get scored on, etc...