Youth Football - Coaching Tips & Advice If You Please

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Tonight is the first practice for the new season of AYSO (American Youth Soccer Org.). I'd love some input from you all about things you were taught that really helped or stuck with you, tips for drills that lead to on-field results, strategies --- anything, really.

This is my 7th season as a coach. I've experienced the highs and lows. One season we had the best player in the league and the teams were all lopsided with talent and we ran roughshod over all opponents. Another season we lost every game. I have had shy players who literally stood rock-still in the middle of the pitch, and autistic players who had to be dragged off the field screaming. 

Through it all I have tried to use drills that I learned on my 11v11 men's teams and to keep the players moving and playing with the ball, and I mean playing. For decades in this country we have adhered to the hoof-it-long approach, patterned sadly after the English system which didn't work out so well for England or for us. Players were taught to move up in rigid lines of three, like foosball table players. Every year the AYSO partners with the British Soccer Academy (or some such title) and we have young British players come over and coach week-long sessions. I've seen literally nothing that I can use in those camps. While these instructors could run circles around me and school me without breaking a sweat, their ideas are still trying to crank out more Milners and Joneses.

Now we have Barcelona and Real Madrid player camps every summer that cost about $800 for five days, and they are trying to turn our little hoofers into little Iniestas. 
EDIT: Except from what I've seen, if a kid is really good with the ball they will already be good with the ball before they show up on your team. I've been able to help new players become adequate players, and I've helped good players get better and/or become more clinical. We have what are called "balanced teams" in AYSO, and that means all of the teams are supposed to have the same basic talent level. At U12 we have a player draft, which makes it a bit more fair. It's easy to coach the good players. It's hard to coach the ones who trip over chalk lines. 

I'm trying to find the happy medium that allows me to get the good and bad players to enjoy the game as much as possible, to play together, and to get better. 

So, gentlemen: tips, tricks, strategies, amusing anecdotes, if you will.

[Deleted]

Don't do anything LvG does, and you're onto a winner

[dsilvaxx2]

Balance is the key. I always like to break up training with technical ball work, feign, fakes, moves with the ball and untilze a few moves in some 1v1 competition (I always worked both feet). Love moving to small sided games, 4v4-6v6 and the like, lots of touches by all the players. And cannot forget about fitness training, make it fun and team games, bring fresh ones, not the same repetition, and they won't know how hard they are actually working.

I always tried to find different training methods, watching high level training by top coaches in similar age group to what you coach is great. Going online or to the library can be a wealth of methods and ideas to incorporate into your sessions. I always worked my first practice session after a match on what we needed to get better at, and still worked all of the above in. But being prepared and having the direction of what you want to accomplish is paramount to getting everything out of the players that you have.

Last but not least, enjoy the time with your team....it goes by in a flash.

[El Chapo]

Dsilva has it right, technical work with the ball is very important (also fun). I tried to get away from drills with cones - always use other players when possible. When I was 17 I had to coach a group of men on a monday morning 8am who didnt want to be there, I found out that making it seem like I was the one doing everyone a favour was the attitude to have. Even when I was coaching children I tried to instill a basic level of tactical awareness (basic pressing triggers/overload transitions) then I thought fuck it, what the fuck am I doing trying to teach kids about a 4-2 press and became a gardener.