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Coaching kids' soccer

Position Play

Dave Tutelman -- September 9, 2018

Teaching soccer skills is the obvious part of the coach's job. But teaching game flow and position play is probably more important. Not only will it determine how well the team plays (which if you recall is not my first criterion for my own success), the kids are learning the essence of the game. They will not enjoy nor stick with a game that just swirls around them with their not understanding what is happening. And learning the game flow will let them appreciate the game as a spectator, even if they decide they don't want to play it.

Last but not least, position play is safer. Have you watched younger kids playing soccer? They play "swarm". Any question of why they need shin guards is put to rest when you watch just a minute or two of that game. On the other hand, if the kids are each playing their own position, you have only two or at most three players challenging one another for the ball at any moment. Very different from the swarm, where every kid except the two goalkeepers is flailing away in the vain hope they might catch a piece of the ball.

Early in the season, I would send home a handout on position play, with this cover letter. It enlists the parents' help in reviewing a few simple principles of play for each position. (I tried to limit myself to three principles per position, and for the most part I succeeded.) If the kids can learn and apply these principles for just two of the positions, they will be much better players. A kid under 10 with this sort of position discipline is a dream to coach.

Here are the position prinicples I attached to that cover letter. I have two sets, the handwritten one for seven and under, and the typed one for eight and nine. They are very similar -- hey, the principles don't change -- but the one for the older kids may have more rules and a more complete explanation.

Another thing I put in the older kids' principles is "what is your job?". I identified the first objective for each position. In most cases it is obvious (e.g., the goalkeeper's job is to keep the ball out of the goal), but in other cases it may be surprising. And in the surprising cases, it took a few years of coaching before I "got it".

So here are the rules of position play for each position, followed by two bonus sections: drills for teaching and reinforcing some position play principles that kids violate all the time, and things to look for when matching kids to positions. But first, a note about formations, the systems of positions.

Formations

Elite soccer teams typically play a 4-4-2 formation, that is 4 defenders, 4 midfielders, and 2 forwards. Occasionally you will see a 4-3-3, but seldom anything more offensively weighted than this. There are several reasons professional and national teams are this heavily defensive:

At that level, offensive skills are so great that you need to beef up the defense to stay in the game.
In addition to skills, the rules and their interpretation by the referee make it hard to defend effectively, especially in the penalty area. The consequence of a foul there is a penalty kick, almost a sure point.
All the players are supremely mobile and understand the game really well. That means the named positions are very fluid; the players move to where they are needed. It is easy and common to have six potential goal-scorers on the attack, even if your nominal formation is a 4-4-2. And it is not uncommon for a defender to score a goal on a "set piece" play like a corner kick.

None of this is true in recreational soccer, especially the younger ages. In fact, the most common formation in rec soccer when I was coaching was the 3-3-4, a heavily offense-weighted system. With 20:20 hindsight, I can point to a single skill factor that really dictated the formation.

Below age 10, the skill shown in kicking a ball -- both power and accuracy -- falls off tremendously as soon as you are no longer kicking a ball back in the direction it is coming from.

Think about the flow of a soccer game. Simple defense almost always calls for the easy kick -- send it back the way it came. On the other hand, scoring usually requires at least a 90° turn of the ball, and often an obtuse angle up to 180°. That gives the defense a much larger advantage than in the professional game, due simply to the skill set required between defense and offense. The obvious answer is to load up the offense at the expense of the defense. And the result is scores not that different from professional scores. Maybe a little higher, but not silly high. If the professionals played a 3-3-4, you would see "run-it-up" scores.

If you're thinking ahead, it just occurred to you, "If I can teach my kids how to turn the ball with accuracy and power, we'll win everything." And indeed you would. Just be sure you don't get ahead of yourself. The most important skill to teach kids about kicking is don't reach for the ball; be sure you're over it when you kick it. Reaching results in missed kicks usually, and weak, misdirected kicks otherwise. And when you have to turn the ball, the chances of having to reach for it multiply; it's much harder to get over the ball for a right angle or more. If you emphasize angled kicks too early -- before they are decent at kicking stationary balls and balls coming from the direction they are kicking -- the kids will not be kicking the ball at all.

Goalkeeper

Here are the handouts for the younger and the older kids.

