Coaching FAQs.

Yes — and most U7 coaches in England are exactly that. The qualifications you need are minimal: an FA in-house basic course (free or low-cost), DBS check (provided by the club), and willingness to be patient with kids learning.

What you don't need: deep technical football knowledge, professional experience, or the ability to demonstrate skills yourself. At U7, the format and the kids do most of the development. Your job is structure, encouragement, and creating a safe environment.

Start with a 30-minute session: 8 minutes warm-up game, 4 minutes simple technique, 18 minutes 3v3. Run that for 6 weeks. By week 6, you'll know what works for your group.

Depends on the age:

• U7-U8: 30-45 minutes. Beyond 45, attention spans collapse.
• U9-U10: 45-60 minutes.
• U11-U13: 60-75 minutes.
• U14+: 75-90 minutes.

These are guides. The right length is what your specific squad can productively engage with. A focused 45-minute session beats a wandering 75-minute one at any age.

The minimum: 1 ball per player, 12-20 cones, 6-8 training bibs (in two colours), 2 mini-goals or 4 cones for makeshift goals.

That's about £80-100 total to outfit a 12-player squad. The full equipment guide is on a separate page with detailed recommendations.

The major changes are:

• U7 entry format: 3v3 (previously 5v5)
• No heading practice for U7-U11; phased reintroduction at U12-U13
• Ball size 3 for U7-U9 (was sometimes size 4)
• Pitch size adjustments at U11-U13
• Match formats standardised across grassroots

The Future Fit hub page on this site explains the changes in more detail.

Mandatory for affiliated grassroots clubs in England from the 2026-27 season. Other countries have their own frameworks (US Soccer, Football Australia, etc.) which often have similar principles but different specifics.

Practice changes (no heading) became guidance from earlier seasons; match changes are formal from 2026-27.

They'll adjust within 2-3 sessions. The 3v3 format produces more touches and goals — most players prefer it once they've experienced it. The transition concern is mainly logistical (different formats during the changeover season) rather than developmental.

The basic structure most coaches converge on:

1. Arrival activity (5-8 min): something for early arrivals, while late ones drift in
2. Warm-up (8-12 min): get muscles moving, ideally with the ball
3. Technical block (15-20 min): one specific skill focus
4. Small-sided game (15-25 min): apply the skill in match context
5. Cool-down (5-10 min): bring intensity down, often with reflection

Total: 45-90 minutes depending on age. The ratios shift older — more SSG, less arrival activity.

Theme each session, but don't isolate. A 'passing session' doesn't mean only passing drills — it means passing is the focus that cuts through everything: the warm-up has passing elements, the technical block is passing-specific, the SSG has a passing constraint.

Most coaches plan in 6-week blocks where each week has a theme: passing → first-touch → dribbling → shooting → defending → integration. The 6-week blocks page on this site has detailed plans.

Switch to smaller-sided versions. A 4v4 session becomes 3v3 or 2v2. The drill principles work at any number — the key is making sure each player has meaningful touches.

Resist the temptation to extend the technical block to 'use up the time'. Quality over quantity at all ages.

Stop and pivot. The plan exists to serve the kids, not the other way around. Two options:

1. Simplify: drop progressions, return to the basic version of the drill, restore success rate.
2. Replace: switch to a free-play SSG. Sometimes the squad needs to play, not be coached.

A failed session that ends well (kids leaving happy) is better than a 'completed' session that ends badly.

Quiet, mostly. Modern coaching theory leans heavily toward 'silent coaching' during games — kids learn more from making decisions and dealing with consequences than from being told what to do.

Save your voice for: encouragement (loud, often), positional reminders before kick-off, and brief half-time observations. Avoid: shouting tactical instructions during play, criticising mistakes mid-game, telling players where to pass.

Challenge them, don't isolate them. Options:

• Pair them with the strongest defender in 1v1 drills.
• Give them constraints (weak foot only, two-touch maximum) when others don't have them.
• Use them as captain or co-coach for one block per session.
• Suggest they trial up an age group occasionally if appropriate.

Don't: hold them back to keep things fair. The strong player gets bored and stops developing; the rest of the squad doesn't benefit from their downgrade.

Adapt drills downward. Pair them with patient teammates. Use the STEP framework: smaller spaces, simpler tasks, pair-based equipment, fewer opponents.

Most importantly: praise effort, not just outcomes. The weaker player who tries hard is more valuable to the squad's culture than the stronger one who coasts.

If a player is genuinely struggling to a degree that affects their wellbeing, talk to parents — there might be factors outside football to address.

Address it once, calmly, before it becomes a problem. A pre-season chat: 'Please cheer rather than instruct during sessions and games — it confuses the kids when they hear two different voices.' Most parents respect the request once it's framed as 'helping the kids' rather than 'undermining me'.

Repeat offenders: have a direct conversation, ideally before a match. If it persists, escalate to club leadership.

Develop players. Wins follow, eventually. Coaches who optimise for short-term wins ('only play the best players, kick the ball long, defend in numbers') produce squads that don't develop and eventually plateau.

Coaches who optimise for development ('rotate everyone, encourage risk-taking, play out from the back') sometimes lose more in the short term — but their players keep improving and the team typically wins more by mid-season anyway.

