How to Teach Soccer Positions

I along with many soccer coaches / trainers teach to other coaches that focus on basic soccer skills is the essential part of youth development. However, the realistic fact is that in a few weeks your “herd” of soccer players will take to the field in an all out “duel to the death” called a soccer match. So how do we teach positions and some basic tactics to kids that can’t even pass a ball correctly?

The other day I received an email from a parent / volunteer soccer coach. He had attended one of my coaching clinics and during this clinic I stressed the importance of basic skill training and small sided games. After watching last year’s practices I stressed to the coaches to avoid full field scrimmages during valuable but limited training time. I did so because the year before I witnessed many of the coaches spending 50% of their practices scrimmaging the other teams. Players rarely touched the ball and spent much of the practice standing around talking to family and friends on the sidelines from the playing field.

Here is the simple plan I showed him.

This small sized field practice allows for all players to hear instructions and tips. Trying this on a full field makes for a boring session where most players are staring at the grass because they don’t know what is being said to their teammates.

First, understand that youth soccer players see scrimmages as a “fun time”. Often the first words out of their mouths are “Are we going to scrimmage today?” So the first rule is simple. Gather all the players together and stress a few rules and explain what is about to happen.

1) We are going to spend the entire practice scrimmaging. (Cheers will erupt.)

2) We are going to be playing on a half field set up with large goals on each end. (I call these things kid magnets. They have great power we have to overcome.)

3) We will start the scrimmage in slow motion, step by step.

4) When I ask for you eyes and ears I want all eyes and ears on me the coach.

5) We will rotate positions every few minutes so pay attention to all the positions.

6) No keepers.

7) Use the players you have and make the play 4 v 4, 5 v 5, 7 v 7 or what ever works so that ALL players are on the field. DO NOT worry about rigid formations.

The first section will be slow motion. We will cover walking through positions, recovering, keep the field wide, defense always pushed up, and how to pass and move. (Don’t turn this into lectures. Simple points.)

9) We will start with a ball in play and each time the ball is passed or moved a substantial amount, I will shout FREEZE. (Have players adjust accordingly.)

10) We will see that we don’t have to always “kick and run”. We can pass the ball side to side and even backwards if needed.

11) Then we will slowly start speeding up this game. There is no shooting at first. The first section will simply be “keep away”.

12) If a ball goes out of bounds I (the coach) have a bag of balls and will restart the game by throwing a ball in somewhere on field and shouting, “Ball in.” (Teaches players to recover quickly.)

13) Then we will start shooting, but you must shoot the ball through the cones that are 3 feet away from the corners of the next. This means a simple “pass” into the net will score vs. a kick that will miss. (This keeps the “long footers” from simply kicking from half field.)

14) Now listen carefully. When ever you hear me yell “freeze” you must freeze exactly where you are. (Use these FREEZE times to correct positions, point out good plays, and give points such as, defenders not pushing up or offensive players not recovering.) Keep these “freezes” very short and always SMILE while making them.

By the end of practice you should allow the players to play on without interruption. Even if they are doing things wrong, this is their reward for listening and learning.

Your goal is not to teach “perfect positioning and movement”. Your goal is to stress a few simple points.

Try and stress the following points.

1) When our side has the ball we are ALL OFFENSIVE PLAYERS. This means that defenders must push up close to half field and be an option for a back pass.

2) When the other team wins the ball we are ALL DEFENDERS. Forwards and midfielders must hustle back and be part of the defensive play.

3) No one “watches the game”. So many times we see defenders standing like statues in front of our goal while our forwards are working like crazy with the ball in the opponents 18 box. “NO ONE WATCHES”. Have them push up and the same applies to forwards while we are defending.

4) Moving away from the ball. We will see all the forwards and midfielders running in a group with the ball down the field. Show them that we need to have space. Teach them about being wide and how the defense will focus on the ball, not on wide players that will now be open.

5) Pass and move. EVERY youth player does the same thing. When they pass to a teammate they simple just stop and watch. Teach them that every pass has two parts. The pass and then the movement afterward. They will want to pass and then move towards their pass. Teach them to pass and swing wide or away. I call this bees and honey. The ball is honey and the defenders are bees. Give the honey to someone else and move away from the honey because the bees will all follow.

Since this is a smaller game with everyone moving and touching the ball often, they players will a HUGE amount of conditioning as well as touches.

The next time you do this decrease the instructions and stoppage times. After a few sessions you will see a different team. If players start to get “goal focused” revert back to the keep away aspect with no shooting.