Even young players can benefit from basic soccer drills for kids. Early skills like passing and moving the ball and playing as a team can be built by making practice fun. A few starting points to get you on your way include Keep Your Yard Clean, Killer Whale, and Breakaway Shooting Game.

• KEEP YOUR YARD CLEAN: Start with two equal areas of play next to each other, one team in each area. Each player has a ball to start the game at the coach’s whistle. The object of the game is to pass the ball from the player’s own area into the opponent’s area. After three to five minutes, the coach stops the game. The team with the least number of balls in its area wins. This soccer drill for kids teaches the basics of passing.

• KILLER WHALE: Build a large circle with cones. Play with four to 14 dribblers and one or two “killer whales.” Each dribbler gets a ball to dribble around the circle. The killer whales attempt to kick the balls out of the circle and score one point if successful. Keep up the play for about a minute, allowing the dribblers to retrieve their ball and start again if it gets knocked out. At the end of one minute, the killer whale with the most points wins. Be sure each player gets a chance to be a killer whale and a dribbler.

• BREAKAWAY SHOOTING GAME: Arrange two sets of cones facing each other with two cones in a line allowing distance between for dribbling. In between those two sets are two cones perpendicular to the first sets. In between these two cones stands the goalie. On each end are teams wearing colored flags or similar markings (for this example we will use Red team and Blue team). Blue team dribbles first, with a Red goalie in position in the middle and the rest of the red team at the other end facing blue. Blue1 dribbles to the first cone and must shoot before reaching the second. If the goalie saves the ball or the shot goes wide, he keeps the ball and runs to the end of his line, then Blue1 becomes goalie and Red1 steps up to shoot. Play lasts until one team scores 15 points.

Soccer drills for kids should be kept simple, fun and short. As they progress in the skills, more time, higher scoring or more opposing players can be added to increase difficulty.

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