In the pitch with the young players with enthusiasm and curiosity

The young players called in Italian football pulcini are the second category of the football school in order of age and include children aged 8 to 10 years. Very often coaches are extremely satisfacted of them, emphasizing the interest and enthusiasm that at this age children showt on the pitch. The satisfaction of the coaches is explained by the evolutionary moment that children of this age live. They live a break in their evolutionary process, they become masters of their body and their mental faculties, becoming aware of themselves, helped by a better definition of the body schema and also by a better level of sociability. All these features put your child away from the continuous self-discovery typical of the previous stage and still far from the confused adolescent storm. It is this that makes it possible to define the young players of this age as more coachable of the football school. This definition, however, does not delete the difficulties that can be encountered in the group management. Beyond the technical and tactical dimensions is important, as always, to know the psychological dynamics belonging to this age group and also the most effective communication style to be used with these young players. Here are some ideas about what to do when we are working with them.

What To Do:

• Engage constantly reducing at the minimum the pauses and waits
• Build their psychological autonomy (means to know how to solve problems)
• Propose exercises in which they must take decisions
• Reinforce not only the correctness of the choices, but the ability to make choices
• Promote the ability to take calculated risks
• Insert in training exercises teaching to maintain a balance between individual risk and collective game
• Lead to internalize the rules of the group
• Teaching to work in a competitive environment
• Structuring training with the aim to promote collaboration
• Decrease the individualism (at this age tend to feed itself: you do so, then, me too)
• Help them to assess what attitude or situation determine the mistakes even through personal examples

Knowing how to handle the young players means, not only to develop their technical and tactical skills, but also to support their enthusiasm and curiosity.

(by Daniela Sepio)