U 10 (3RD & 4TH) LESSON PLANS PDF

The game of soccer is very unpredictable and free-flowing.

It’s constantly changing between the moments of attacking, defending, and both transitional moments in between.

Each of the three phases of Play-Practice-Play replicates those moments and are easy for the coach to implement.

The environment provides players with what they like and with what they need to analyze the game, make decisions, be creative with their own solutions, and to ultimately become independent, critical thinkers.

Football is one of the most difficult games to learn and master.

The range of skills and techniques required, using almost every part of the body, to control and move the ball through a 360-degree spectrum of possibilities, under regular pressure from opponents, means that a lengthy period of practice, training and development is necessary for each individual player.

The additional complexity of the game in terms of decision-making and the constant challenge of correct off-the-ball positioning increase the difficulty of the learning process.

Players also need to learn how to function as part of a team, interacting with their ten team-mates while dealing with the actions of their eleven opponents; they need to be aware of the various tasks required of the team, and the many and varied individual player tasks.

It is perhaps stating the obvious to the reader when I stress how difficult it is to play football.

However, despite the widely-held acceptance that it takes a long time to learn how to play football, there seems to be a very common perception that it should not take very long to learn how to coach it.

If it takes around ten solid years of effort and practice to learn how to play, mastering perhaps one or two positions in the team, why should it take any less than that to be the one who knows EVERYONE’S role, the one who makes the WHOLE TEAM tick, the one who can plan and conduct training sessions to MAKE THE WHOLE TEAM BETTER, the one who can observe and analyse WHOLE TEAM PERFORMANCE ON MATCH-DAY,

seeing the problems and IDENTIFYING SOLUTIONS, the one who DRIVES, INSPIRES AND DEVELOPS ALL PLAYERS AND STAFF, with a special combination of PLANNING, COMMUNICATION AND LEADERSHIP SKILLS?.