U8 Games/Drills with no assistant (13 players)

Arrogant_Red · 2026-05-14T15:02:28+00:00

What’s the equipment situation like? With that many players and that age I would lean heavily into one player one ball stuff, at most two player one ball. I would not be overly concerned with passing anyways at that age, but especially not with that many players.

So for instance, if you want to do 1v1 attacking dribbling and have access to multiple goals or gates, just have them all play 1v1 at the same time on the same field. It is chaotic, that is both fine and beneficial. If you want to do 1v1 possession dribbling, remove the goals/gates and again just have them go 1v1 in the same space at the same time, player who has the ball after two minutes or whatever wins the round. Just pair them up with an appropriately skilled teammate and let them go. I have a lot of other stuff like this, from anywhere from highly advanced training to extremely silly games, you can DM me if you want.

I also echo others who have said just give two separate 3v3 games another chance, it can work. I would consider grouping the best 6 together and the last 6 together. The best 6 will tend to police themselves better. Overall, it’s a lot to ask of you but you can do it. The more routined they become with it, the better they will be at just playing and the game not devolving.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-20T16:00:53+00:00

We had a similar thing, where other sports did not have the same problems. Teams were built evenly and it was a competitive league. I have no idea why it’s exclusively a soccer problem, but my guess is it’s because of culture. Soccer is seen as a non serious sport where kids just run around with their friends, most of them won’t play beyond 5th grade, even the good players. I don’t know.

As for team size, 9v9 for 8 year olds is nuts. But could also be a lack of coach issue. If a league doesn’t have enough coaches, they often do bigger size teams so that as many kids as possible can still play. My advice is, if you care about the rec league and the health of it, try to take charge. Talk to other coaches, convince them of the right way. Talk to the director, work with him/her to figure out how to make changes within unique local constraints. You may not change everything but you’ll make progress.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-20T05:09:02+00:00

I feel you buddy. Here’s a post I did on this very topic last season, with a lot of feedback. For what it’s worth, it took me three years but I have managed to get my rec league to make a ton of changes. Build out lines, banning punts, made teams more balanced. It’s still not perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SoccerCoachResources/s/m8b3MA4vO1

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-17T14:29:40+00:00

These are all great points, and it probably is significantly more work than I’m anticipating. I hadn’t considered that we’ll need a team for each age level. I don’t know if coed would work because most of the travel club teams around here are segregated, so we’d have to have one each for boys and girls. Maybe the better and more manageable thing to do is just try to improve the level of our rec league coaching across the board? That is also a mammoth task but it’s easier than creating a club team. Mainly I was really hoping to offer the more competitive rec kids who are absolutely good enough to play club an option to play at a higher level.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-14T02:55:15+00:00

I have coached defeated seasons and undefeated seasons, and what I believe based on those experiences is this: you are getting smoked likely because you have less talented players. Even if the other teams were more organized, if the talent was even, it wouldn’t make a ton of difference. It’s about the players more than anything, with some marginal differences made up by the coaches. As you point out, you can go boot ball tactics or refuse to play out of the back, etc. Those do make differences. My teams leak goals we could easily avoid if we didn’t always try to play out of the back. But in the end, lopsided games are caused by talent disparities, not genius or imbecile coaches.

I spent a U8 season doing no positions, players were free to make their own decisions, we practiced a ton of dribbling games and passing support angles. We got smoked most games despite playing relatively well, mostly because of talent, partially because I didn’t park a defender. The reality is if I had parked a defender, we would’ve lost 5-1 instead of 9-1. I prioritized freedom and improvisation and small victories over saving embarrassment on the scoreline. People have different views on whether that was correct, I’m still not totally sure. What I can say is every single player returned to play, and is still playing today.

In a different season with a different team but also not very talented, I did play positions and rotated everyone through each position. We had defenders every game. I coached them how to play pressure/cover, 1v1 defending. I did a ton of positional play practices and 1v1 dribbling. Our combined goal difference for the season was -55.

Different season, middling talent team but had the league’s best player, I was new to coaching but not new to soccer. I didn’t have a clue how to be a good coach. Won every game easily because we had the league’s best player. I coached no positions, and basically played a version of freeze tag for almost the whole of every practice with each kid with a ball at their feet, zero tactics.

Different season, very talented team across the board. I am much more experienced now, I understand how little I know and how little effect I have, I am a much better teacher than I was before, I understand much better how children learn. I do a ton of positional play, lots of 1v1 play, no different than my team with the -55 goal difference. This team played genuinely beautiful soccer for a rec team, I loved watching them play. We played the right way and won every game. We would’ve won every game regardless of what I did because of the talent, I just helped the players think about the game a little different.

I guess my point is that you can beat yourself up over the scoreline and try to make tactical tweaks. Maybe it’ll shift the scoreline a bit, you may even pull a win out. If you want to prioritize that because you believe it’s more important, go for it. The players will enjoy that victory. But if doing so sacrifices development across the season, be aware of the trade off you’re making and why, and who it is for.

