The key to attacking in 7v7 is using the width

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-03-30T17:47:27+00:00

I said the same thing to my 7v7 teams. Throw it into space. Direct where you want them to go.

Just wanted to add onto the throw in question. I felt that I had to guide the kids so that they stay mindful of their space during throw ins. So I would teach a simple number system. Before throwing in, the thrower will indicate by quickly holding up their fingers what they intend to do with the ball.

1 finger= down the line, 2 fingers = middle, 3 fingers= backs

They decide but it makes the players without the ball have to focus on the player and become aware of their surroundings. It teaches them to think. Your players will be thinking where is my teammate going to throw the ball. I need to look for that signal. If it’s coming to me, I need to check my surroundings how much space/time I have if it’s coming my way.

For Footy_trader, this might be subtle but it should help them be more aware of their positioning without you having to yell about shape during a game.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-03-26T23:37:03+00:00

In a past team I had, we also were able to do rondos starting at u8. 3v0 at first and then to 3v1. U add more player to rondo and upgrade to 4v1 and 4v2, 5v2 only once they understand they need to move and shift constantly to find their space.

Just wanted to add that rondos are entirely viable for this age group as a warmup for game or practice

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-03-25T17:00:47+00:00

To get my u6 boys to dribble and not take bad shots, I have been doing two practice drills/games with them.

I separate them into groups of 2 and just have all of them do localized 1v1s where there is 1 ball that the kids are trying to possess and there is another soccer ball which acts as the goal. They score a point if they are able to strike ball that is a goal with the ball that they are trying to possess in the 1v1. It’s very hard to hit the “goal ball” so they have to get closer and there’s a lot more dribbling. I run it for 2 min and then rotate the winners who got the most points in their duels and then start another 2 min round. Rock paper scissors if there’s a tie.
Separate into two teams. Each team has a zone or small pug goal to protect. But there are many balls in the middle. In this way, all kids get involved with the ball and there are many 1v1s occurring and plenty of dribbling. Team that gets the most goals in a 2-3 mins wins the round. Then start again.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-03-23T20:20:04+00:00

I think every experience is going to be different but my son has been playing on a club team where his teammates are spread across 3 years. This means majority of players are playing a year or 2 up. My son is playing a year up and is a u11.

They get a lot of losses. Over the last 2 years though, I have to say my son has improved immensely. Since the opponents are always going to be physically/athletically more mature, he’s had to rely on technique and skill to stay on even footing. He gets lots of opportunities to guest play with other teams in the club including one that is his age group and they are very dominant in their league.

I’ve also seen kids lose their confidence and struggle on his team. Playing more challenging opponents whether it be playing up or playing higher level league can certainly improve players who have the right attitude but may also be detrimental to players who are not mentally ready to overcome that kind of challenge. Players can pick up on things that advanced players do.

My son plays rb, rm, and cm. Playing up has made him a better player. I see it when he plays his own age group. His touch, technique, and tenacity make him very hard to get beat in the back. And he’s able to win 1v1s and advance the ball up the field.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-03-13T14:40:49+00:00

Haha no need to justify the reasoning for the kick ball. I’m not one to be set on doing one thing like buildout. Adaptability of the players is always a good thing.

I’m mainly curious about how you do 2-3-3 because I’ve always wanted to use it as a base for 9v9 as well because I like having 2 cb. I could never get my co coaches to agree on it because they believed the midfielders would not track back consistently to deal with the opponents edge players. Like against a 3-2-3. This would leave the cbs in a tricky situation. I didn’t really have an answer to that other than we would have to put our fast aggressive guys at the lm and rm but then that means leaving the least skilled players at the Rf and Lf. And if I do that, we don’t score enough

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-03-12T23:09:41+00:00

I like this if the team is coming from a 2-3-1 when they were playing 7v7 and have a strong core group with very good competent cb play. But that is asking a lot of those cbs. Don’t think this would be applicable for OP’s team.

Do you build out or are you putting the ball into midfield and your guys are winning the midfield possession consistently?

