Earlier this year I decided that I was going to take a look at soccer in the U8 to U10 age groups to see what was actually going on during the game. I decided that I would look at the number of touches each player had in the game because my instinct tells me that the format does not provide enough contact on the ball for the ‘average’ player. My bigger concern is that if they don’t get enough action around the ball then in time they become disengaged with the game and lose interest. You can always see the players who have lost interest; they are the ones who are not moving! If they aren’t moving then they are not getting enough physical activity and that tax credit you get for putting your kids into organised sport in order to keep them active is really only working for your taxes and not your child.
Back to the issue at hand: If you have watched any games in this age group you will know that every game is a little different. Some kids have to leave at half time to go to a party; some don’t get there until the second half because they had a party earlier in the day. Some games are 5-a side, some games are 6 a side, some players may even play a half for each team because they other team is short and it’s not uncommon for one team to play with 5 and the other team to play with 6, but who cares. At the end of the day its mini soccer and it’s not possible to get continuity between teams.
This does pose a problem though for someone who is looking for a consistent statistic across a number of different formats. After a great deal of thought I came to the conclusion that the only statistic that I should look for was the number of touches the players had divided by the number of minutes that the game was played over, therefore my new number is ‘touches per minute’ or TPM’s. Just what we need another acronym!
For the purposes of my research I will use the length of the entire game for each player, rather than the individual number of minutes played per player. My rationale here is that I am looking at the format of the game, game length and team sizes to see what effect they have on the TPM’s for the players.
I am more interested in the experience of the child during the full time frame of the game on that day than the format of the game.
So, after watching 4 teams play what have I found out. Well 4 teams is not enough for me to come out with a cast iron conclusion but what I can say is that the TPM number for the strongest players is considerably lower than I thought it would be. I plan on watching another 16 teams and after I have some number from approximately 20 teams I will get back to you with some results.
In the meantime my question is this. What is an adequate number of touches per minute in a game and more importantly what number should we be aiming for in our training sessions? Just before I moved to Canada in 2001, I attended an in-service training day with the other youth coaches at Sheffield United. I remember that one of the conversations that day was regarding touches on the ball and how many a player should have during a session. The manager of Fulham at the time, Jean Tigana, had been quoted as suggesting that young players should be having around 2000 to 2500 touches on the ball per day! This was a second hand quote and I have never found a source but this number has always stuck with me and from time to time I will ask someone to keep track of a players touches during one of my sessions. In a 90 minute session a target of 1000 touches is a good target to aim for and I have got close once or twice
The more I think about this, touches on the ball is the only way our players will improve and the more touches they get the better. Every time our players touch the ball there is an opportunity for them to excel, if their technique is incorrect it’s a teaching opportunity for the coach.
We can’t manipulate the big game to increase the TPM but we can tailor our training sessions to increase our player’s touches on the ball. Tigana’s target is high and possibly unrealistic in our environment, so what is a good TPM rate for a practice?
Over the next couple of months I will be looking at TPM’s in a number of different practices and I would also be interested in your opinions on this. If you have any thoughts to share contact me by email at headcoach@lowerislandsoccer.com
In closing, thanks to everyone who attended our last coaches meeting on September 29 and thanks again to the Lakehill Soccer Association for allowing us to use their fields
We have two Community Coach Youth Courses coming up in the Lower Island district, on October 22nd and 23rd Lakehill will be hosting a course and on November 6th and 13th the Juan De Fuca club will be hosting a course. Registration is on line via the BCSA website www.bcsoccer.net
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