Coaching U12s to Develop into Better Soccer Athletes

I received this email not so long ago, and I thought that I would share with you all:


I need a little help. I am assisting with a girls U-12 club team and need some conditioning requirements. This team is what I consider to be a development squad that is about 1-2 years behind on individual skill level compared other U-12 club teams. I have worked diligently over the last several weeks on these individual skills and they are starting to make progress. However, during our games I have noticed that the fatigue factor is kicking in and now I need expose them to more intense conditioning practices.

My experience is more on the boys side and I do not want to push these girls so hard that they do not enjoy playing. Can you provide me with some resources or recommendations for conditioning for girls at this age? I currently only work with these girls twice a week and we just added a third practice to address their fitness level. I just need a little direction as to what you consider to be adequate at this age. Below is what I have in mind for a conditioning practice and would like your opinion on a age appropriate conditioning practice. I have always coached with the mentality that my team may not be the most skillful or talented group but they would always be the most fit team on the field.

Begin: 10 minute stretch
5 minutes moving with the ball 3/4 speed (20-25 yards)
2 Minutes rest
4 laps (jog sidelines sprint end lines)
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15-20 Individual Skill work
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2 Minute break
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5 minutes moving with the ball full speed (30-40 yards)


2 Laps with a ball (jog sidelines sprint end lines)
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2 Minute break
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20-25 minute skill work or small sided game
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10 minutes (sprint from end line to 18 and jog back to end line)
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2 Laps for cool down



Your opinion is greatly appreciated.



Here is my response:



The U12 age is a difficult age for both coaches and players. As US Soccer's Best Practices for Coaching Soccer in the United States says: "The U12 age group seems to be the moment in youth soccer that causes the most discussion concerning player development. Are thse players young adults or are they still children? As soccer players, they are still young. Although there are some areas of the game where the players are beginning to make progress, this is an age where ball skill and soccer instincts must be encouraged above the results" (page 27). Also, as The Official US Youth Soccer Coaching Manual argues: "Teetering on the edge of childhood and adolescence, the the U-12 player presents a myriad of problems, but a gold mine of potential. Not only can they follow complex instruction, they now have the ability to create their own variations of the games. When compared to younger players, the U-12 player demonstrates a greater degree of analytical thought, which enhances tactical
understanding. Still, their performance during match play will be inconsistent. Much of their training should consist of small-sided games with various playing or field conditions placed upon the players" (page 40).

We can see from this advice, as well as from the tremendous drop out rates at and around the U12 age band, that we need to be very careful with the U12 and that we need to ensure that we are continuing to focus much of our attention (if not all) on building a strong foundation of soccer skills and savvy from which the player / team will be able to build on as they progress in soccer. To do this effectively, then US Soccer (as evidenced by Best Practices), USYSA (as evidenced by The Official Manual), and I recommend the following:

• Coaches in the U12 age groups should be focusing on (some of) the building blocks of successful soccer players: FUN, skill, athleticism, and "individual and small groupd decisions, in the attack and when defending" (BP, page 29). The issue that is relevant to your questions is 'athleticism,' and I think that we will want to make a distinction here between 'athleticism' and 'conditioning.' To me, athleticism will include things like strength, agility, balance, coordination, explosivness, stability, body awareness, hand:eye or foot:eye coordination, etc, while conditioning will include mostly non-soccer specific aerobic running (as your practice session plan would suggest). In my mind, it is more beneficial to address athleticism than it is to address conditioning at this age because athletic lessons can be life long lessons, and conditioning lessons can and will be lost as soon as the players stops or decreases the conditioning work. And, as these players are near the beginning of their soccer /athletic development cycle, I think that we need to focus on those activities that will give us the most benefit for the longest period of time, and I feel that that is athletic training rather than conditioning training. Indeed, Sam Snow, the Senior Assistant Technical Director for US Youth Soccer, in his paper on soccer growth ages, "At What Age Should a Soccer Player Peak?" , argues that at the U12 level, athletic and fitness training should be confined to "[soccer specific] endurance, rhythmic movement, flexibility, and running mechanics."
• Coaches in the U12 age groups should be focusing a tremendous amount of energy on skill acquisition. As Best Practices argues: "The most fundamental skill in soccer is individual mastery of the ball and the creativity that comes with it" (page 4). If the players train these skills in an environment that challenges them all four levels of the game (technical, tactical, physical, psychological), then they are developing realistic skill, as well as realistic decision making ability, realistic athleticism and fitness, and a realistic soccer psychology. If coaches devote energy to realistic skill acquisition, then they will also be focusing energy on realistic athletic skills. Of course, coaches can and should highlight or isolate either the athletic side or the skill side of a specific soccer movement or chain of movements to increase the players ability to both understand and perform the "athletic soccer skill," but the key is that the players are still performing realistic movements and skills in a game like environment.

With the above two points in mind, and to efficiently follow the advice above, coaches in the U12 age group should adopt a small sided games methodology in their training sessions because it is the most economical method by which (youth) players can be trained.

