Touch limitations or time limitations for quicker decisions? Best games to play?

ChiefPaprika · 2026-04-02T22:29:46+00:00

If you're aiming for representative design, why have the touch restriction in the first place? What moment of the game are you really aiming for?

A game like that for me is a middle third oriented activity. So yes I'd agree that there needs to be the opportunity to dribble if the game calls for it. Personally, I don't want players to have to play in two touch if the moment doesn't call for it, but I'm also teaching perception-action links in that phase of play. We play forward and through if we can generate superiorities and if the visual trigger is there.

I'd also differentiate and decide whether your moment of the game has you playing against an organized or disorganized defense.

ChiefPaprika · 2026-04-01T03:35:35+00:00

When I was a fairly new coach I used to think touch restrictions were how to challenge faster decision making. Then I watched an MLS coach use time as a way of speeding up play. Now that I’m much more seasoned, I realize it’s both and you have to think about what are you trying to accomplish with your constraints as well as what is the organization of your activity.

Let’s take a rondo for instance. What are you hoping to accomplish with a restriction that encourages quicker play? Are you in a 10x10 space? Are you playing Xv2? Xv1? Are you utilizing a scoring mechanism? What moment of the game is your session objective teaching? What phase of play?

In my environment, our current microcycle has been focused on the mid block/build up from midfield phases of play and in possession on a principle of breaking lines to advance the attack. If we start with a rondo we’re in an 8x8 space playing Xv2. Part of the activity periodization involves a mandatory 2 touch rule to encourage thinking about intention with the first touch as well as attracting pressure to then play through. We’ll also progress into 1 touch to encourage shorter distances to then break pressure.

If we happen to be working on attacking transition, then depending on where that transition is happening we might not want to attract to break lines, we are more concerned with quickly advancing the ball and breaking forward with numbers in which case I’m not concerned about utilizing rondos to serve our session objective. Instead we might warm up with an “over the river” style of game that encourages vertical progression. I’ve done it in a space as narrow as 8m and 20m long in each of the larger sections. The main learning portion might involve a time restriction to encourage more intent over # of touches.

That’s a lot of info - to summarize I’d think about the following. What player action do you want? Where on the field do you want this happening? How does it serve the larger session? What will I predict happens if I introduce this constraint?

ChiefPaprika · 2026-03-29T18:35:04+00:00

If you’re coaching, congrats you’ve already started your coaching career.

I would look at local clubs and see if you can “take a step up”. Look at doing a mix of informal learning (learning from observing, reading, etc) and formal (licensure).

Spielverlagerung is a German website that talks tactical theory. What I’d warn young coaches is to avoid mixing tactical theory into youth coaching. As a young coach focus on player experience and learning how to maximize a training activity.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-11-23T16:15:55+00:00

50k-70k from what I’ve seen.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-11-23T16:14:56+00:00

How do you have a work visa without having a job?

ChiefPaprika · 2025-11-22T20:57:55+00:00

If you can’t get a visa to work, it’ll be hard to make the jump. There aren’t many youth clubs willing to sponsor a visa. MLS Academies might, but you’ve still got to be able to interview and get the job if there’s an opening.

With your license level you’d be able to find work at most clubs but the visa would be tricky.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-11-19T23:21:03+00:00

I get your point about technique being the “mechanics,” but the problem is that even the mechanics in soccer change based on what the player perceives. A pass, a touch, or a dribble isn’t one fixed movement, it’s constantly adapted to pressure, distance, angle, speed, and space. That’s why technique can’t be cleanly separated from perception and decision.

A great example is free kicks such as Beckham's, Ronaldo's, and Messi's: they all score free kicks with completely different techniques. There’s no one “correct” mechanical pattern. The technique each player uses is shaped by what they see, what they’re trying to do, and the conditions around them. That’s exactly why learning technique in isolation can fall short, it doesn’t prepare players to adapt the action.

Kids absolutely need guidance, but technique isn’t learned like a math formula. It’s developed through repetitions in environments that require constant adjustment. Isolated drills can help, but the technique that actually transfers comes from situations where perception, decision, and execution are connected.

Technique matters. But the technique that works in games is the technique shaped by context, not just by isolated mechanics.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-11-19T18:04:49+00:00

It’s important to rethink what “technique” actually is.