As I said above, the goalkeeper's job is obvious. Keep the ball out of the goal.

The principles of position play for the goalie are:

Stay in front of the goal line. Not on the goal line. Definitely not behind it. In front of it! It is way too easy for the ball to be located in the goal while the goalie is holding it. That's a goal for the other team. Don't let it happen. Stay a few feet in front of the line at all times, and especially do not back up when you have the ball. This requires learning a certain amount of aggressiveness, because a seven-year-old's natural reaction is to back up in the face of an attack.
Clear the ball anywhere but right in front of the goal. If you can punt it over the heads of the other team's attack, that's a good approach. Very few seven-year-olds can. So throw it to the side. (That also means training your defenders to get out to the side when your goalie has the ball secured.)
Be a little to the side where the attack is coming from. Not all the way, but narrow the angle the attacker has to shoot at the goal. That's a hard concept for an under-ten youngster to visualize, so it has to be taught by drill. The coach or parent drilling the goalie in Skill Drill 1 should move back and forth to throw the "shots", and demand the goalie move in response. Make them learn by doing if they can't visualize it and do it naturally.

Note that the first and the third are about developing assertiveness. You stay forward, even move toward an attack, rather than shying away from it. If your goalie can't or won't develop this assertiveness, they are wrong for the job.

Defenders

Here are the handouts for the younger and the older kids.

The defenders' job was a surprise to me, once I finally figured it out; it took a couple of seasons. It isn't to prevent shots on goal. On the contrary, it is to force poor shots on goal, weak or poorly aimed. Shots that any competent goalie can handle. It took me a few seasons to learn, but once I realized it I was ashamed it took me so long. It's the same reasoning as the assertiveness requirement for goalkeeper; if you back up as a defender, you are making it easier for the other team to score. To make it harder for them to score, you must meet the attack and force it.

Indulge me while I recount the anecdote that clinched this one for me. Yes, I knew it before this, but now I had a definitive story to back it up.

My kids that year were the 8- and 9-year-olds. D was playing goalkeeper; he was big and athletic, and enjoyed the spotlight of the 'keeper spot. In the first half, the opposing center forward got by our defenders three times for point-blank shots; no way D could have stopped them, and he didn't. During the half-time break, we talked about what was happening. Our center defender was showing their center forward too much respect, not crowding him and forcing a shot but rather backing off and giving him real estate closer to the goal. D was the one who saw that the most clearly, watching from just in front of the goal. So we moved D to center defender, the center defender to left defender, and the left defender to goal. G, the new goalie, was tall and gangly. Not tremendously coordinated nor quick because he was still growing into his height, but he had reach and had strength enough to kick a big punt. Both these skills were important for a goalkeeper. The idea was that D would take on their center defender and force weak shots from further away. The other team was completely shut down in the second half. G made a lot of saves, but they were all easy saves. And his long punts gave our offense a lot of good opportunities.

The moral here: if you have assertive defenders, you don't need a quick, athletic 'keeper. You just need basic goalie competence, and can select a guy with a strong clearing kick and punt.

So the first objective for the defenders is to press the opposing forwards, so they take shots before they are really ready to. At this age, you don't need to steal the ball, just force them to kick it so the goalie can handle it easily.

The second objective is to clear the ball safely. That means that if you can't give it a good ride downfield, then clear it to the side. You even see the pros doing this. The most obvious defensive mistake is for your clearing kick to result in an easy play on goal for the other team.

Midfielders

Here are the handouts for the younger and the older kids.

The midfielders' job is to control the middle of the field, to smother the other team's attack before it can reach your defense, and to feed your offense to a scorable situation. Midfielders know they're doing a good job if your defenders are bored.

The position and game flow keys for the midfielders to make that happen include:

Stay between your own forwards and defenders. Don't get in the way of them doing their jobs, but help them by (a) passing well to an open forward and (b) cutting off the other teams attack before it gets to your defenders.
When your forwards are working the ball in the other team's half of the field, lurk where the ball will land if their defenders manage to clear it. That way, your team can control it and build the attack again right away.

