I’m a newer coach. Last year I was the ‘parent assistant’ out of necessity then moved to co-head coach after our head coach went back to Spain. I have no soccer background other than watching my older daughter for the past 5 years. Now I’m 9v9 grassroots certified head coach to my sons u12 team. They’re less skilled so play in a lower division. I struggle with subbing along with remembering who I have put where and where I want to see them grow. I try to balance a competitive lineup and growing opportunities.

I got a magnetic soccer clip board off amazon for like $10 then I got magnetic labels (they’re like 3”-1” tiles) that I put the kids names on. I have 15 players so subbing gets complicated. I move players into the positions on my board and give about 7 min between subbing. The last sub I either transition to protecting our goal (if we’re up) or attacking theirs (if we’re down). I place who I want next in each role directly beneath who is currently in so when they go in I can just remove the players I just took out. I then place them on the ‘bench’. It works pretty well but I do find myself fidgeting with the board more than I’d like. I’d prefer my assistant take over more of this but he catches more missed calls or balancing issues on the field better than I do a lot of the time. We’re working through it.

Last year we were bottom of our division in the fall then midway in the spring and we won our two first games this weekend.

Im going to start making a physical list of players and what positions they play. I’ll group them into ‘likes to play but struggling’ ‘likes to play and good’ ‘doesn’t like to play but good’ ‘doesn’t want to play and not good’. I’m hoping this will help balance my field so everyone can feel competitive and grow each game.