Over the last several years, as US Soccer and the USYSA have been holding up and defending the numerous benefites of a SSG methodology, there have been several interesting studies and evaluations done on the actual economy and effectiveness of SSG. I will refer you to just a few of them, and I will flag up just a few issues of interest to your email:

Scotland Football Association: http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/resources/documents/footballdevelopment/PracticeZone/SoccerSevensResource/Small-SidedGamesStudy1.pdf

There are three main points relevant to conditioning in general that this study points to:

1. The number of ball contacts in a small sided game is massively different than in a larger game. As a result of this, and as a result of small situations and thus fewer possible outcomes, the player's success rate is also higher in a SSG than it is in a larger game. If this is true (as these studies suggest that it is), and if the point above is true, then it follows that more realistic skill acquisition necessarily means acquisition of soccer specific athleticism.

2. When a SSG methodology is adopted (7 v 7 or 4 v 4, for the purposes of this study), the ball will spend less time out of bounds than it will if the players are playing a larger sided game. In an 11 v 11 game at this level, for example, the ball will spend between 32 and 34% of the time played out of bounds. I would argue that that percentage is either exactly right or slightly higher in NTX in general and in TSA in specific. And, as we all know that the U12 player is not tactically developed enough to "play when the ball is out of bounds," a ball that is out of play means that most of the players have stopped moving. This will obviously negatively impact the players fitness levels.

3. In a SSG, the players exhibit more "serious speed" than they do in a larger game. That is to say, the game becomes a better mix of aerobic and anaerobic exercise, and it starts tolook, act, and feel more and more like the real, more adult version of the game.

2. US Youth Soccer: Small Sided Games:

Here, there are several fascinating points to bring up, but the same message holds from above: SSG are more economic than other forms of training for youth soccer because they create challenges technical, tactical, psychological / emotional, and physical that are realistic to a youth player's abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. If the challenges are realistic, then the gains are realistic and more beneficial. In this study in particular, in from a narrow fitness point of view, USYSA argues that "athletic growth is enhanced due to continuous movement," and due to the overwhelming number of successful ball contacts.

So...on to concrete suggestions:

I think that the third practice is good idea (Best Practices recommends a 3:1 training:game ratio for this age group). However, rather than only focusing on "conditioning" in this session, I would focus on athletic development and skill development. I would also combine these ideas by developing fundamental activities that place the players in game realistic situations (realistic space, part of the field, time, pressure from opponents, reception and use of the ball, etc.), that ask the players to perform both athletically and skillfully, and that are highly repetitious.

With reference to your warm-up, then, I would reduce the amount of stretching time (I would also make this a dynamic stretch rather than a static stretch), and I would get directly into a fundamental activity like the above (perhaps you can even intersperse the activity with dynamic stretching).

I also do not think that you need any of the fitness around the field, but If you feel that you have
to include it, then I would highly advise that the players be dribbling rather than just running.

From that point (maybe 20-25 minutes in), I would play several variations on small sided games. Here, however, rather than creating games that have a technical / skill or tactical objective, I think that you can develop games that will place physical stresses on the players. For example:

• If you play a game that, either, has very extended boundaries for the number of players, or no boundaries at all, then you will find that the games become very physically taxing for the players in a very short period of time, especially if the numbers stay fairly small;
  If you develop scoring methods that are more physically demanding (dribble through goals, dribbling over an endline, stopping the ball on an endline, dribbling the ball past a certain point and then shooting on goal, etc.), you will find that the players are physically taxed;


• I would also recommend manipulating the time that the players play. For example, if you develop a game where the players will play 2 v 2 for 3 minutes no matter what happens (ball out of bounds, scored, etc.), the players will be forced to play for the required time and, because it is a small sided game, they will not be able to hide or not participate in the action (especially if there is a competitive edge to the session). This will, in effect, place the players in a game-like environment, and ask them to develop game like fitness. One benefit to this kind of a method will be that you can now use the principles of interval training (manipulating rest:work ratios for specific gains). So, now, you are not only playing the game (so the players are developing game realistic abilities), the players are having a tremendous amount of fun (soccer is fun!), you are using proven fitness development methods (interval training), and you are also allowing each player to work and rest so that their overall performance is better throughout the session (the gains from this in particular would help you to address the "end of the match" questions that you asked about). This would be economical training at a great level, and I think that the individual and team gains would be huge.


• If the first phase is 20-25 minutes, and the SSG phase is 20-25 minutes, and you account for water breaks, you should be 60-65 minutes into your training session now. Because this would be about the time that the players play in a match, and as it is your third session, I think that you can safely end your session after the SSG, and close things out with a warm down activity, some static stretching, and maybe a fun game or two. If you need to satisfy an hour and a half time slot, then you can play a larger game for 10-12 minutes, and then go into a warm-down, stretching, fun phase.
  
  In the end, there are several ways to address the issues that you bring up, but I think that a method similar to the one that I have mentioned would provide your players with the best short term and long term gains, and that it will be the most economical use of your time.