One thing that you should practice -- and insist be done right in practice -- and insist be done promptly in the game, even if it isn't always done right. If the ball goes out of play on the sideline and your team has a throw-in, the midfielder on that side does the throw-in. Every time! Why? Because throw-ins at ages under 10 can be a time-wasting and confusing zoo if there is any doubt who should do what with that play. Everybody on the team should have done throw-in drill, and everybody should know the role, so don't give them an excuse to mess it up. (Possible exception, but it won't happen on one of my teams. If you have a center-mid who does throw-ins very well and clueless outside mids, then have the center-mid throw in every time. It won't be on my team because I care more about training all the kids than winning.) One thing that happens if your team is well-drilled is that the ball is back in play before the other team is ready; it can be a tactical advantage.

In this same vein, let me generalize what I said in the previous paragraph. Every common situation should have a plan, every kid should know that plan, and it should have been drilled, at least in scrimmage. The plan for my under-ten teams included:

Throw-ins (the midfielder for that side of the field).
Corner kick (the wing forward for that side of the field).
Free kick in offensive half of the field (center midfielder).
Free kick in defensive half (center defender).
Goal kick (center defender or goalie, depending on who can clear the ball better; that is decided before every quarter, depending on who is playing those positions).
Penalty kick (coach makes the call; there is usually plenty of time there).

With the kids under 10, it pays to review this with them just before every quarter in the game. "K, you do throw-ins on this side of the field. M, you do throw-ins on the far side of the field." Etc.

Forwards

Here are the handouts for the younger kids. Once the kids are older and have a little more position discipline, the position objectives and rules are different for wing forwards and center forwards, so they have separate pages.

Yes, there are differences between position play for wings and strikers, but there is a common, important rule for their movement:
Stay ahead of the advancing ball and be in a place where you are an easy, attractive passing target. That means "finding space", a position skill to work on with all field positions.

As for the differences between wings and strikers:

The job of the center forwards is to receive passes in front of the goal and turn them into scores.
The job of the wing forwards is to cross the ball just far enough from the goal that the goalkeeper can't intercept it, and hope your insider forwards can turn it into the goal for a score.

Why is this such an important part of the flow that, for two positions on the team, it is their primary job? Remember the discussion above about how it gets harder to kick with power and accuracy the less acute the angle between the ball's incoming and outgoing direction. Well, unless the ball bounces off the goalie, a defender, or the goalpost, your scorers are never going to see a ball coming at them that they can return in the same direction to score a goal. Any other scoring situation, they have to turn the ball.* You don't want to depend on luck and misplays by the other side; you'd like to create flows with your own team. It turns out that the smallest angle you can give one of your teammates for a score is a 90° angle with the ball coming across the goal mouth parallel with the end line. And the way you make that happen is for the wing forwards to make precisely that pass. Their most important job is to receive a pass out on the wing and cross the ball in front of the goal. Do that often enough and any well-coached inside forward will eventually turn some of those crosses into scores.

That is as much as you are likely to get across to a seven-year-old. But as the kids get older, and especially over ten, there are a few other points to wing play that they need to master. And these don't require talent, just awareness:

If you are might receive a pass on offense, get outside! Do not crowd in toward the goal. Make yourself an easy passing target, well outside where the defenders are playing. That will give you more time to receive the pass and make a cross, with minimum interference.
If a teammate on the other side of the field is about to cross or even shoot, pinch in toward the goalpost on your side and be ready. The way wings score is to be there when a cross or a shot goes past the goal, and there is nobody else there because the attack was from the other side. A good wing forward is an opportunist.

* I lied when I said, "Any other scoring situation, they have to turn the ball." But only a little. Somewhere around age 11 or 12, they can finally be taught that sometimes the best pass is backwards. This is especially true with strikers and a center-mid that work well together, where one can feed a pass back to another for a shot that requires a near-zero angle of turn. But you can't teach this to the younger kids.

Practice drills

The younger kids play swarm. If you have ever watched them, you know it. It's almost an impossible habit to break. There are other bad habits that younger kids -- and the occasional older kid -- will exhibit. Holding the ball too long because you don't trust yourself to kick it before "teeing it up" perfectly. Holding the ball too long because you don't trust your teammates; you're convinced you're the only one of the team who can get it done, so you don't pass. Etc etc etc.

It is hard to break these habits with static drills, "static" meaning contrived situations during the first half of practice. Kids may execute them OK, but not be able or willing to call on that experience in a game. But we can carry over the drills to our nearest thing to a game -- the scrimmage.

