How much Soccer does your Child Actually Play

SocalSoccerMom said:
Same here. Our 3rd training session of the week would be coach led, club skills clinics or conditioning/speed&agility
Click to expand...
Same. I can see more for older kids, but I'm far more interested in keeping my kid's joints healthy and love of soccer high than I am having her play 20+ hours a week so she can be great at age 12.
 
But what you all are talking about is practice, it's not playing the actual game. The majority of you are talking about practice i.e., exercise and drills for the most part. Involves alot of running.

I'd like to know how much time is spent playing the actual game. Pick up games, could either be street, futsal, or at a park.

Not many hours I can tell you that. And that is most important part of this game, the passion.
 
Sped said:
Same. I can see more for older kids, but I'm far more interested in keeping my kid's joints healthy and love of soccer high than I am having her play 20+ hours a week so she can be great at age 12.
Click to expand...

By the time you factor in drive time and traffic, 5 hours practice a week can be 7-8 hrs. With a moderate HS course load of 3-4 hrs of homework each night, anymore time spent on soccer becomes impossible. That is not factoring HS clubs, sports or volunteering.
 
SocalSoccerMom said:
By the time you factor in drive time and traffic, 5 hours practice a week can be 7-8 hrs. With a moderate HS course load of 3-4 hrs of homework each night, anymore time spent on soccer becomes impossible. That is not factoring HS clubs, sports or volunteering.
Click to expand...
I suppose. But if you live close by, 5 hours of practice can be 5 hours and 15 minutes a week. For us, it's about 20 minutes each way, 3x a week. I will say, however, that I'm actually in favor of having HS kids so busy they can't see straight. Athletes tend to be good at using time wisely and prioritizing, both of which are valuable life skills.
 
GU12, plays keeper in Club, Forward in AYSO to get some field work. She has the freedom to try anything she wants with AYSO.
Monday: 6-7:30 Practice AYSO
Tuesday: 6-7:30 Club
Weds: 6-7:30 Practice AYSO
Thursday: 6-7:30 Club
Friday: 1/2 the time AYSO game, 90 minutes total(if not Friday the game is Saturday morning) Wants to play Futsal Fridays.
Saturday: Game 2 hours, (Warm up and Play time.)
Sunday: Game 2 hours, (Warm up and Play time.)

Total hours 11.5 hours. She will also put in 1-2 hours banging an indoor ball off the couch or wall in our house. One of the few places that she practices her left.

Best ball ever:
https://www.amazon.com/Tachikara-So...1476138316&sr=8-4&keywords=indoor+soccer+ball

Past week was a little crazy as we had a mid-season tourney for AYSO so she played 3 games before 1PM on Saturday. She has missed parts to two AYSO games this year, never misses a club game. I know many frown on playing both, but she is only 11 and not ready to fully commit to keeper.

By the way, my older daughter dances and has been putting in 20 hours per week in Ballet, Jazz, Tap and Lyrical for the past 4 years. Soccer is so much cheaper and less of time consumer. Give your girls a ball and keep them out of dance. :)
 
God said:
I'd like to know how much time is spent playing the actual game. Pick up games, could either be street, futsal, or at a park...
Click to expand...

Yup, games, games, games. Pickup games and street soccer on concrete basketball courts. Kids really learn how to be creative and play quick.
 
socalkdg said:
GU12, plays keeper in Club, Forward in AYSO to get some field work. She has the freedom to try anything she wants with AYSO.
Monday: 6-7:30 Practice AYSO
Tuesday: 6-7:30 Club
Weds: 6-7:30 Practice AYSO
Thursday: 6-7:30 Club
Friday: 1/2 the time AYSO game, 90 minutes total(if not Friday the game is Saturday morning) Wants to play Futsal Fridays.
Saturday: Game 2 hours, (Warm up and Play time.)
Sunday: Game 2 hours, (Warm up and Play time.)

Total hours 11.5 hours. She will also put in 1-2 hours banging an indoor ball off the couch or wall in our house. One of the few places that she practices her left.

