My name is Maciek and I’m 9 years old. I love football and like every child I love to play. I wrote this short and positive text especially for you, coach. Why? Because I believe that my valuable tips will help you understand the children you work with every day. I trust that you will start to devote much more time to how we develop, how we learn, what really motivates us. Knowledge about us will allow you to plan effective sessions, thanks to which our potential will develop. I value your football knowledge, which, combined with the knowledge about us (children), will be an excellent basis for our development. Let’s go! Time for my feedback!
Do you remember what you wanted to do when you were 9 years old? Let me guess? As much fun and play time as possible right? In that case, why do we play so little? Why don’t you just let us be kids? How can we learn to play football by playing little and doing often complex exercises? Let me tell you that the smile and good fun come back when we can finally just play football. It seems so simple, but so difficult for you to understand.
Each of us is different and learns differently. That is why it is so important that you have this information. If you don’t know, the next question is: how do you want to teach us? Being an active participant in your sessions, I have to tell you that you are going down a blind alley. It’s up to you if you want to change it. Start gathering information on how we learn today? How we effectively assimilate the instructions you provide. This will be of great benefit to you also. Most coaches focus on football, you have a chance to get to know us and only then teach football.
Coach, more does not mean better. In each session, you give us countless pieces of information, as if we had more than one brain. Let me remind you, I’m only a 9-year-old and you’re making mistake of applying an amount of information that’s completely inadequate to what we can absorb at the moment. Our brain is able to remember a maximum of 3 basic pieces of information. That’s right. Only three!
Coach, please tell me, why waste time on a lecture at children’s training? We are not at university (maybe I will be there one day, but not yet). You talk a lot, but we understand very little of it. I don’t know if you have time to see how bored we are during your frequent lectures instead of playing football. What’s more, you speak a language completely foreign to a group of 9-year-old children and rarely listen to us, and if you do, it’s only to answer, not to understand what we are saying. I’ll give you a good piece of advice: it’s worth listening to how we talk to each other – short, concise, understandable and to the point.
That’s right. I love running with the ball. I love to dribble. Sometimes until I lose the ball. This is completely natural for my age, development and human evolution, which is 2000 years old. So why do you forbid with such stubbornness, sometimes even mad anger, to do something that every child my age will always do? Instead of forbidding, you should encourage and help me how to trick the opponent, or maybe even two or three.
Creativity and curiosity are our (children’s) natural traits. Unfortunately, most adults effectively eliminate them. Sometimes in a completely unconscious way. This unawareness results from the lack of basic education and knowledge about us. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that we like to take risks. Experiment and try difficult feints without fear. For us kids, there are no barriers. The only barrier are adults, who think they can control us as they want. Again, I have to disappoint you, Coach! Such a way of approaching children shows a lack of understanding of us and, consequently, taking away the joy playing football. You make decisions for us. You control us like on PlayStation. You yell when we make mistakes. Why? And finally, you don’t draw any conclusions from it. I do not know why? Perhaps it’s your ego? Children do not need a person with a big ego, but they dream of someone, that understand them well.
Cones, mannequins, markers, hurdles. Sometimes there is so much of it on the pitch that it’s hard to see the green colour of the grass? Instead, two goals, one ball and a little 3v3 game would be enough! I don’t know why you force us to do things that are difficult to understand for adults, let alone 9-year-olds. You never say or rarely: why we do something? Explain to me what benefits do you see in dribbling the ball between countless cones? On the pitch, I face a real opponent who breathes, moves and makes decisions. The cones or mannequins doesn’t seem to do that, or am I wrong? So, you shouldn’t be frustrated and angry, if on Saturday at the match I can’t make a good decision, outplay the opponent under pressure. After all, your training is so different from what happens on the pitch every Saturday or Sunday. You really don’t risk anything if we will simply play football!
My strength is dribbling. Jack, on the other hand, can make excellent forward passes, while Peter can keep the ball, even under pressure from two opponents. Each of us dreams that you continue to develop our strengths.
In general, I will tell you that two goals and a ball and small games are enough for us kids, thanks to which we learn to understand the game. Coach, you love planning and there’s nothing wrong with that. My advice, do you have a plan for learning and not just implementing the session topic? Your obsession with the implementation of the topic is your priority that you often forget about us and whether this whole topic meets our needs at all? In other words, you are again forcing us to do something that you think we need. You don’t look at all if we need it and if we are able to learn it at a given moment. My advice – stop planning just to fill up the paper and focus on how we learn and what we need.
That’s it. Thank you and I hope this feedback will help you to better understand us children. Greetings and see you at the training. Maciek, a 9-year-old who still loves football!
