First Day of Soccer Practice

The first session tells them what kind of season it's going to be, and they've decided by about minute six. That's the whole stake here. Not fitness. Not evaluation. Tone.

Three things to establish, and they're all behavioural rather than tactical: we start on time, we don't stand around, and nobody gets embarrassed here.

What not to do on day one: a fitness test. A long speech. Positions. Cuts. Anything that makes the nervous ones more nervous, which is most of them, including the confident-looking one at the back.

The session (75 minutes)

0:00–0:05 — Something is already happening

Have a ball each and countdown-ball-mastery running from the moment the first player arrives. No standing in a semicircle waiting for stragglers. The player who turns up two minutes late joins a session in progress rather than an audience.

0:05–0:10 — Names, and one sentence

Everyone says their name. You say one sentence about the season, and it's genuinely one sentence. Whatever you were going to say in five minutes, say it in October instead, when they've earned the right to care about it.

0:10–0:22 — numbers-race-warm-up

Competitive, loud, mixes them up. Two players who don't know each other end up on the same team and have to shout at each other, which is faster than any icebreaker.

0:22–0:38 — dribbling-gates-1v1

One-v-one on day one, deliberately. It tells you an enormous amount about who's brave, who's technical and who's been coached to never try anything. And it tells them that this is a place where you're allowed to lose the ball.

Say, loudly, the first time someone gets beaten: "Good. Go again."

0:38–0:56 — 4v4-four-goal-game

Small teams, four goals, constant decisions. Everyone touches the ball every few seconds. Rotate teams every four minutes so nobody gets stuck losing.

0:56–1:10 — 3v3-gks-winner-stays-league

Winner stays on. Competitive, fast, and the day-one version of the thing they came for, which is to play.

1:10–1:15 — Finish

Name three specific things you saw and liked, with the players' names attached. Say when the next session is. Let them go.

If you're a new coach who's never played

You'll be fine. Turning up is half of coaching and the other half is not making it about you. Run this session as written. The players will not be able to tell whether you played at a high level, and they will absolutely be able to tell whether you organised the first twenty minutes properly.