Parent Education content provided by US Youth Soccer

SHOULD A 7-YEAR OLD PLAY ON A 10-YEAR OLD TEAM?

If a child is the best reader in the class, moving him out of the classroom and into the grade above is not typically considered. We might provide a more challenging book or focus on reading comprehension. So, he can read, but does he remember and understand what he’s reading like the kids in the grade above can? We might even create a separate reading group to give him some opportunities to challenge his reading. But parents and educators recognize that there is much more needed to ensure proper development than being a good reader to justify moving up a grade in school.

Why, then, do we too often feel the need to push our young children on the soccer field? When a child stands out as the best dribbler, the most assertive or the one that seems to be involved in most of the action, the parents and/or coaches want to take this environment and make it more challenging. That in itself is a good thing but too often we think that the only way to do this is to move him out of his age bracket and age him up. The motives to aging up (e.g. placing a 7-year old on a 10-year old team) often include one or more of the following:

• Parent’s thought/fear their child is not able to learn anymore at the current level
• Parent’s and/or coach’s belief that more is better
• Coach’s inability to coach varied skill levels within a training session
• Parent’s thinking this will aid in nailing that college scholarship
• Coach’s need to fill a roster

None of these talk about the child and his needs or desires. Why do children play soccer? I’ve gone to the experts themselves – the children – to find out! The two most common responses from 7 and 8-year olds was “because it’s fun” and “I want to play with my friends”. And while those reasons were important to the 9 and 10-year olds, I also got responses that were more goal-oriented, like learning new moves and playing like a professional player they look up to.

There’s no better training environment than the small-sided game – many more touches on the ball, opportunities to make decisions, transition, recovery, positional support – continual snapshots of the large field in small, manageable doses – by placing restrictions (or rules), the coach can create the opportunity to train a particular theme – finishing, direct or indirect play, changing point of attack, combination play… the list goes on. Rather than one large goal, the children have two small goals on the flanks to score in. You’ve now given them the setting to work on changing point of attack and positional support, their vision, anticipation, and ability to deceive. It’s a much easier environment for the coach to observe and it’s a much more difficult environment for players to hide. Strengths and weaknesses are glaring at you!

So, while it is true that the small-sided game is the environment to train (at all levels) and most agree that players can’t hide, I have found that it can give a false sense of certainty when using the 4v4 small-sided game to assess whether a highly skilled 7-year old should be aged up to a 10-year old team. I had a 7-year old in the U8 training group in my Youth Development Program. He stood out among the other children. He most definitely had the most touches on the ball in the game because when he had the ball, he rarely lost it unless he took a shot or miss touched it. He never passed it because he didn’t need to and he didn’t want to. And why should he? While 7-year olds are starting to become aware of teammates, they are very well aware that if they pass it, they’ll likely never get it back!

His father felt strongly that he needed more challenge; that he ought to be aged up to the U10 team. I allowed him to come to a festival with the U10 team to give him exposure to the competition at that level and quite honestly, I wanted to be sure I was making a sound decision for this player’s placement; keeping the player and his development at the core of the decision!

What I found was very interesting. He was holding his own in the small-sided warm up activities but once we added numbers and a larger field, he was lost! The field opened up, there were more players on the field, and more complex problems to solve.

Tactically, he was playing like the skilled U8 (aware of his teammates but will continue to keep the ball even when the game is telling him that a pass would be the best decision). Psychologically, he was lost because he was now not talking on the field; he was less confident with himself and his place on the team and field. This drop in self-confidence affected his technical abilities; his first touch was continually letting him down. Physically, he was lost because even players that weren’t as skilled as him could outrun him or catch up; he never once was successful taking a player on with the dribble, .and eventually he stopped trying. Rather than boldly going forward like he did in the U8 setting, he always looked to turn the ball back!

(To be continued next month,,,)

Maureen Dracup
NYSWYSA, ADOC
binghamtondoc@nyswysa.org