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0:05 hello and welcome thank you for tuning in to my first episode here uh soccer coach KW here my name is Kevin and I'm here to deliver a series on coaching 7v7
0:18 soccer this is episode one and uh I hope that you'll uh stick around so who am I to tell you anything um well I've been coaching for 10 plus years I have h four
0:29 kids who played soccer currently the highest level soccer player I have right now is playing in MLS next um doing a great job uh I've coached prek through
0:38 High School varsity and everything in between uh multiple times I'm a referee uh I have a degree in education which has come in super handy for coaching
0:47 soccer and uh some other activities I've coached competitively over the years um I'm the player development director or technical director for my town and have been for a few years now and I a bunch
1:00 of licens and certificates from US Soccer United Soccer Coaches uh nfhs for the high school part and the fa over in the UK so I have a whole bunch of those
1:11 things but uh more importantly I'm just super passionate about uh coaching Youth Soccer especially 7v7 I feel like 7v7 is the primary place to be um it is the one
1:23 place that really sets kids up for a foundational experience and helps them along their way and I'm super passionate about getting it right um I like to say a lot of times that my
1:34 superpowers and I've been very lucky to watch the best 7v7 and 9 v9 coaches in my humble opinion over the years and I've learned what works what doesn't
1:45 work and why taking the long-term approach produces the best outcomes for the kids in the long run uh I really believe that the benefits of looking long-term while coaching especially at
1:59 this age just outweigh any of the advantages of trying to win your games all the time uh I like to say if you're going to coach winning soccer you'll eventually start
2:10 winning games but it's very easy to take a 7v7 team and put them in the structure and Coach them in certain ways that if you have one or two players you can beat
2:18 a lot of other sv7 players it's a great formula but it doesn't develop the kids and once they get the 9v9 and the field is twice as big those kids disappear
2:26 from the field they're just not effective so who's this Channel 4 really well this is not going to be news to any uh mid upper level Club coach this is
2:37 not who this is for this is really for the town or County or however your state might organize youth soccer coach volunteer coach not getting paid your
2:48 kid is now in third or fourth grade and you've been coaching maybe kindergarten prek first grade second grade and now you know here we are um you've had
2:58 limited coaching experience Maybe May that's all you've ever coached maybe you love the game maybe you don't know it that well um maybe you have some playing
3:05 experience but I will the one big challenge I have with folks who have played is playing is not the same as coaching and if you played as an older
3:13 player perhaps in high school coaching third and fourth graders they're just not many adults or many humans they are their own animal they learn different ways from you and I they learn in
3:24 different ways of a high school player they have different needs both physically cognitiv Ally mentally all those things it's not the same animal uh and most important uh you're a coach who
3:36 wants to make a difference you want to coach these kids in a modern Progressive manner that puts development first and winning below that and really what you're trying to do is you're trying to
3:48 make the best players that you can from what you have each in individual gets better year after year following really a big foundational steps going going forwards and having the big piter in
4:01 mind long term these kids are not going to be complete soccer players until perhaps High School Beyond um and to think that you're going to be able to
4:10 get them to do everything you see in the pro or college game or even the high school game in fourth grade sorry you're delusional it's not going to happen but
4:19 you can take steps one piece at a time to get them along that pathway so who plays 7v7 perhaps we should uh get with that in most Town
4:30 programs that's third and fourth graders so they're between 8 and 10 years old 7v7 is the first structured soccer program that's complete and what I mean by complete is that it concludes all the
4:42 positions has a goalkeeper defense Midfield and a forward at least if you play it in the right way so it's the first modern look at the game with all
4:53 the three lines plus the keeper involved there and um in addition because the kids are older they start to be able to play in that structure versus what you
5:04 might see from kindergarten the second grade is a little bit more of a Rugby scrum everybody just chasing the ball right this is where the field gets
5:12 bigger people have to spread out one dominant player can't dribble the entire field consistently it really now begins to look like the game of soccer and many
5:22 times at this level tryouts were required to be placed on a team it start it's the start of travel soccer in many states in town programs at the minimum tryouts have
5:34 leveled the kids into teams so that there are similar abilities if your team or your town doesn't do that that's great too there are arguments to be made
5:43 about having the kids just mixed up because honestly those tryouts for second grade players there are so many misses in that first year and between third and fourth grade so many teams
5:53 kind of readjust um if you work on a grade based program and the best player that had the highest score in third grade A lot of times that kid just had a
6:04 fantastic day that day and in the long term perhaps they're a little bit more challenged with some of their skills or coordination or things like that and
6:11 there other players that get overlooked so it is a mixed bag uh it is not a straight line in any way shape or form so what do you need uh to know if you're
6:20 going to coach this um it's important to know that this is the beginning of your players Journey this is not the end it's not even close uh patience is the key as
6:29 a coach their kids they're going to act like kids kids these days a lot of them have challenges in school and out of school and as a coach you're going to inherit
6:39 all of those things with perhaps not the supports that those kids are used to having at home or in school um depending on who you have you just have to roll
6:47 with it and understand that that's that's the gig that's what's going on you have to understand you have two years two full years to get them ready
6:54 for 9v9 where this field is twice as big again we add two players but you have two full years and in most programs that means a fall and a spring and then the
7:04 next year another fall in the spring so it is useful to think about it in maybe terms of like four 10 week chunks and if you're lucky enough to be able to get
7:13 your kids to play some sort of winter soccer whether it's indoor or footall um or something else perhaps you get some more time with them but that's usually
