I've been coaching now for 2 years for boys on a sunday no leagues involved and it's great fun. Would also be interested for any info coaching drills etc. I'll be doing under 11 again in Sept.
Can be daunting with 20-25 boys all waiting for instructions for 90 mins but good fun as well.
At the 11-12 year old range, my philosophy and style tends to be similar of coaching 5-10 year olds as in continuing the development of their core ball skills and technique (control, dribbling, passing) but with the addition of heading, running with the ball (which I discourage at a young age, I insist on dribbling only so they get more touches of the ball) and shooting (which I also discourage at a young age, for goals or points they need to stop the ball at the end line instead of blasting it into the net). However instead of just focusing on their core ball skills I highlight the importance of their position on the pitch, the importance of opening their body, movement, not being fixated on the ball, their awareness and what they do off the ball. In a game, a player might not even have the ball at his/her feet for 5% of the game, so what they do whilst they haven’t got the ball at their feet is extremely important. At this age I will also start educating and implementing more fitness exercises, mainly SAQ training (speed, agility, quickness). Also, I’m not sure what age it is, but when they move onto 9 a side or 11 a side onto bigger pitches, you may want to start to dedicate some time to defending, work on individuals at first rather than trying the whole defend as a team, staying as a line of defenders and working the offside trap, I would start with the basics, the 4 D’s, 1. Deny – closest defender close down the attacker as fast as possible but maintain a 1m distance as to not run into the attacker, 2. Delay – stand attacker up, don’t dive in, gives team time to organise, 3. Deflect – using body position to encourage attacker to go the most advantageous way for your team and finally 4. Defend – When to make the decision to actually try and win the ball back.
In terms of session specifics and drills, I will do a full warmup with stretches, I mostly keep it the same, although boring it should help them get in the right mental state. 10-15 min SAQ training then 10-15 mins of high intensity with as many touches on the ball as possible. I normally then go onto small sided games consisting of mostly ‘passing and moving’ exercises, I sometimes depending on the specific abilities of the group and numbers try and do a functional exercise working on something game specific although this would normally be for a much older group.
Also at this age, their competitiveness may start to show, which you want to encourage and keep and so drills where their competing against each other (individually or as a team) are good to use.
I often use this drill which I found whilst doing my FA level 2.
You split the players into 2 teams and assign a number to each player. The coach will start the drill by shouting a number and the player with that number from each team will sprint to the corner cone and through the goal area (red cones) whilst the coach simultaneously throws a ball into the area, the 2 players would then compete for the ball and try and score by running with the ball through the opponents goal area. You can mix it up by shouting 2 different numbers making it 2v2 or by changing which goal to score through meaning you would score through the goal you ran through making it essential that both players sprint as hard as they can.
Like I've said before though, focus on development, not results. A lot of coaches I've observed for local teams do everything they can to win, a few examples being, goal-kicks being taken by the player with the biggest kick instead of the GK because he/she has a weak kick, your team should be able to defend wherever the ball lands from a goal-kick and the GK is obviously never going to improve if he/she is not allowed to take the goal-kicks, distribution is very important for a goalkeeper to learn. Another is always using players in their perceived strongest position, eg; the perceived best forward will always play in that position, personally, all the way through to U16s I mix up the positions, this gives players the experience of different scenarios and phases of play and an understanding of each positions roles and responsibilities, I even get my GKs playing outfield a lot of the time as a lot of GKs are not very good on the ball believing its all about their hand skills, in games, they should be using their feet far more than their hands, hence the importance of GKs being confident on the ball. Doing the above, in all likelihood will mean results will be worse, but I can guarantee the players development will improve more, which will be of much more importance as the player ages. Another is coaches shouting at players making mistakes, which you should never do, sure, tell them what they could have done differently, but a lot of a players learning comes from making mistakes and so a player who makes a lot of mistakes learns faster if properly coached and encouraged, far to many players are anxious on the ball and unwilling to dribble in case they make a mistake or lose the ball and are unwilling to try new skills and tricks for fear of being shouted at, me personally, if they've made a poor decision I will tell them what they could have done or help them discover what they could have done instead or if they've lost the ball because they were trying something new, I encourage them to do it again.