If members of my team had bad habits, I would invent an extra rule or two that excessively penalizes the behavior. Then we would play our scrimmage game with the extra rule in effect. Here are some examples:

Habit	Rule applied in scrimmage
Swarm on offense	If your team has the ball, only one player on the team can be within 3 yards of the ball. If there are two players that close to the ball, it's a foul with loss of ball to the other team. You'd be amazed; within ten minutes, the offense is not crowding the ball and is making themselves passing targets -- finding space. They may be overdoing it, yelling, "Joe! Joe!" to get the attention of the guy with the ball. But it's a remarkable first step, and it works.
Swarm on defense	If the other team has the ball, no two members of your team can be within 3 yards of the ball. The guy nearest the ball has the defensive assignment, and everybody else gets into a supporting or a marking position. Don't blow the whistle if it wasn't clear to begin with who is the appropriate defender, only if someone besides the clearly appropriate defender tries to "help". Violation of this rule gives the team with the ball a set play within reasonable distance of your goal, some sort of free kick or corner kick.
One kid hogs the ball dribbling.	You can't impose a rule that applies to only the one kid, but you can apply the rule to everybody. Impose a three-touch game. If one player touches the ball four times in a row, without another player touching it (your team or the opposition), it's a foul with loss of ball to the other team.
Reluctance to pass, or need to take too much time to prepare to pass.	Like the three-touch rule, but make it a three-second rule. No more than three seconds from your first touch to your last in your possession. BTW, this may be a bad habit in a game, but breaking it requires a skill, not just a new habit. During the first-half skill drills, where the field players are kicking the ball back and forth, work on speed of getting rid of the ball after you receive it. That way, if they have to play by the three-second rule, they are capable of doing it.

You get the idea now. If you have a game-situation or game-flow problem, invent a rule to penalize the bad behavior and impose it in your team scrimmage. It really works!

How do I know it works? The second time I coached the sevens, I was using these modified-rule scrimmages. By the end of the season, my teams had the best position play and the best teamwork in the league. As a result, we won all our games in the last half of the season. I didn't set out to win games, but if you can teach seven-year-olds just a little position discipline -- it doesn't have to be a lot, just don't swarm -- they perform head and shoulders above a swarming team.

Matching players to positions

There is considerable "conventional wisdom" about the physical characteristics for a given position. Listening to discussions on this, you would almost think you could look at a player and know where to place him in the lineup. My experience says that the conventional wisdom is a start, but far from a finish. My own considerations for the positions require watching them play, sometimes for several scrimmages and even games.

Fortunately, that is right in line with my philosophy. Before age 10, I want to give every kid a chance at every type of position: forward, midfielder, defender, and -- only if they want it -- goalkeeper. So with those ages, I get to see them for several games before I even try to find them a "permanent" position for the season. BTW, that is part of how I came up with the considerations below. If I tried to typecast them at the beginning of the season, I'd never have known what they could do; they'd be stuck based on physique and the "combine" skills.

Defenders - Conventional wisdom says they should be big and strong. That's OK as far as it goes, but here are some considerations that are more important, so much so that they override the conventional wisdom every time they apply:

They should be fast! I'm not talking the 440 here, more like the 40-yard dash. They should have speed to burn in bursts. Too many "big and strong" kids are not quick at all. And you need quickness to mark or challenge most forwards, because they are going to be fast (especially if they were picked by the conventional wisdom).
They should be assertive, not shrinking violets. They should be willing to stand their ground and not back up when a forward dribbles up to them; in fact, they should move up and challenge the forward for the ball. Some "big and strong" kids are nevertheless too passive or conservative in their play.
They should have an affinity, a proclivity, for defense. Some kids just have it. They may have the talent that makes you want to put them at center forward. But if their tendency and talent are for defense, don't try to fight it; use it. I have coached two kids like that: the talent of a star that you'd like to use for scoring, but a nose for defense that not only couldn't be wasted, they were happier as the "captain" of the defense.

Midfielders - The ideal midfielder should be able to run forever. Doesn't have to be fast, but shouldn't slow down as the game wears on. The midfielders have a lot of ground to cover, so they need to get to where they are needed.