7:21 that's usually the stated minimum that you're going to have them is about 40 weeks and you have to kind of think of it that way uh you have to understand
7:30 that third and fourth graders are far far more capable of learning things than most people give them credit we're going to look at some things as we go forward
7:38 the soccer numbering system where you number the positions you know a number six a number eight a seven a 10 and I'm telling you your kids will be able to
7:48 learn those and understand them in about two weeks I've been told for years and years that uh third graders there's no way they can learn those why they're
7:55 going to get confused it's it's not the number on the back of their Jersey they'll be confused I'm telling you I've done it multiple times kids don't have
8:03 to remember what to you know what they're working on next week or how many meetings they have or have to call that vendor they have none of that in their
8:09 brains they have a huge capacity to take on information especially information that you can make concrete to them and make sense to them so they're more capable of
8:20 that but the converse of that is the application of those skills and knowledge will be consistently inconsistent to third and fourth graders to 8 N9 10 years old there's lots going
8:31 on developmentally that the one week it's going to be the best team you've ever seen and the next week you're going to swear that you've never coached them
8:38 before and they've never played soccer before it's just how it is you have to understand there's going to be lots of ups and downs as you go forward with
8:46 that so what am I going to do what's my goals on this channel uh my goals really is I've hope to impress upon you how important the long-term player
8:53 development model is for your kids if you can understand that you are at the beginning of that and you perhaps have the most influence on these kids as they
9:04 go forward by giving them a really solid base and foundation for success in the future then I've succeeded because that's really what I feel and that's really what I've seen time in time out
9:17 is that the kids who have really good coaches in this grade three and four timeline go on consistently to reach their potential as they go forward as
9:29 long as they have good coaches going forward but they always are starting out the best players or the best skilled most best knowledgeable players on the field as they go forward then it's up to
9:41 them to take that and run with it I hope to give you a tactical understanding of soccer that will help guide your decisions I understand we are not a
9:50 soccer playing Nation we do not have a rich culture and background and you may watch things on the pro game watching Premier League on a Saturday watching a
9:59 Liverpool or a Manu or watching Barcelona you know all those things it's great to watch those things and is great to pick up some of the things that they
10:10 talk about the pundits talk about but there is also a limit to what you can take from that and apply to third and fourth graders on the other hand having
10:21 that big picture tactical knowledge and taking the time to relay that information in an appr appropriate manner to those third and fourth graders will make them smarter
10:33 players the best soccer players are the best decision makers and the only way they can make decisions if they learn what their options are and then they're
10:41 allowed to experiment and make those decisions for themselves in the game but they have to have some background they don't have that background they don't grow up watching soccer at a level with
10:53 somebody who understands it like their dad like their mom like their brother like their cousins like their grandfather they don't get that at least most kids don't um so you know having
11:03 that tactical understanding helps um 7v7 is in my opinion the formation that is best suited for the long-term development and while there are lots of different ways to play 7v7 and we'll
11:15 talk about them uh there's one that seems to be more universally agreed upon as the one to use and I'm a huge proponent of it and we'll go through
11:23 that so we'll do some just basically how do I line my kids up we'll have some sessions on that I'm going to give you some training sessions I'm going to give
11:30 you some very specific training sessions in terms of like hey here's a whole complete session that you can do with your kids and I'm also then going to
11:37 also give you hey here are some ways to set up your training sessions in bigger picture sort of uh of understanding so that you can be flexible and say today I
11:47 want to work on X you can put that in a framework and feel comfortable about developing a session plan without having to download these plans from all over
11:55 the Internet and trying to figure out what they mean and how they mean and to be honest even my State Association they provide them every year fall and spring
12:04 and I'm not necessarily sure they really understand who is going to be a coaching those lessons and B who's going to be learning those lessons because there
12:14 sometimes just too difficult for anyone to really understand and execute correctly um so being able to have that general knowledge to be able to say hey I can structure my day in such a way
12:27 that I can be consistent my kids will understand how to get ready in a drill but then I can be flexible with what I do with those drills and focus on
12:35 different things um it'll be a sustainable model that you can use to develop your players year-over-year um really those two years being able to sustain that effort sustain that drive
12:47 and progression by being consistent with them and being able to build piece by piece as you go forward and also I'll try and give you a glimpse into the
12:55 future that long-term planning what does it look like for that player is they move from 7v7 to 9v9 to 11 v11 the full 11 v11 game seems like a long way off
13:05 when you're looking at third and fourth graders and saying I can't imagine these kids running around in a full you know 110 yard by 70 yard pitch how how I
13:15 can't even I can't see it they can barely make it down a 45 yard field they'll get there and hopefully I can give you a glimpse as to how you can
13:23 look at especially if you're going to be a coach for a long term and maybe stay with these kids over than next six years before they get to high school how you
13:32 can structure your play so that each year you're able to make the leap when you get into that third year and you move to 9v9 and then four years in you
13:40 move into 11 V1 you've prepared your kids step by step to get there so I hope I've given you some information that will make you want to stick with me um I
13:50 promise I am super passionate about this and I have some great uh content for you not all of us it original again I've been able to witness some fantastic 7v7
14:01 coaches and really you know you take from the best and you use what you can and I'm hoping that I'll be able to give you something back that you can use in
14:10 your programs going forward so till the next episode thank you very much have a
