How To Engage Young Football Players

How can I keep football training sessions engaging for kids? 

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From overseeing excited kids, to day-to-day business needs, you already have enough on your plate. Keeping your footie stars engaged shouldn’t be one of them. 

Here’s how to keepy uppy with the kids.

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Be adaptable 

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As a youth football coach, you’ll know all too well, things don’t always go to plan on the pitch. You may have prepared for the most thrilling football session but you end up having to improvise. As much as it’s great to have lesson plans, it also pays to be spontaneous. 

Keep football fun for kids by being open to new activities that will surprise and excite them. Be reactive to what you see and hear on the pitch: the more responsive you are to the kids, the more you can adapt your sessions to truly excite them. Technique is important but as you know, your football training sessions teach so much more than passing and dribbling. They instil teamwork, self-confidence, and focus amongst other valuable life skills. Keep young players interested by making learning as fun as possible. 

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Challenge your players 

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To help keep your children’s football coaching exciting, methods such as STEP can keep football engaging for kids. Set appropriate challenges depending on age and progress. If your young players aren’t feeling stimulated they’ll lose interest. 

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S - Space. Play around with the size of area you give your players to move around in. This will benefit more skilled players, who will become better at adapting to different situations.

T - Task. Change the goals of the activity to suit the players taking part in the session. Are the players younger and thus in need of more supervised activities? Or would they benefit from more hands-off play? Shake up activities from session to session to keep young players interested.

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E - Equipment. Consider how you can use this to step up tasks for your players. You may want to change the amount you use, the size or when you use these tools during sessions. 

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P - People. Adjust the number of players taking part in activities. Smaller groups will encourage close team work whilst individual tasks will increase focus. Use your experience as a football academy coach to decide what your players need to improve, both as individuals and as a team. 

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Keep sessions fun 

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Host fun activities throughout sessions to keep football engaging for young players. 

Children’s football coaching can be tricky since kids have particularly low attention spans. Studies suggest attention levels in younger kids dip after just a few minutes of concentration. 

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Sticking to technique, performing drills and being well behaved is mentally exhausting for kids, so set aside time for play! For part of the session, allow kids to roam free so long as what they do involves football. Set up cones, footballs, markers and anything else you think will keep young players interested. You’ll probably find they spilt off into groups or pairs and show off their skills. 

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What else can you do as a youth football coach to keep football fun for kids? Themed sessions are a great way to get kids looking forward to your sessions and encouraging them to embrace their individuality. Ashley from Skillz UK explains how this has transformed football training sessions at his academy: 

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"The children love our sessions! They come running through the door because we take the time to speak to them to find out their interests. For example, one week we might have a football session based around superheroes, and the next week it may be around dinosaurs, and that really does capture their imagination and helps with their learning." Ashley - Skillz UK