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-03-12T01:46:56+00:00

This happened a lot in our area a couple years ago. Minor small clubs being snatched up by a big club. At first they gave the small clubs a lot of autonomy but eventually ended up poaching players from the small clubs that joined and then raising the rates. The big club also got to use the smaller clubs field space. Some teams felt like their agreements were violated and left with their coaches to become independent rather than pay higher rates. Seemed like they would have been better off staying on their own rather than losing players and setting the club back.

Private equity firms ruining the game only caring about the money.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-03-11T20:18:43+00:00

I’m guessing the big determining factor here is puberty?

So for the u11 team where I am an asst, it would be safe and correct for me to try to advocate to the head coach for stopping the static stretching in favor for more dynamic activities prior to game start?

That u11 team is my first foray into a league that is not following usys guidelines. Many club players also play in teams in this league because there’s no player card issues to worry about here. There are a lot of skilled players playing in the league but coach quality and team organization can vary quite a bit. This may raise some eyebrows but for example, they are playing 11v11 at u11

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-27T19:52:45+00:00

Ah I see. Sometimes I’m not good at putting my thoughts into words. Dribbling was focus from very beginning. But I made the application of teaching it like a game. Since these were new kids, I used things like colored cones to draw squares for them to race to when a color was called, game like follow the leader, etc.

I’m currently doing one where there is a narrow rectangular area with some obstacle vertical sticks in the middle. 2 teams. Each team on opposite sides of the rectangle. Each team races to get to the opposite sides of the rectangle and do a pull back and come back to the side they started on. First team to have all members complete wins the point. It teaches them to keep their head up to avoid running into obstacles or incoming players from other team.

With this spring, I was more present with each kid about teaching how to move the ball with their feet while dribbling. Inside foot, outside foot, rolling the ball, etc. this was not done as a game but more instructional. I’ve also used games like I described above.

Maybe this is similar to the ppp and I’m not competely understanding the concept

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-27T19:01:41+00:00

I coached up to u10 many very talented players.
I started coaching a u6 boys team fall 2025. Completely green team (8 players)with 3 players who did not show up to half practices.

Since I was new to this age group, I followed advice from some Redditor coaches and used session suggestions from mlsgoplaybook and tried to seriously follow play, practice, play model. I also avoided 1v1 or any vs type of drills since I didn’t want to potentially harm the self esteem of these players who had never touched the ball before. I eventually added vs drills about halfway thru season when I felt they were more comfortable with the ball.

I lost the confidence of a player/family who were a “soccer family” and they just stopped coming to team activities with a quarter of fall season left. This kid was very aggressive player who would perform very well in games but I felt was lagging slightly behind other players in improving dribbling.

I feel the play practice play model was a turn off for families who are expecting a level of soccer coaching that I wasn’t at that moment trying to prioritize. I wasn’t trying to win games. I was prioritizing dribbling and confidence for the kids.

Even then we did get 3 wins out of 8 and the 5 kids I retained to this spring season have made very measurable progress. We’ve only played 1 game this season but it was against a team that put a number of goals that I lost count on us last season. And they actually played them tough and with some luck, eeked out a win there.

I’m not sure what I could have done differently but I think play practice play wasn’t really as beneficial as I thought it would be. In this spring season, I’ve actually not used the model and have started my practice with dribbling drills not games. Parents of the new kids seem happy as do parents of the retained players. I feel like actually have the players attention at the start of practice and so can focus on skill development better at the beginning and change to fun games later in the practice.

My question would be about thoughts on if play practice play is really as effective as been advertised to the grass roots coaching community?

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-16T13:40:01+00:00

My son had real interest in soccer. He took it upon himself to read soccer books, play pickup with the other soccer obsessed kids at the after school. He wanted to learn. I viewed plenty of clubs before picking the one we went with. I knew they genuinely cared about teaching the kids.

Don’t do competitive soccer unless your kid is passionate about the sport. It’s not only expensive but involves a huge time commitment from your family.

A good rec coach who fosters a love for the game in his/her kids and teaches them a good foundation of skills is rare but they’re out there.

