Shift Changing

Taken from the USYSA Blog site of Sam Snow

Here's a question from a parent of a young player:

"I have a relatively minor question regarding appropriate shift time, not playing time in my daughter's Under-10 Recreation Traveling team (6v6). My daughter will be nine shortly. With 10 players on the roster, each shift of five moving players is playing about 12 -15 minutes at a time and it seems as though the young ladies are becoming tired quickly. The last team we played changed shifts about every five to six minutes...By the way, our coach is new and has never coached any organized sport before though she has a local high school soccer player helping out...

Is there a recommended time-per-shift at this age?"

Shift changes can actually hinder the players learning how to play the game. Wholesale substitutions change the rhythm of the game and end up with the game being played at a helter skelter pace, often with little in the way of quality tactics. When the pace of the game is too fast the match deteriorates into kick and run soccer. For the beauty of the game and to put young players into an environment to learn the game it is better to substitute players one or two at a time. Since the Under-10 age group is playing halves for the first time (see the Modified Rules for Under-10 at /coaches/RulesSmallGames.asp) it is a learning experience for the players, coaches and parents. All of those folks now need to begin learning the rhythm of the game. The players are being asked for the first time to think about how to pace themselves. That of course may be impossible to do if the adults surrounding the field are yelling for the players to constantly run at full pace, something which professional teams do not do.

The children will naturally become tired, but learning when to run, jog, walk or stand is part of the tactics of the game. Shift changes do not allow players to learn this tactical part of soccer as they are told to run hard for ten to fifteen minutes and then come off. That approach can win matches at Under-10 but will cause you to lose them at older and higher levels of play. It may require a bit more work during the match for the coach to keep track of 50 percent playing time for each child at the game that day, but that is a bit more in tune with the coach's job during a match than telling the players on the field what to do.