Côté Coach · Football
Coaching football, from U6 to seniors
A free knowledge base built on documents published by the IFAB, FIFA, UEFA, the FFF, ASF/SFV, J+S/OFSPO and the URBSFA. Every figure quoted comes from a federation document, and where the federations disagree — which is often — both positions are printed side by side.
What the federations actually publish about youth football
France, Switzerland and Belgium side by side. Formats, goal sizes, heading, injury prevention — sourced, dated, comparable.
Pick an age group
Priorities change completely from one band to the next, and not the same way in every country.
Do
- Rotate every child through every position — the FFF prescribes « rotation au niveau des postes occupés » for U6-U9
- Keep the maximum number of children moving: the FFA writes that its forms « évitent l’élimination de l’enfant au profit d’un système de vies »
- Lots of balls, short duels, goals — « Erlebnis statt Ergebnis », the experience before the result (ASF/J+S)
Avoid
- Fixed positions. The ASF/SFV is categorical: « Fix zugeteilte Spielpositionen darf es nicht geben » — there must be no fixed assigned playing positions
- League tables. « Ranglisten im Kinderfussball sind überflüssig » — league tables are superfluous in children's football (ASF/SFV); the URBSFA prints « Geen rangschikking », no ranking, for 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 and 8v8
- Heading: the FFF bans it outright from U6 to U9 (framework of 16 December 2025)
Do
- Build running with the ball, passing and orientated control — this is the band where technique settles
- The 1v1 duel, attacking and defending: the URBSFA structures it as a ladder (items 24-45 of its Opleidingsvisie 2025)
- Small-sided games with many ball contacts rather than long analytic stations
Avoid
- Treating the format as given: a 12-year-old plays 8v8 in France and Belgium, 7v7 in Switzerland
- Unlimited heading: the FFF caps it at 15 minutes per session from U10 to U17
- Physical loading before the growth spurt
Do
- Move to 11-a-side and team organisation — phases of play, pressing, transitions
- Introduce strength progressively; the DFB sets a criterion rather than an age: clean squat technique before load
- The FIFA 11+ as the warm-up: IRR 0.61 (95% CI 0.48–0.77) for injury reduction
Avoid
- Confusing the 11+ with its predecessor "the 11", which does not work: IRR 0.99 (0.80–1.23)
- Skipping the Nordic hamstring protocol: it halves hamstring injury, and 83.3% of 150 elite club-seasons did not do it
- Managing load by ACWR — Impellizzeri 2020: "no evidence supporting the use of ACWR"
Do
- Train pressing and counter-pressing as a unit — that is what eight of FIFA’s ten published senior sessions do
- Individualise physical preparation and recovery
- Keep prevention running: this is the level at which it is most often dropped
Avoid
- Reusing a youth outline as-is: no French, Swiss or Belgian federation publishes an adult exercise — FIFA is the only source
- Comparing sprint thresholds across competitions: UEFA counts > 25 km/h, FIFA > 23.0 km/h in the women’s game
- Trusting formation labels — FIFA itself writes that "we often see teams listed as 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, but the reality is this rarely is the case"
Session generator
Age band, duration, theme — and a minuted outline. All 75 drills come from a published federation document.
The drills
Filter by theme. Each drill carries the set-up its federation published.
The guides
The generator above also lives inside the app, on the session itself: pick the age band, the duration and the theme, and Paak builds a four-block minuted outline from this same library of 75 drills. Edit it, save it to the session — that is free. Printing the session sheet and club-authored drills beyond 5 are available in Paak One.
These drills are in Paak
Planning, editing and saving the session is free.
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