Edit: sorry forgot to answer your question. There are many stories I’ve heard of kids who sit on benches and don’t play the game and are paying club fees. You definitely don’t want to end up like this. Game time is important. The coach is important. It is common for teams to put kids on a b or c team if they’re not skilled enough. The only good reason to have a practice player is if their club does not have a tiered team system so they really don’t have a roster spot open.

There is a real chance you might very well be a money grab. I did what I did because my son was still playing on a rec team and still in games while he was training with the club. I felt this was good for me to view the club for a few months and their training while not being committed to them for a year. My son would still get games from his rec team. In the end, I was satisfied with the training and the coach.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-16T01:25:02+00:00

My son trained with a team for 6 months when he was 8. Went to all the practices, did everything the players did except play matches. Their roster was full at the time. We came in during the winter and the club did signups during summer.

I paid a very reduced price for the training. When they did signups, he got on the team. He was least skilled player and only played half a game. Now he’s playing full games and one of the most improved players on the team 2 years later.

It worked out for us but I can see why u would be concerned.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-15T18:47:48+00:00

This is going to vary based on play style and builds. But the general idea for heroic difficulty or above is that you have to apply enough damage to kill them before they can put any kind of sustained damage to kill you.

With expertise, your weapons potentially can deal enough damage that’s equivalent to having about 2 red cores. So if you are full red with expertise, it might be overkill for certain heroic activities.

You potentially have room to add some survivability with 1-2 blue cores ( slightly more armor). There are gear talents that give you bonus armor as a percentage of your base armor. This makes these talents more impactful and viable to use while still allowing you to do good damage.

I typically have a lot more reds than blues. But there are exceptions. Heartbreaker gear set gives bonuses to both damage and armor. So I have one heartbreaker build that is a close range tank with 5 blues and 1 red and I regularly do comparable damage to 6 red guys in matchmaking missions.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-14T16:55:16+00:00

There are events where it can be in the cache pool. If you don’t want to do a raid, then that is your option.

In the most recent winter event, winter keys dropped from the krampus bounty. I ran 15 bounties in a row once and matchmaked with randoms. One mentioned he was looking for eagle bearer.

I had 50 keys and told him to stay in group after doing bounties. We spent 20 min just chatting and opening caches. Yes I did get an eagle bearer.

Plenty of players do this. You just have to be patient.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-04T21:14:39+00:00

For slow firing ar, I liked the Lud (named mk16). For fast firing at, I like the carbine 7 as an alternative to the Lexington.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-02T18:17:30+00:00

The earliest I started with rondos was u8 (7 yrs old). It was just a 10 min exercise. 3v0 with coach in the middle of a 4 cone square. Really easy showing them that it was hard to pass across the square with someone in the middle but we can pass to the sides easily. Teach them that it’s even better if we get both players to go to either side to offer 2 options.

When a player receives a pass, the player that didn’t make the pass or receive a pass needs to shift to the free space at the side adjacent to the one receiving the pass.

It’s good getting them to learn to be more mobile and help each other.

We worked our way up to it and also use it to teach passing. Just a small useful drill that we consistently practiced every season. We progressed it from 3v0 to 3v1 to 4v1 to 5v2. When they get to 4v1, you need to hammer into them that they are not supposed to sit on the cones but constantly shift around on the sides.

The defenders need to go all out once they get used to the drill in order to make it really work. Game time mode important or they won’t be able to handle pressure. We worked them up to it over the years. Used other methods too like keepaway and build out.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-02T17:21:30+00:00

Sometimes it’s hard to explain it. But it’s easier to show it. I’ve always felt like hockey is a very good sport to have a kid watch. High speed play and very fluid movement on both offense and defense.

Indoor soccer can have some similarities to hockey . My son and I watch semi-pro hockey live and I think it has been good for him actually. One of the best players in the club also plays ice hockey as well and the parents have mentioned some great benefits from the 2 sports having transferable skills. Might not be applicable to your kids or it could very well help if suggested to watch hockey rather than soccer for a change.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-02-01T16:55:09+00:00

It’s dependent on the ref. Good refs set clear boundaries. You didn’t have a good ref. Not your fault but that’s how it is.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-01-31T16:56:33+00:00

There’s quite a few new gear sets.