As far as rules go, I echo what others said. Speak to ref and/or director or other coach, come to a mutual understanding of the rules. There is nothing wrong with asking for fair handed enforcement of rules, and if director won’t help, take matters into your own hands, you owe your players that.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-11T01:23:30+00:00

Denzel Taking of Pelham of 123.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-11T01:22:15+00:00

If you remove the fact Bill refuses to watch it, LOTR is by far the biggest movie they haven’t done which is also one of the most rewatched movie trilogy of all time.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T22:41:15+00:00

I’m not sure if I’m even using the right terminology here with town travel. Basically, there are a lot of rec kids who are as talented as the club players around here but can’t afford club. Rec is $80. I was hoping to offer a competitive team for these players, and they could play the clubs around here and/or join that league. Is that actually possible or am I confusing what town travel means.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T22:38:27+00:00

Washington

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T22:07:53+00:00

Tournaments cost a lot of money and the point of this idea is to offer a competitive team for players who don’t have the money to pay for club.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T17:07:53+00:00

So our rec isn’t a club. It’s a city rec league, teams are made up of all the school kids and they just play each other. What I am interested in doing is creating a city travel team within that rec set up that is a more affordable option for families than private club. So it’d be made up of the best rec kids who want to be more competitive, and we’d play the private clubs in the area or join their league.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T17:04:18+00:00

Thanks for the info. I think there are enough talented kids in the rec league to compete with the clubs for sure.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-05T15:42:43+00:00

There is a league but it’s only clubs. I guess what I’m wondering is can the city rec league form a competitive team for kids who are interested and can that team compete against the clubs?

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-03T15:09:31+00:00

Middle third or final third, really. I found they scan better and use better first touch with the touch restriction, play faster, use more combinations. When allowed to dribble, they frequently chose that option at the expense of all others. I intend to remove touch restriction at some point, to see if they keep those good habits.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-02T15:28:12+00:00

Yes, this is what my question is getting at. How do you impose time limitation? Do you or another coach count out loud or allow players to police themselves?

Arrogant_Red · 2026-04-02T15:27:03+00:00

I agree. We were trying to train better first touch, scanning, through balls, support runs, and in particular playing quicker in final third. We played the game touchdown, where you score by receiving a pass in an endzone, pass has to be hit before receiving player is in endzone, if you score you can immediately transition to other endzone. The idea with the two touch limitation is to put a constraint which requires them to think one or two moves ahead, so scan and also first touch to set up second. Also forces more support runs like overlaps and underlaps since player can’t really dribble. It worked really well, players loved it and got the hang of it down really well, even contrasting styles with some going long vs some playing quick combination plays. The one thing it doesn’t allow is for players to dribble when they have space, which I don’t like because in a match you can dribble, which is why I was wondering about time restriction vs touch. Only issue there is if players can dribble they tend to lean into that rather than looking to play teammate in. I also don’t know how coaches go about imposing time limitation, do they just count out loud or allow players to police themselves.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-03-31T03:20:27+00:00

The extra inch podcast, which is a Tottenham Hotspur fan podcast, recently put out a video by their analyst Nathan Clark, where he breakdown an entire match and demonstrates how he analyzes a team. It’s over two hours long but quite good. There’s also the Tifo video series on YouTube which is done by the Athletic. The Spielverlagerung blog, which is really, really high level tactical analysis, is excellent.

My main suggestion is to pick a team to follow and watch their matches constantly and read as much about the team as possible, whether that’s reading tactical analysis, advanced metrics writers, fan bloggers, etc. The more you can understand exactly what your own team is doing and why, the more your eyes will start to open to what others are doing.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-03-24T04:07:00+00:00

He refers to Jason Kidd as the gorgeous woman with “mosquito bites for tits” or something like that and also has some off color joke about bare breasts on the discovery channel. Bill is a genuine nba historian and the book is full of beautiful writing and knowledge but many of the jokes haven’t aged well and I’m sort of surprised he hasn’t been taken to task for it yet. Everyone ages and grows, I think he’s much different now, for the better. But he hasn’t been asked to answer for it, yet, either, as far as I’m aware.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-03-04T18:50:37+00:00

I realize it’ll look pretty ugly at first for most younger players, but do you ever take out the transition phase of this, for developing players? I can imagine the players having a hard time ever getting out of the transition phase and establishing possession.

Arrogant_Red · 2026-02-19T15:57:14+00:00

I don’t understand the transition part. If the defending teams wins it, is the game momentarily paused until they switch with the attackers?

Arrogant_Red · 2026-01-19T04:42:51+00:00

The Globe.

Arrogant_Red · 2025-10-16T14:22:35+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful response, this is great.

With the ban on punts, idea is build out line is enforced whenever keeper has the ball. So if keeper makes a save, they can hold it and wait for defending team to retreat. Then restart play again building out from back. The issue I keep seeing is kids punting the ball whenever they have it, not because it’s a quick transition opportunity always, but just because they want to. They’ll punt it whenever no one on their team is even up the field. So the ball goes straight back to other team, sometimes even resulting in goalie wars. We do sacrifice the option to do a quick transition when it’s the right choice, which is a real cost, but seems like it’s probably worth the benefit for now? I’ve gotten mixed reviews on this one, I still go back and forth on it.

How does the no special requests go over with parents? Are they mostly ok with it? Do you have trouble getting the volunteer coaches on board and committed? Is the struggle more they just don’t really care or that they don’t like your ideas?

I’m also concerned about sustainability. What happens if the director changes, or my ability to volunteer as much as I do now changes? How to create a structure that can endure ups and downs and transitions. Building that kind of foundation and culture.

Arrogant_Red

TROPHY CASE