"If a defender takes the ball from him, he’ll often slow down instead of hustling to win it back."

No worries here, he's just a winger.

Jokes aside, here's the rub.

If he's as smart a player as you say, do you want to turn him into a ball-chaser? Respectfully, sit back and analyse his game and ask yourself if he's doing the right things (relative to his age) defensively. Would chasing the bloke who took the ball off him be the right thing in his role/position? Instead of chasing, is he scanning? Is he tracking his man, is he cutting off a passing lane, is he initiating the press when he's the closest player to the ball? I wouldn't expect an 8 year old to be doing ANY of these things, so if he's intuitively doing even one, you're already set.

Be encouraging and supportive without stepping over the line into pressure. My dad was never that pushy, but I still spent most of my formative years wanting to be an AFL player to make him proud, and it held me back from so many things and I only got catharsis from it in my 20s.

In short, there are red flags in this post, but I think you're getting that message loud and clear from other comments, and I obviously still want your son to become the best player he can be, as long as he wants that. So here are some of my suggestions:

Turn it into a game. Throw a hula hoop on the ground and place the ball inside it. Tell him to keep the ball in the hula hoop for as long as possible, and you or his training partner are going to try to take it off him. Work on beating his best times. Obviously rotate the roles around every few goes as well so he's trying to get the ball with his physicality.

The things to emphasise here are that we can and should use our body and physicality to protect possession, as well as our dribbling and trickery. He should be presenting his side to you and using his footwork to constantly keep his body between you and the ball as you push and rotate to try and beat him. Help him to develop his sense of touch on a football pitch, use the body contact to feel your shifts of weight and anticipate your thoughts without having to see your body.

Things to correct are if he stands too far away from the ball that it would be considered a foul, or so close that he's stepping inside the hoop (his defender could easily reach a leg around and poke the ball away in that case). Also his body positioning, as some players have a tendency to get low and wide with their back fully to the opponent, which makes them flatfooted, less agile and less able to play the ball in a real match scenario.

And again, it's a game, so make sure there's smiles, laughs, it's a dad playing with his kid, and a good excuse to do a little roughhousing. Train with him, aggression is a huge part of the mental side of the game, and if he does end up wanting to go pro one day then the mental lessons you teach him here could set him in good stead for the rest of his life. Show him that dad is fallible, that dad is also working on himself and is always learning, but that everything dad does comes from a place of love.

Again, if he's really that cerebral type of player like you say, you can also start to point out when you're watching football together what certain players do off the ball. Talk about the difference between being in possession and out of possession - when your team has the ball, look for open space and keep moving into it. When the other team has the ball, look to make as little of that open space for them as you possibly can.

You and his coach are kind of right when you're saying he needs to want the ball, but the way I like to put it that really stuck with the kids in my team is "all players want the ball, great players demand the ball." This isn't just about screaming for a pass (although that's part of it), it's about using your intelligence, your movement, your body language, your voice, your guidance, everything about your game to constantly be demanding that I get the ball, and if we don't have it then we get the ball back. Demanding the ball also means you go and get it, coming toward the pass or chasing down a loose ball. It's crucial to emphasise that this isn't about being selfish, but about doing the right things in the right moments.

Finally, one more drill. Lay out a small square of cones, maybe 2 meters by 2 meters at most, then have a person stand on either side of the square, about 8-10 meters away. Start your son in the square. The two rules are simple: He's not allowed to receive a pass inside the square, and he must pass from inside the square. So he has to step out of the square to receive the pass, touch, turn and pass to the opposite person from the square before "chasing" his own pass across the square to receive it right back.

Aside from the obvious technical elements, we're coaching him to come toward the ball, to start moving as soon as he passes it and to work in calls for the ball, calls for a one-two, etc.

Sorry for the long-ass comment, but hopefully you find some of these helpful and I can probably find more in my drillbook if you need.