It is easy and tempting to put your weakest players at the outside midfield spots. I have to admit I often did. They do the least damage there. Well, the damage may be done but:

The damage is still recoverable. You still have the defenders that the other team has to get through.
The damage isn't that obvious. In fact you may never know, if the damage is a missed opportunity to score. You just see that a midfielder failed to stop a clearing kick, and it got to our defenders.
The parents won't know, unless they understand the game well. When I was coaching, few parents had a clue about soccer. (Let me explain. I coached in the 1970s and '80s, so the parents were kids in the '50s and '60s. Americans didn't play soccer then! I was probably the only coach in the league who had played soccer as a kid.)

However, it may cost you control of midfield, and that often costs the game. To the uninformed observer (parent), it won't be clear that the problem was the midfielders. "The other team had a really good offense. They were always attacking our goal." Maybe they did have a good offense. Or maybe we couldn't prevent their offense from always being in our territory because they controlled midfield.

Don't be afraid to do extra coaching of the weak midfielders, or even playing with the formation to strengthen the midfield. Here are a couple of anecdotes in support of my position:

I was coaching a coed 7-year-old team, and had a couple of girls who had little or no athletic experience to draw upon. They were typically at right and left midfield -- weakest players at outside-mid. I had them stay late a few practices, and drilled them on just two maneuvers: taking a pass from some angle behind them and passing forward to the wing on their side, and getting to the ball first and pushing it past the opponent with whatever: foot (kick), knee or thigh, chest... whatever! The first is about offense, and the second about control of midfield. After those practices, they were solid contributors to our success, even though they never looked dominant. In the championship game (yes, we got to it), one of them was in the passing chain that let to the winning goal, using exactly the pass we had practiced.
This time it was 10-11-year-old boys, and I had coached them or watched them on other teams for several years. I was well aware of what each was good and not-so-good at. We were losing a game, and it was obvious even to them that the problem was our lack of control of the midfield. We had a war council at halftime. I let them talk, but I asked a lot of leading questions. We needed to beef up midfield, maybe even add a midfielder -- a 3-4-3 formation. Good idea; let's do it! How would we organize it, because we hadn't practiced it? We had M, who was very offense-minded, and K, whose tendencies were defensive. (Based on his talents, I had started him at center forward early in the season, but he kept dropping back when we didn't have the ball until he was helping the defenders. After that, he was my center defender.) We decided that, rather than string the midfielders across the field, we'd place them in a diamond. M's job would be to cut off clearances by the other team's defense, and K's job would be to stuff their offense before it reached our defense. It worked beautifully, and we dominated the second half and won the game.

Forwards - Conventional wisdom says they should be tall, especially the inside forwards, and talented. My comments on that:

Tall is sort of irrelevant in recreational soccer, especially below age 10. The "tall" requirement is for superiority when heading a ball in the air. The pros you watch on TV score a third to a half of their goals off headers. In recreational soccer, it probably isn't as much as 10% of the goals, and below age 10 you may see 2 header goals all season for all teams in the age group combined. So don't worry about tall. Of course, if a tall kid really likes to show off his ability to head the ball, by all means encourage it and put him at center forward. (Yes, I did have a kid like that once in the 7-, 8- and 9-year-olds. But he was the exception, not the rule.)
What specific "talent" are we looking for. Of course, solid, accurate kicking is important. But very important is the ability to turn the ball. The more of an angle you can turn the ball -- staying solid and accurate -- the better a forward you will make. Wing forwards have to turn the ball to kick a cross in front of the net. Usually the ball will be moving downfield, and often enough they will too. So this is typically a 90° turn of the ball for them. The inside forwards often have to turn the ball more than that: 90° if they are hitting the wing's cross, and more if they are taking a pass from the midfielders.
Of course, all this turning on the ball and solid kicking has to be done in a crowd. The other team will be opposing them, trying to block the shot or cross, or even trying to steal the ball. Having the poise to do it while opposed is an even rarer talent. A few kids just have a "nose" for scoring; they can smell it and they make it happen.