No. Rotate them like everyone else. The reasons are both ethical (other players deserve game time) and developmental (your best player benefits from rest, and the rest of the squad benefits from challenge).

Reality check: if you play one kid 90 minutes every match while others get 20, parents notice. The conversation that follows isn't about football.

Less than you think. The kids feel it. They don't need you to explain that they lost.

Two specific things to do:

1. Praise something genuine: 'I saw three good tackles by Sam' (specific, factual, true).
2. End on next steps: 'Tuesday we work on first touch. See you then.'

Avoid: post-match analysis, blaming individual players, comparing to better matches. Save deeper analysis for Tuesday.

Reduce verbal instruction. U7 attention spans for instruction are 20-30 seconds, max. Then they need to be doing something.

Demonstrate visually instead of explaining. Show them once, get them moving. Correct individually as they play, not by stopping the whole group.

Use story-based language: 'red light, freeze!' not 'practise close control'. Concrete beats abstract at this age.

Mostly games. A 30-minute U7 session might be: 6 minutes warm-up game, 4 minutes basic technique pair work, 18 minutes 3v3, 2 minutes cool-down. The balance shifts toward technique as kids get older — by U13, technical blocks can take 25-30% of session time.

Acknowledge without making it a big deal. 'You okay? Want to sit out for a minute?' Most will rejoin within 2-3 minutes. Forcing them back in usually makes it worse.

If a player cries repeatedly or seems consistently anxious, talk to parents. Sometimes there are factors outside football to address.

No, and the assumption is the most damaging thing in amateur futsal. Futsal isn't football indoors — the ball is heavier with 30% less bounce, the surface is hard and consistent, the rules are fundamentally different (4-second restarts, kick-ins, accumulated fouls, hands-only-in-own-half for GKs), and the tactical structures (4-0 and 3-1 defensive shapes, rotational attacking patterns like La Bajada) have no football equivalent. Football drills run with futsal balls produce squads playing the wrong sport on the wrong surface. Read the full breakdown of what actually changes.

Sole-of-foot control. The futsal ball's reduced bounce forces the foot ON TOP of the ball; the inside-of-the-foot cushion that works in football fails in futsal. Sole rolls, drag-backs, V-cuts, L-turns — drill them cold every session for the first month, then twice a week thereafter. Without sole control, every other futsal technique is shaky. Start with Sole Control Foundations.

The 4-0 is the default modern futsal defensive structure: four outfield players form a flat (or slightly curved) line across the defensive third, the goalkeeper sweeps behind. The unit shifts laterally as the ball moves. It's the default because it forces opponents to commit a player into the press to break the line, creating space behind. The 3-1 (with a fixo as anchor) is the alternative used against teams that overload wings or play with a strong dropping pivot. Top teams switch between 4-0 and 3-1 multiple times per match. Drill the 4-0 here.

The futsal GK is the first attacker, not the last defender. Hands first, feet last — rolls (5-10 yards) and throws (10-25 yards) are the primary distribution methods; kicks are a last resort because they're too slow to beat a press and inaccurate against a ball with reduced bounce. The GK has 4 seconds to release the ball when holding it in their own half. Outside their own half, the GK is an outfield player. Football GKs transitioning to futsal need to rebuild their distribution toolkit; the football kick instinct fails. See GK as First Attacker.

The futsal drills on this site target adult and senior youth (U14+) coaches because that's where the international futsal coaching pool sits. Most drills can be adapted for U10-U14 by reducing volume and cognitive load — run shorter blocks, skip the pressure-application steps, focus on the technique installation. The sole control work is age-appropriate from U10 upward. Tactical drills like the 4-0 shape and La Bajada are best left until U13-14 when players can hold positional understanding under pressure.

You need a regulation futsal ball — size 4, low-bounce. Practising sole control, kick-ins, or any other futsal-specific technique with a regular football builds habits that fail on the actual futsal surface with the actual ball. The reduced bounce is the entire reason these techniques exist; remove it and you're coaching the wrong skills. Order balls before your first session, even if you're paying for them yourself. The investment is non-optional.

Realistically, 4-6 months of weekly sessions for the unlearning to land. The first 4 sessions are exposure and habit installation; sessions 5-12 are application under pressure; sessions 13+ are pattern-recognition and tactical fluency. There's no shortcut — football habits are deep and only repetition breaks them. The good news: squads that pay this price end up playing both sports better, because futsal training transfers back to football technical demand.

An FA Level 2 coach in the UK who runs grassroots youth sessions and writes drill content based on what actually works in those sessions.

Every drill on the site has been used in real sessions before being published. If a drill doesn't work with mixed-ability kids, late arrivals, or 6 players when 12 were expected, it doesn't get a page.

The existing grassroots coaching resources are mostly paywalled, low-quality listicle sites, or written by affiliate marketers. None of them solved my own problem when I started coaching — finding sessions ready to run, today, that work with the kids and equipment I actually have.

Building this for free means it'll exist for as long as I keep coaching. There's no business model that depends on it growing.

Yes. Adapt them, run them with your players, no attribution required. The aim of the site is more good drills happening at grassroots level — wherever that happens.

The PDF downloads are free; you can hand them to assistants or include them in your own session plans.

Best route is via the contact link on the about page. The site's drill library grows based on what real coaches need, so suggestions are genuinely welcome.