Best ball ever:
https://www.amazon.com/Tachikara-So...1476138316&sr=8-4&keywords=indoor+soccer+ball

Past week was a little crazy as we had a mid-season tourney for AYSO so she played 3 games before 1PM on Saturday. She has missed parts to two AYSO games this year, never misses a club game. I know many frown on playing both, but she is only 11 and not ready to fully commit to keeper.

By the way, my older daughter dances and has been putting in 20 hours per week in Ballet, Jazz, Tap and Lyrical for the past 4 years. Soccer is so much cheaper and less of time consumer. Give your girls a ball and keep them out of dance. :)
Click to expand...

Why not have her play part keeper part forward at club? It seems to be a lot to juggle for a 11 yrs old.
 
mirage said:
Had one for our boys. It didn't last more than two weeks. The material started to fall apart and left a mess on the carpet.

Gator Skin dodgeball is much better and holds up to years of indoor kicking...
Click to expand...
Interesting, daughter has been pounding hers for almost 2 years. At $10 one of the better purchases I've made. I wonder if how much you inflate the ball has a effect on how long it lasts.
 
SocalSoccerMom said:
Why not have her play part keeper part forward at club? It seems to be a lot to juggle for a 11 yrs old.
Click to expand...
That was the original plan, but the other keeper got hurt. My daughter is a high energy kid. I gave the AYSO team the day off yesterday after playing 4 games in 4 days, so my daughter went to the park and played basketball for a couple hours. I think because two games a week are in goal, plus some of the practice is keeper practice, she still leaves a lot of energy on the field.
 
B04
Monday: 1.5 hours practice
Tuesday: 40 minutes of touches in his room, 60 minutes of pick-up (mostly men's league players)
Wednesday: 40 minutes of touches
Thursday: 1.5 hours practice
Friday: 40 minutes of touches
Saturday: 1 or two league games once every couple weeks
Sunday (when we do not have league games): 1.5 hours practice

B07
(outside rec season)
Monday: 1.5 hours practice
Tuesday: 40 minutes of touches
Wednesday: 1.5 hours practice
Thursday: 40 minutes of touches
Friday: 40 minutes of touches
Sunday: 60 minutes of pick-up with friends rotating between beach, futsal, indoor, and outdoor.

(during rec season)
Monday: 40 minutes of touches
Tuesday: 45 minutes of rec practice
Wednesday: 40 minutes of touches
Thursday: 45 minutes of rec practice
Friday: 40 minutes of touches
Saturday: 1 game
Sunday: 60 minutes of coached pick-up with club team.

Recreational participation is mandatory for my B07's club. They do not attend competitions during rec. This goes for all their competitive teams up to U16. It is the main club in town. Some parents were dissatisfied with the offerings of that club and split off to form a new 04 team. They are organized under a Phoenix club (3 hours away) with myself as the coach. No one in this area gets paid for anything soccer related except the high school coaches.

Boys wanted to go mountain biking with dad and so we got them a couple bikes. This will likely cut into some of their soccer time.
 
Similar to others who have posted, my B04 practices with team T & Th 1.5 hours. Private training 1 hr on Wed. Games often both Sat and Sun, 1 hour warm-up, 1 hour game time each.

There was a time on a different team where the program was much more rigorous. Frankly, I'm happy for the more workable schedule. My son has many interests. School always comes first; he's an excellent, hard working student...he actually blows me away in this respect. And he's also active in Boy Scouts. So...we're redlining "schedule-wise" as it is.

But, as time allows, we go to team practices early to kick around with some of his teammates...and dads. We dads can't let the kids have ALL the fun! And, some random Friday and Sunday nights we'll grab the neighbor kid (with his mom's blessing, of course) and go to the local park for some pick-up games until it gets too dark to see. Schedule be damned, we simply enjoy being on a pitch together and it's a healthy way for us to be together.
 