Anecdote time again! Not how to select a center forward, but how to deal with a natural center forward playing against you. The big scorer in our league was R; this was 8-9-year-old boys. He definitely had a nose for the goal. By the second year we faced him, I knew how I wanted it handled. We broke the 3-3-4 and went to a 3-3-3. The missing forward was M, our best ball-handler and scorer; he would be missed as a scorer, but was the only one who could keep up with R. His job -- his only job -- was to shadow R and see that he had no room to do anything if the ball came in his direction. M did his job in that regard; R didn't score and barely even got a shot off. R's teammates obviously were not used to needing to score, because they did nothing all game. Our team was deep enough that we could still play 10-on-10 without our leading scorer; we won the game and held them scoreless.

Goalkeeper - Conventional wisom says the goalie should be tall and one of the best athletes on the team. For rec soccer, and especially pre-teen, I do not concur with the latter. If the defenders are doing their job, the goalie doesn't have to be quick and athletic. I have already cited an anecdote supporting this position.

Tall is good. More reach, especially vertical reach. At the younger ages, there is a gap of more than a ball diameter between the crossbar and even the tallest goalie, so the taller the better.

The ability to kick and punt the ball a long way is a big advantage at this age. Younger than age 10, clearances and goal kicks rarely make it out of the penalty area on the fly. If your goalie can make such kicks, that can be huge. Not only effective, but intimidating against an offense that is used to easy pickings by bottling up the ball in the other team's end.

I always ask in the first or second practice of the year, "Who is interested in being a goalkeeper?" Sometimes as much as half the team raises their hands. The first goalie practice usually gets rid of half of them. Keeping goal in a scrimmage gets rid of more. They originally thought they'd like the attention, but with the attention comes responsibility and pressure. (You can say anything to try to take the pressure off them. It won't. They know.) But a few really like it.

If you're lucky enough to have three goalies on your roster, don't try to trim it down. You may have a favorite 'keeper, but include the others at least one quarter of the game. You never know when number one can't get to a game or is injured during a game. So keep the others in touch with their goalkeeping abilities even as you use them mostly as field players.

Other considerations

In my opinion, dribbling is overrated as a determinant of position. Having said that, dribbling is a plus at any position. And if you mean by "dribbling" the ability to maintain control of the ball in a crowd" (not the usual meaning, but often what people think of), that is something you really want in an inside forward. But it isn't something taught by the standard cone-slalom drill. It's a level of comfort honed by game play and reinforced by talent and ego.
If you have any lefties on your team, by all means take that into consideration. It's an opportunity. A lefty is better able to angle the ball to the right. That means:

If they have wing forward skills, they are perfect for left wing. In fact, the left-footedness may make up for some weakness in other wing skills.
Same for midfielder. If they have midfield skills, they'll be great at left midfield.
If they have defender skills, you want them at right defender. Why right? Because clearances by defenders should be away from the center of the field.

Why should this work?
I mean, this is counter to what soccer coaching books say and what coaches say on TV. "Hey Dave, what do you know? You've only coached recreational soccer."

Exactly!

I said up front I'm talking about rec soccer, not elite soccer (whether traveling team elite or national team elite). The elite players are all way above rec players in skill, speed, and conditioning. In fact, they are more alike than different in these areas. They are certainly more alike than are rec soccer players. At the elite level, you don't have to worry much about quickness, nor endurance, nor ability to turn on the ball. They're all pretty darn good at that, and only a few really stand out in that regard. So you look at other characteristics -- and those characteristics become the conventional wisdom.

In recreational soccer, there are wild differences in skill, speed, and conditioning. If there are huge differences in things like running speed and endurance, figuring out how to use those differences becomes more important than the conventional considerations like height or strength.

Here's an anecdote in support of my position:

I was asked to be interim coach for a 12-14-year-old team while their coach was on vacation for a couple of weeks. The team had not been doing well in its games, and the players were starting to lose interest; they were goofing off from the start of our first practice. (Though that's not unusual for junior high school kids anyway.)

When we got to scrimmage, I asked them to play their usual positions. I could see immediately that (a) they had been positioned by the conventional wisdom and (b) it just didn't work. During the scrimmage, I moved them around based on what I saw, according to the principles I just cited. By the time I was done, half of them were in different positions from their usual.

The first game in their new positions was against a strong team; we were expected to lose badly. We lost, but it was a good game; the final score was something like 3-2. The other game I coached, we were unexpected winners. The kids felt more comfortable in the new positions and played better as a team. They also seemed more into the soccer than when I met them at our first practice.

So it does work.

Last modified - September 15, 2018