The Things I Wish I had Known Sooner Series
How to Rotate Positions in Youth Soccer
And why you need to start doing this if you’re not already
Keep your players in the same role for three games, then rotate. This is probably an obvious thing to do, but so often I hear coaches not doing it.
I didn’t either. The first couple of years I coached, running shifts and lines, was a stressful mess. It pulled me away from coaching during the game, and I was messed up if kids were late or couldn’t make it. Beyond that, having kids play multiple positions in one game is absolute chaos, hurts development, and creates needless losses.
e.g. “Who wants to play goal in the second half” Hot tip: if you are losing no one wants to go in net.
Kids have a deep sense of fairness and have positions they really want to play (and some they do not). A clear rotation, and letting everyone know this is the plan, helps to manage that while better developing players. I switched to this method and now games are easy, fun and effective. I hope it helps you too.
It is striking to me that kids younger than eight define themselves in specific roles. Almost always, this is because of a parent or coach.
“I’m a winger,” two 10-year-olds told me when they joined my team a few years ago. Sure, they are, or maybe those players are a combination of low defensive courage, weak(er) ball control and positional awareness to succeed at centre mid, pretty fast, and want to score, but they’re not really sure how. What those players need is dribbling development, positional awareness, and confidence. They are not “wingers”.
At some point, players need to specialize to develop proficiency further, and I’d love to have a beer and talk about when. Of course, I’m proven wrong by my friend (incredibly talented Olympic medal-winning striker) Mel, who seems to have only ever played striker. But to learn the game, I really think specialization should not happen under 12 (and I doubt even at U13, but maybe I’m wrong). The current favourite Canadian Men’s player Alphonso Davies is a striker with the Canadian National Team, but plays as a back for his European team Bayern Munich so… This is a forever topic of debate. I guarantee that players under 12 have been pigeonholed and underdeveloped by coaches, themselves, and parents. They will all benefit from playing all roles.
When a kid who never thought they could be a striker scores their first goal it is a marvelous thing. When a kid who was terrified of being keeper makes that key stop is a beautiful thing. There are so many examples of this. Kids are bad at most parts of soccer. For young kids, our job isn’t to minimize their badness to win games or to highlight their one skill for the same reason. Our job is to grow them into capable soccer players.
Here is how we use positional rotation to do that.
Our U11 Team as an Example
In this example we have 14 players in a league that plays 8 a side. This will also work with 12 or 13.
We schedule: 2 keepers, 3 defence, 6 midfield, 3 strikers (14 players) for a three game rotation. We play 1–2–3–2 (1 Goalie, 2 defence, 3 Midfield, 2 Strikers).
Number of shifts
Part of this also comes down to fairness, and giving players, as close as possible equal time. This is another thing that goes away and changes are kids get older. In most cases, halves for U12 and down are generally 30 or 25 minutes. In either case we play 4 shifts at about 6 minutes each per half.
I set a timer on my watch for the half length (25/30) and then set a timer on my phone for 5/6 minutes (5 for the 25-minute game). When the phone timer goes off, I wait for the next stoppage and make my changes. I use the timers to know when to get players ready and to monitor where we are in the half. Sometimes I let a shift run long or take advantage of an early stop to swap players, but I more or less balance through the game.
We do not give our “best” players extra shifts. This can be really hard, and is easiest when your team is competative winning about half their games. We balance and win/lose as a team. Mostly, this is best even for lossing teams because lossing and not playing sucks even more than lossing and playing.
What happens when you are short players
We make slight adjustments if we are short players remembering a few guidelines:
- Keepers only play one half (a whole game is a lot for a kid)
- Midfield runs a lot
- Defence runs much less
If a defender is missing, no change. Two defenders play all shifts.
If a keeper is missing, pull from the strikers for half the game, and you are balanced.
If a striker is missing, no change, just some extra shifts for the others.
If one midfield is missing, no change, just some double shifts (sub off whoever is most tired).
If two midfielders are missing, move a defender to mid and now two backs play the whole game, and the mids get breathing breaks.
If more midfielders are missing, pull next from strikers. Midfielders run the most, and you need them fresh.
A three game rotation
Three games are generally ideal, as you get one game of chaos, a second better game, and a third where they understand what to do and play brilliantly (🤞). It is also about the right number to move a team of 12–14 through all positions equally over a season, and gives you a tool every three weeks to re-engage the team as you announce the new roles. Make it a big deal! Announce it! “Ladies and gentlemen, starting as keeper for our next three games, we are excited to announce ___ and ____!” Round of applause. Then repeat for the rest of your roles, building from the back.
I had built this all into a spreadsheet, but honestly, found it way, way easier to chill out. So at my happiest coaching (since retired), I would make the list of who’s in which positions, see who’s coming to the game and have a general plan, not shift by shift. Then, when some players didn’t show up and so on, it was not a huge thing to juggle.
For the nerds out there, here comes the optional math and overkill. I did it, but I wouldn’t say I recommend it.
And remember that kids are also people, so some of this great planning will, of course, fall apart. We had a really small kid on our team who always contributed and would have been killed in goal no matter how good he was, we never felt the need to put him through that. So there are exceptions.
Creating fairness, and more importantly, balanced time in positions to better develop players; or the math of it all: Number of Available Shifts Across Number of Players vs Number of Shifts per Player over Three Games.
Goalie: 8 shifts (four per half) across 2 players = 4 shifts per game = 12 shifts per rotation + they each get 2 shifts per game at stiker
Defense: 16 shifts total per game across 3 players = 5 shifts per game each = 15 shifts each (and less running)
Midfield: 24 shifts across 6 players = 4 shifts/game = 12 shifts each over 3 games (and a ton of running)
Striker: 16 shifts across 3 strikers + 2 shits per half for goalie = 4 shifts/game for strikers and 2 shifts per game for keepers = 12 shifts each over 3 games + 6 shifts at striker for your keeper
If you build that into a spreadsheet¹ you will see that over the course of a season the time on field balances nicely. Just as importantly the time is divided in a way that makes sense to players, lets them know what their role is, and helps them to develop as players.
¹Here is a version of the spreasheet I was using. I stopped tweaking a few years ago, so hopefully this is helpful. I’ve found the most useful thing is tracking time after the fact than before. Planning too far ahead gets tricky and really trying to run a plan from a sheet doesn’t work well with kids on the day, especially as so many kids miss games. It’s a messy work in progress, but if it helps you out please let me know here or by
I would love to hear what you think about specialization, if you do this or something similar, or if you try this and it helps let me know.
Keep coaching and thank you for reading.
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I mostly write about leadership. A popular article is this one about Getting Comfortable with Conflict.
Ian.
