How to Coach a Ball Control Drill in Kids' Soccer

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Guillermo Gomez and I coach soccer and today I am going to be talking about how to coach a control drill or a control game. So one of the things I actually like to do for fun for the kids is to actually set up mini tennis courts for them in which they have to be able to control the ball with all parts of their body, try to bring it down and take the ball across, just the normal way you would play tennis. But I am not just strict with all the rules with them. I can let them have either two or three bounces. The idea is for them to control the ball so that they can take the ball across the net. One thing that I do request from them is to actually lift the ball to make the ball go over the net. Often times it is difficult to get a net so what I do is I set up a constant middle through the line and make them believe or think that the net is right in place. So when the boys are playing the game they are actually not lifting the ball to go over the net, they actually lose a point. I don't want to penalize them if they didn't control the ball right or if they are not taking the ball across properly so I don't put many restrictions on them. The idea is again to get as many good touches on the ball with the inside of the foot with the shoelaces, with a head or chest, just control the ball and get them used to it and see how the ball bounces. Every bounce and every spin can make a difference in how you do a return of a ball so those are the types of things we are looking at. So you want to have fun with the kids and coach them ball control. I also suggest the tennis game which is a little fun for them and also brings a lot of learning to them and good experience so that is how we do a control drill for youth soccer players."