When compared to soccer drills, games have a bigger contribution in developing kids talent in Soccer practice, of which you’ll be sure once you get to the end of this.
Games require the same amount of energy like in a live match but are more refreshing than drills.
When it comes to soccer training, games demand intensity, are more fun and the kids appreciate the enjoyable aspect of the game while mastering its skills.
There are a few guidelines that you need to keep in mind before introducing games in training sessions.
1. Each player must have the ball and play with it regularly.
2. Make sure each player participates equally in the game.
It shouldn’t be that the weak players are deprived of playing with the ball.
3. Do not adopt the practice of reward or punishment.
The games are not meant for that.
4. Make soccer skill building the heart of your games.
5. Ideally, you should not enforce any rules or limits in a game.
6. It is always beneficial if the games are easy to identify with and play.
Difficulty in understanding the games results in wastage of time.
7. Last but not the least, it is important to increase the challenge in a game once the kids have passed a certain level.
Every player doing soccer practice should have at least 200-300 touches to the ball in one session.
This is to make sure that each player is improving with every passing day.
Listed below are certain soccer coaching games which are effective, trendy, and attractive and help develop the skills of players.
1. Shoot the coach: This game requires the kids to travel in a crowd while maintaining their head up and attempt to strike the ball into the goal.
This has the effect of improving the dribbling and a player’s ability to concentrate.
The best way to make the kids play it is start with 3 players and then increasing the number slowly.
2. Freeze Tag: It accounts for great warm up rounds and helps kids in learning to keep the ball away from the defender.
In this game, every player has a ball except one and the player without the ball must touch (not kick) the ball.
When it occurs, the player who has the ball does not move and acts as a goal post.
The player can be de-frozen only when the other player has hit the ball between his legs.
Play till all players are frozen.
3. Red light, green light: In this game, the players stand in a line.
When the coach shouts green light and turns the back towards the ball, the players must move forward with their respective balls before the coach again shouts red light and faces the kids.
If any kid has not moved forward, he is sent back to the starting line.
This is a great game for building agility and focus.
So there you have it!
If you would like insight on more such soccer practice games, join our youth soccer coaching community that has tons of similar resources on youth soccer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Soccer Practice Drills