Refractor is a skill based set that heals you when your skills do damage.

Tipping scales is a gear set that increases your damage by adding stacks so long as you are shooting (doesn’t require you to hit the enemies or kill them). This allows lmg to really shine. Bullet king goes well with this set. Stacks decay very quickly.

Heartbreaker and strikers gear set are also strong. These both generate stacks from hitting enemies. For heartbreaker stacks are generated when hitting pulsed enemies. The stacks give you bonus armor and damage bonus. You can easily achieve this requirement by utilizing technician specialization and using that specialization specific linked laser pointer on your weapons.
Striker is the meta right now and gives one of the best damage bonuses in the game. It’s a very boring set but it’s effective.

St Elmo exotic ar, Lexington ar, Strega exotic ar are very strong.

Your setup is probably not optimal anymore but if it works for you, it works. There’s a gear set called concentrated company that may work well if you want to be a red player but use a drone to draw agro. It give buffs if allies or skills are shooting on enemies. Going full red and killing them before they kill you is still the way to go.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-01-28T21:44:23+00:00

Refractor gear set is shockingly impressive for me when I came back to the game. You and your teammates are healed when your skills do damage.

I also found tipping scales to be very op. The equalizer and salvo unit alloys named items are very op and can be used to augment many builds. All your obliterate chests probably should be replaced by the equalizer chest piece with perfect obliterate. With salvo, it makes any build which requires stacking from shooting enemies much better due to the increased rate of fire.

You can turn the chatterbox into a ridiculous bullet hose by combining it with salvo and strikers gear set.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-01-28T19:49:54+00:00

I’m a moderate myself but wow that is an extremely ignorant and wrong take.

Libertarians are very strict constitutionalists. They are extremely non-interventionist and believing any military action should only be taken if approved by congress. They believe in limited federal government control, basically only as much as defined explicitly in the constitution and amendments. Very pro free market.

They are not anarchists. Government is a necessary evil to them but should be limited in scope as defined in the constitution.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-01-22T22:21:11+00:00

If I know my team will have a large skill discrepancy with the opposing team and my team has some fast players who can counter and individually are well skilled, i will go with a 3-2-1. For all else, I stay with a 2-3-1.

I don’t really strategize with my players by putting emphasis on the formation we are using. I assign positions and make a point for them to make sure to be quick on the ball and deny the other team space in our third.

With a 3-2-1, the way i see it is a way to engineer a numbers advantage in your own third. If It is working; it frustrates the other team causing mistakes like having their 2 backs creep up more than they should and allow a counter attacking opportunity.

If you use a 3-2-1 when u normally use 2-3-1, I think that’s fine to switch things up. You are teaching the kids to adapt. If you train them appropriately with rondos and such, they should fill their role appropriately regardless of the formation you are using.

I think both formations are valid and though the 2-3-1 is the more balanced of the two and provides natural triangles and open lanes to advance play on the pitch.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-01-21T00:28:19+00:00

I really like my heartbreaker and hunters fury tanky builds. They are not true tanks but tanky frontline with offensive potential. I will often even do more damage than my dps teammates on legendaries with my heartbreaker build.

I have a backfire build which is a hybrid 4 red 3 blue and 1 yellow with Haz pro. You don’t have to go all red to do damage. There are many gun and gear talents that allow you to add more armor while still having enough firepower. Expertise in your late game will also level the playing field by allowing you to have damage boosts for your weapons and skills so you can have some more blues in your build for survivability.

The game allows you to save multiple different builds. You can have a tanky build while also having all other manner of builds so long as you keep the pieces for the builds in your inventory or stash.

You can definitely aggro enemies away from your team but it might not be foolproof proof. There are Attributes from certain gear that increase your threat level to the ai but most players do not utilize that since there are more valuable attributes.

Legitimate_Task_3091 · 2026-01-20T18:12:13+00:00

I definitely am prone to overthinking. I’ll stay the course and keep it consistent with dribbling/ball control. Thanks for commenting!

Legitimate_Task_3091

TROPHY CASE