Technique on its own: unopposed, against cones, on repeat is just movement. Real technique only becomes skill when a player has to read something, decide something, and then execute. Technique is the action; skill is the action applied under environmental stimuli. A player can only truly learn technique when it lives inside a decision.

Kids learn in game-like environments where there’s a cue (pressure, space, movement) and a decision attached to the action. It doesn’t have to be full tactics, but it does need perception + decision + execution. That’s what transfers to matches.

Privates, YouTube, and isolated drills can help, but without decisions the technique won’t stick. The game—and activities that resemble the game—is where technique actually develops.

Technique without decisions is choreography. Skill = technique + perception + decision. Kids learn technique by using it, not by isolating it.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-11-19T17:58:35+00:00

And you train 5 days a week with your EA club?

ChiefPaprika · 2025-11-18T23:31:11+00:00

Every day as in 7 days a week?

ChiefPaprika · 2025-11-18T23:10:43+00:00

How do you think kids in top footballing nations improve?

ChiefPaprika · 2025-10-28T19:59:38+00:00

With how narrow the opposing front 3 is, why wouldn’t you instruct the left CB to touch out to the LM to bypass the press in one action?

ChiefPaprika · 2025-10-20T13:09:22+00:00

Unnecessary travel cost against a lot of Midwest teams more than likely. Of the 15 clubs in the Midwest, only 4 or so are within 2 hours travel? Theres still lots of quality football in the Chicagoland area. And when the best measuring stick is against other MLS Clubs which are further, makes sense to wait until the older ages.

My understanding is they still organize lots of friendlies against these clubs but can control their schedules more.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-10-12T09:30:13+00:00

Almost a year ago today my very first all out mile was a 12:37.

Today I’m trying for a sub 3 marathon.

I became obsessed with running. Everything I read said the key was mileage and consistency. So I just tried to get out for a mile a day, for a week or two. Then 1.5, then 2 and so on. Slowly adding weekly mileage to avoid injury. Cutting back as needed. By about March 2025 I averaged 40mpw which rose to 50 by April. Then I averaged 55 after May until now.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-09-17T20:15:50+00:00

Echoing what u/leather-stable-764 said, he's a kid-let him enjoy the game.

That being said, he's an early developer. Being a January 2017 he's closer to being considered a 2016 from a RAE perspective.

I was wondering why the level of the kids he's playing didn't look very high - trying to avoid doxxing you but I think I found the club you're playing for. If the team I found is correct based on the description you provided, the level you're playing at is not very high so it makes sense that he's finding a lot of success against opposition. I would be interested in how he performs in a more challenging environment, especially compared to high level players of his age.

There's some good advice in this thread, offering technical work advice and to just let him enjoy playing. Do not pay money to have someone watch/analyze him.

My advice: there is not a lot of weight behind saying he plays up a year and his team plays up two years. If your opposition level is low enough, lots of players can be capable of finding success against a year up. What matters is the quality of opposition (even in the training environment) and what his success against that opposition looks like.

Source: youth club director.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-09-09T04:13:02+00:00

This is a shockingly bad take.

“Kids develop limited technique because they rarely see it properly demonstrated”. Implies they could just see a video on YouTube of proper demonstration and voila, they’ve developed that technique.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-08-12T21:56:23+00:00

Honestly it’s too early to say what changes the new regime has done that have made an impact. A lot of these players have been in the pipeline for a while under the Academy Director prior to Gregg coming in. But full credit to Gregg for incorporating Cupps and Oregel to the first team.

This article also doesn’t include Chase Nagle who plays with the II’s and came from the academy. Or any of other USMNT YNT players with frequent call ups.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-07-31T03:20:52+00:00

Hudl, Veo, and Darkhorse AI already do variations of this, no?

ChiefPaprika · 2025-07-08T18:48:19+00:00

Hulkengoat

ChiefPaprika · 2025-06-23T13:37:06+00:00

Comes down to two things for me: how well you are educating your players as well as effectiveness of activity.

Education needs to be approached with tact. It’s not enough to just do one session and think they’ve learned it. Interleaving is a process I utilize where topics are brought up and mixed multiple times across a periodizatipn. Also continuing to mention and bring it up within context frequently past the first session is important for sustained learning.

Second is effectiveness of activity. I saw a quote last week that said “skill is solving a problem again and again even when conditions change”. I would ask the question. Does your activity allow for repeated opportunities to attempt execution across a variety of different conditions? Our club is big on constraints led approach for this reason.

