The primary development focus for the U-5 & U-6 player is dribbling and “personal ball mastery”. ( For more detailed information about age apropriate training, please reference the PCSI Player Development Guide) .
When it comes to training 5 & 6 year old players, we say, “work primarily on dribbling”. It sounds too simple, how could dribbling and ball control take up a whole season, much less one or two years of practice time? Obviously. we are not talking about just having the player kick the ball down the field and run behind it. The focus of dribbling & ball mastery skills is primarily to maintain posession and beat an opponent without loosing that posession. So, to be more specific, we need to teach the young player to use all parts of his/her feet & use the proper levels of power in these touches to render the desired “pace”(momentum) & direction to the ball when dribbling. This is the building blocks for good ball control and posession. Using various parts of the feet to “quickly change direction” is called making “cuts”. Cuts enable us to loose defenders and maintain posession. We have posted a few videos to give you an idea of the specific dribbling/change of direction skills that are included in “ball mastery” training. Some of the children in these videos are 6 years old, many more are 8-to10 years old, but they would not have mastered the skills they are demonstrating in these video clips if they had not started learning these skills at an earlier age. Teaching these “ball mastery” skills properly, now, will greatly increase your success rate at later ages when we move on to more group oriented training such as passing, crossing, heading and group play. Pay particular attention to the control, and the drastic change in direction achieved when using these skill sets. Keep these skill sets in mind when you are planning the activities for a dribbling oriented practice. Break them down step by step,. and demonstrate then in slow motion, then coach them, correcting as you go until the player can add speed, or handle added pressure. finally, remember to incorporate these skills as an objective for the players to use within your small sided activities as you progress to the final game (scrimmage). Remember to praise them when you see the players use the skills within the game.
This post is not about finding the “perfect drill” , (however, we will post some practice session ideas in other posts). On the contrary, this is to help spark your imagination and train your eye to notice what we need to demonstrate, develop, correct, or praise as our children are engaged in the activities we have planned for our practice sessions. This is about improving your technical knowledge as a coach; about teaching first things first, building the soccer skills of our players in an age appropriate fashion, taking advantage of the golden age of motor skill development. When planning a practice session introduce just one new move at a time, and review previous ones. Think of the season as building blocks one upon the other. Also keep in mind to progress from simple to difficult, from demonstration, to practice without pressure, to gradually adding various levels of pressure until the players can perform the skill under game like conditions. It is a process that requires patience. Keep in mind “How do players REALLY learn skills“. Finally, remember not to worry about tacticts and wins vs losses at this age, worry about laying the skills foundation which will make them successfull throughout their lifetime of soccer.