Short, practical pieces for anyone coaching kids: what to do on Tuesday, what to say on Saturday and what to stop worrying about entirely.
A child who was fine in September is limping in January and nothing happened. It is very common, it has a name, and the answer is almost never to push through it.
Every squad has one: never speaks in the circle, avoids your eye, disappears in crowds. Why quiet is not a flaw, and how to coach a child the loud methods miss.
It starts as a way to say training is cancelled and becomes forty messages about a photograph. Some structure, set in September, keeps it doing its job.
Every coach ends up on both ends of a hammering eventually. What to change at 5-0, what to say at full-time, and how to win or lose big without anyone learning the wrong lesson.
It is one of the four conversations every youth coach has. It goes much better if you know what is actually being asked.
Most children defend by charging in and hoping. The four habits of a young defender who wins the ball - and the training games that build them without a single lecture.
Every coach ends up doing the kit, the pitch, the subs, the fixtures and the tournament entry. The parents are not unwilling - they are unasked, and vague requests get vague results.
Should kids do football homework? Only the kind they would choose themselves. How to nudge home practice that builds touch - without turning the garden into a second training pitch.
Usually it arrives second-hand, through a parent, in a message on a Tuesday afternoon. What happens in the next few days decides whether they play football at seventeen.
625 drills, 50 printable templates and a free coach app that keeps your squad, sessions, line-ups and playing time in one place.
Create your free account