Soccer coaching can be extremely fun but never more so than when you are coaching children who are under six years old. Pre-school children will often do the funniest things. You can never grow tired by their levels of enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter what the weather is doing, you’ll still see smiles on their faces, even when it’s raining. In fact the more severe the weather, the more enthusiastic they seem to become.

It’s hard not to let their attitude rub off on you. Just watching their smiling faces hunt down the soccer ball like a swarm of bees in the wind and rain will do wonders for your own enthusiasm. No matter how complicated we like try and make this sport these kids do well to remind us of just how much fun it is to play, especially in it’s most simplest of forms.

When soccer coaching with children this young you’ll have to deal with a bunch of other experiences that you’ll seldom come across with older kids. There are huge differences developmentally between coaching kids under 6 years old and kids just 2 or 3 years older.

Many of your players will often cry when they get hurt. They’ll cry when they can’t get the ball, when they miss a goal or when they miss kick the ball. Some of them will cry for no reason whatsoever. Don’t expect to see any passing either. It doesn’t matter how much you shout or how much you try and drill it home to them in training they will never pass the ball.

It is always handy to have toilets close by when coaching the U’6s. There will always be one that needs to come off for an urgent trip to the toilet. Moreover, don’t be surprised if the odd kid stays on the field when they should be in the toilet. It happens regularly. If you’re playing with a keeper, you can usually expect him to keep his position. Don’t expect anyone else to though. Teaching these young stars positional play will be a waste of time.

What tickles me the most every time though is when the whistle is blown at the start of the game. Ten or twenty seconds later every player on the pitch will be within 5 yards of the soccer ball and it pretty much stays that way for the duration of the game. Soccer coaching with the U’6s is a completely different experience than coaching any other age group but it is an enormous amount of fun.

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