Youth Football Drills - Don't Crash the Car
Youth football drills (or soccer drills) need to remain fun and exciting. This drill certainly delivers. This is quite possibly my most favourite drill to coach.
Preparation
Have a look at the straight-forward set-up for this drill below. All you will need is the kids to have a soccer-ball each and a coned off area big enough for the amount of kids you have to dribble around comfortably.
Explanation
You begin by telling the kids that this game is called 'don't crash the car'. Get the kids a soccer ball each and get them close to you. The object of the game is not to crash your car.
- "What do you think the car might be?" The kids will respond eventually with the soccer ball.
- "How do you think we could crash our cars?" By dribbling in to other people or falling off the edge of the cliff (outside of coned area).
*****Youth football drills such as this one can be fun and teach new skills and tricks at the same time.*****
The first command you give is:
- 'Green Light' ~ this means the kids dribble their socer balls around without bumping into others or going off the cliff edge.
- 'Red Light' ~ the kids stop dribbling and put one foot on top of the ball and remain still.
- 'Yellow Light' ~ the kids will assume this means go slower however it means go faster whilst still keeping control of the soccer ball.
*****In all these types of youth football drills you need to keep the coaching points going. I.e. inside/outside of foot to dribble and keeping the ball close to you.*****
- 'Honk you horn' ~ just for fun but the kids love it. Get the kids to sit on their ball and honk their imaginary car horn and make loads of noise!
- 'Red light Turn' ~ the kids know that red light means foot on top of ball. The turn comes when they roll the ball behind them and follow the rolling ball. This is coaching them to do the drag-back turn.
- 'wind-screen wipers' ~ the kids stop, put one foot on the ball and move the ball from left-to-right.
*****These youth football drills will be played over and over by the kids because there fun. That's great... but keep introducing new coaching points and skills.*****
- 'Gas station' ~ tell the kids that we're running out of gas and need to find the gas station. Get the kids to dribble over to one corner of the area and on your comand the kids will do toe-taps on the ball which is pumping gas into the cars.
- 'Car wash' ~ all of the cars are filthy dirty and need a clean. Get the kids over to another corner of the area and get them to wash their cars by knocking the soccer ball with the inside of both feet from side-to-side.
- 'Police chase' ~ this ones great. The coach is the police-officer who tries to steal the kids soccer balls. The kids to evade you, will do the red-light turn to face away from you (change direction) showing them that it could work in a game.
Many more youth football drills such as these can be seen on the other pages of the website.
Progression
There are plenty of little things you could add to make this game suitable for your own team. New skills, turns and tricks are always good.
Coaching Points
-> Make sure the kids use little touches and demonstrate what happens if you kick the ball too far in a game.
-> Make sure the kids use the inside and outside of their feet whilst dribbling - not their toes.
-> Check out other youth football drills on my website and see if those coaching points ould fit into your coaching session.
