[Victor]

"A skill drill I always liked and I'm sure everyone has done before: pair up in groups of two, each pair with a ball. The pair faces each other, about 5-6 feet apart. As a pair, you jog slowly back and forth between the sidelines doing different things with the ball on each trip. i.e., on the first trip, the guy jogging forward (A) passes to the guy jogging backwards (B), B just traps ball and leaves it for the approaching A. Alternate feet each time. Then do it with B passing back to A. Then do the same with volleys (A tosses the ball around knee height to B). Then do the same with headers (A tosses the ball over Bs head). Then trapping with the upper leg, then trapping with the chest, etc. It helps players develop a feel for the ball as well as working on close control. "

ya this is awesome. we called it the brazilian.

also, look up coerver moves and do those for like 15 minutes at the start. simple cuts in 6-8 yards of space is great. tell them to focus on exploding when changing direction. cut with the inside, outside, scissor, pull back, behind the leg, etc. encourage the players to do those drills on their own. its simply the best way to develop skills and the kids who do it will easily excell in high school.

that should be like 30-45 minutes of warmup. then do short-sided scrimmage as you said before for the main part of practice.

another good warmup is 5v2 keep away. if you [censored] up you gotta be in the middle. encourage the 5 to keep a tight space and do 2 touch (and sometimes 1.) u need 2 pinneys for this drill. also, to encourage the def to work together, they rotate out regardless of who actually steals it.

also, have your kids bring 2 shirts to practice, dark and white to easily make teams.

another good drill, probably for the main part of practice is 3 team keep away. i think we called this the dutch drill. anyway, 3 teams of between 4 and 6 should work. use the whole field and maybe more. one team on d, and the other 2 play keep away. if i lose the ball, now my team is on d.

so, primarily focus on development of foot skills. the players will proly suck at the coerver and brazilian initially. i mean, balls will be flying all over the place. but this is a great stage in a development of athletecism for young ppl. they will quickly develop the skills if with repetician. if they get to high school and dont have it, they likely wont ever get it.

econdly, have the players focus on "what they are gonna do before they get the ball" which the keepaway should help with.

as a coach its your job to make sure the players arent standing around doing nothing. thats why i hate lineup drills and the like. mini scrimmages are great imo.

i kinda want to coach now.