I'm coaching my daughter's Under 6 co-ed soccer team. I've never coached soccer and I've only played a little. I volunteered on a second request for coaching volunteers. Anybody done this before? have any tips? drills? website resources? etc....
Get the guy on the left as your assistant coach but don't call him Juice Box. <img src="http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/3343/mikeditkayu3.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" />
There are many good websites. Some of the best are: http://www.decatursports.com/ Have many good resources http://www.strongsoccer.com/Kingdrills/clipspractice.htm http://www.kclegendssoccer.com/content/academyfakesandmoves.cfm These are too advance for your needs but they have videos. You need to see what the moves really look like. For U6, all they can do is run to the ball and kick it. Don't even bother to teach them anything complicated. Don't make them stand in line to do drills. They need touches, touches and more touches ... each player needs to have lots of time with his/ her own ball and dribbles around a lot. Even when you play games, play small sided games, 2v2 or 3v3.
Since it's a co-ed team, I generally would start all the boys. Greater chance of winning, you know. Your daughter should be named captain, obviously since she is the best one out there. Other than that, I have no more words of wisdom.
Just make sure that nobody trips anybody else intentionally as the big blob of kids moves up and down the field. Oh, and if some irate dad starts giving you grief about not playing his kid, you would definitely be within the law to kick his ass right there
As a holder of a USSF "C" licensce, I couldn't have said it better. There isn't much you can do at that age other than trying to have a good time. If you're having fun, they're having fun. Minor technique is all you can really do. IF you actually get one of them to pass the ball, then you've done an amazing job. Don't worry about tactics. Just have fun.
Listen to rage & leroy, especially about the dribbling, dribbling, dribbling; you can't really start doing skills & drills until they're 8ish. Just make sure they have fun. Not sure I could handle the U-6...the 8-9 year olds were enough of a handfull.
A guy told me today about the King/Queen Bee formation. The play at this age is basically a hands-off scrum. Once in a while the ball will pop out so he designates a King/Queen Bee each game to hang out near the goal and "defend" it from breakaways. He indicates that that is about the height of organization that kids this age can manage. I did coach my oldest boy at age 4. I almost forgot....
Just have a good time and don't worry about the rest. I have coached U5 through U7 for the past 5 seasons and your kids age group is a lot of fun to coach. When you get past U7 the parents start to get harder to deal with and it's not nearly as much fun.