I thought my kids did the following:
Practice 2x per week for 90 minutes.
Games 1x per week for 60 minutes. Plus 45 minute warm up.
I don't count drive time.
My 07 player does gk training 2x per month for 90 minutes.
This is the scheduled stuff.
But- my 2 oldest daughters play 1v1 in our long hallway almost every day for 30 minutes. They are 11 and 9 years old.
They've also started trying to teach a younger boy down the street how to play. This is 30 minutes a few days a week.
And when we go out to dinner with other soccer families, 4-6 kids grab a ball and play outside for 30+ minutes while they wait for the food to arrive. This is at least once a week. And often after soccer practice.
At school, during PE they don't play soccer yet. But they do run the mile a few times a week. And I tell them they need to finish in 8:00 minutes or less.
And they do a volleyball clinic once a week for 2 hours.
 
I think most kids put in 30 to 60 minutes of some type of exercise that we parents don't even count. I think because of this we need to watch how much organized soccer that they play. If we leave time available, they end up wanting to so some type of unorganized soccer that they can make up as they go. My daughter has been watching a lot of instagram soccer videos of different tricks, balancing the ball, etc. and she likes to try practicing and mastering(has a very long way to go, but did see her learn a penalty kick one where she swings the front foot and kicks it into the goal with the back foot). Its these type of things that keep them having fun and enjoying the sport of soccer.
 
God said:
But what you all are talking about is practice, it's not playing the actual game. The majority of you are talking about practice i.e., exercise and drills for the most part. Involves alot of running.

I'd like to know how much time is spent playing the actual game. Pick up games, could either be street, futsal, or at a park.

Not many hours I can tell you that. And that is most important part of this game, the passion.
Click to expand...

In response to your post, not very much. An hour per week in organized soccer game(s) and around 1/2 hour each week at the end of the futsal training. I would guess that this is part of the reason that the US lags other countries in soccer. I am guessing that in other countries there is less training and more game play, be it pick up games, street soccer, small sided games, etc... I believe that the US has great athletes, but we are still behind as respects to the level of soccer we play.

As for my daughter's in season training schedule (off season is different), she has the following schedule:

Monday - 1.5 hour keeper practice
Tuesday & Thursday - 1.5 hour team practice
Wednesday - 1.5 hour club organized practice (45 minutes conditioning/45 minutes futsal)
Friday - 1 hour keeper clinic (about every other week)
Saturday morning - 2 hours (1 hour warm up/1 hour game time)
Saturday evening - 1.5 hours futsal
Sunday - 1 hour private keeper training
Total - 11.5 hours each week
She is a 2005 F/T Keeper
 
God said:
But what you all are talking about is practice, it's not playing the actual game. The majority of you are talking about practice i.e., exercise and drills for the most part. Involves alot of running.

I'd like to know how much time is spent playing the actual game. Pick up games, could either be street, futsal, or at a park.

Not many hours I can tell you that. And that is most important part of this game, the passion.
Click to expand...
Before 11v11: 3-5 hours of games a week.
Practice on their own another 3 hrs or so.

Both my kids learned to love the game and played without coaches or formal practice until we moved back to the states.

In general they both think the us youth game is over coached and spending these amounts of hours does'nt really move the needle for most players.

I don't know if the 10k hrs to get the sport is real but when you spend 90% of that time in practice I wonder?

allen-iverson-practice
 
mahrez said:
Before 11v11: 3-5 hours of games a week.
Practice on their own another 3 hrs or so.

Both my kids learned to love the game and played without coaches or formal practice until we moved back to the states.

In general they both think the us youth game is over coached and spending these amounts of hours does'nt really move the needle for most players.

I don't know if the 10k hrs to get the sport is real but when you spend 80% of that time in practice I wonder?

allen-iverson-practice
Click to expand...

An old adage is that the real coaching takes place in practice and games are just the weekly exams.

A well-structured practice is as much fun as a game. In fact it can be structured as a series of small games, focusing on overcoming the team's weaknesses and building their strengths.
 
espola said:
An old adage is that the real coaching takes place in practice and games are just the weekly exams.

A well-structured practice is as much fun as a game. In fact it can be structured as a series of small games, focusing on overcoming the team's weaknesses and building their strengths.
Click to expand...

Yeah but soccer is not math class and rarely have I ever heard a kid say practice is even close to as fun as real games.

Of course there are no shortcut's, practice is important and you must put in the work. IMO we (USA) tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time in training, practice and don't let the kids play enough or have free play.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top