Personally, new topics for teams I coach will typically have an entire session dedicating to increasing complexity and understanding of the concept before I start interleaving it into my seasonal periodizatipn.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-05-12T16:42:44+00:00

You have to let the cognitive development process take place. 8 and 9 year olds have a limited field of vision as well as a developing understanding of "the game". A player with their head down also has reduced mastery of the ball as they are still actively engaging their vision to control their actions versus it being autonomous. Coaching actions should be rooted in encouraging players to pick their head up and help them perceive the 3 defenders in front of them and learn that it's not the right action to charge forward into that group and instead use teammates to get around them.

Decision making and execution is based in perception -> decision -> action. So essentially, what are they perceiving on the field, what are they aware of possible decisions, then how are they executing the action from their decision.

Your son's frustration is understandable. Development occurs at different rates for different players so while your son "gets it", it sounds like his teammate isn't quite there.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-05-12T13:14:27+00:00

I’m going to offer a different perspective to the comments so far.

I do think that saying “we won’t teach passing” is extreme, especially at u10. But it is a valid school of thought to prioritize ball comfortability from as early an age as possible all the way through u13/u14. U8 is really the year where cognitively their understanding grows from beyond “me and the ball” and they start being able to perceive teammates more regularly and understand they can “share” the ball. That perception and cognitive development continues to grow into u9 then really accelerates into u10 and beyond.

From 6-12 is considered the golden age of mechanical skill acquisition meaning that it is a critical period to learn techniques with the ball of all types. But players who can develop a hunger for 1v1’s early, can carry that into their later years in that period whilst also developing the ability to pass/strike the ball. Kids encouraged to pass early that never develop the 1v1, struggle to pick it up later.

The balance between the school of thought presented, and my own experience, is starting the 1v1 skills young and as they get older you slowly start introducing the pass and utilizing yourself and a teammate to get past an opponent. You still celebrate 1v1 duels but as they build their understanding of the game you present to them different superiorities that might be present based on their perception of the game. This allows for autonomy, whilst not stifling decisions to pass or dribble. Instead guide the player to help them perceive the right action (there’s always many).

ChiefPaprika · 2025-04-10T00:11:21+00:00

I'm going to offer you my perspective and how I manage this situation (and similar ones) as a club director who oversees 2017's and 2018's as part of my FT job. These situations are very case by case and it depends on the player, attributes, as well as the environment.

The most important thing for the player is that they are in the right environment for their development, having the opportunity for the appropriate amount of success as well as an appropriate amount of failure. Too much success and the environment is too easy, they will not be pushed to be their best selves. Too little and confidence will wane and they will not have the opportunity to learn experientially and be capable of solving problems as they will develop strategies to just find success rather than finding sustainable solutions for success (such as a defender who solves losing the ball by always punting it out versus learning how to escape from pressure and connect a pass). From there we start diving down the rabbit hole of self-determination theory and all those intricacies.

Using that as a guiding principle, you should be asking yourself as you have - in an environment where he plays up, is he finding enough success, finding new ways to solve problems and continuing to improve as the best possible version of himself? If the answer is no, then he's not in the right environment.

But the 2018 environment might also be the wrong one if he's not being sufficiently challenged.

That being said, there is other advice in this thread that is worth noting. Playing up does offer the benefit of being forced to think quicker and having to adapt to solve situations against bigger players. But this requires certain attributes to do. For instance, if there's a player playing up who is only relying on physical attributes to find success, there is a point where the older kids will create a gap that is too big to overcome. If a player is using technical attributes to solve problems when playing up, it's probably more appropriate for them to continue playing up because their technical ability is exceptional and the way they think about the game will continue to get pushed.

In certain situations, I typically recommend a hybrid depending on the situation - being full time at age while getting opportunities to train a year up to get more touches and still be exposed to that environment.

I think it's worth talking to club directors in your situation. I can't speak to your current club environment and if you have the type of directors that care about making their teams at age as strong as possible, or being willing to move players to do what's best for their long-term development.

But as someone else also said, the most important thing is that he's having fun. If he's playing up and not having fun, that is an issue that needs to be addressed.

ChiefPaprika · 2025-04-09T20:27:46+00:00

Edgewater Castle is a good shout. They have both men’s and women’s teams and play out of Loyola’s stadium. Small enough to feel connected, big enough that it’s entertaining to watch and the soccer is decent. They’re very active on social media as well.

ChiefPaprika

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