Côté Coach · Football

Coaching football, from U6 to seniors

Choose your age group, find a drill or prepare a session. The guides explain the sources and age-specific guidance.

Sources and overview

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.

Côté Coach · Football

What the federations actually publish about youth football

France, Switzerland and Belgium side by side. Formats, goal sizes, heading, injury prevention: sourced, dated, comparable.

79 published drills

7 guides

3 countries compared

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, or overselling it: pooled RR 0.49 but inconclusive in the truly randomised trials alone, 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"

Based on FIFA 11+ and FIFA 11+ Kids, developed by FIFA. Official materials: FIFA injury-prevention page. Paak is not affiliated with or endorsed by FIFA.

Session generator

Age band, duration, theme, and a minuted outline. All 79 drills come from a published federation document.

The drills

Filter by theme. Each drill carries the set-up its federation published.

The guides

Age groups and match formats The three national ladders side by side: pitch, goal, ball, duration, per band and per country. Building a session Three J+S sessions published minute by minute, the 45-min school format, and the GAG model. Technique: ball mastery, passing, finishing The technical repertoire, and the only named skill move that appears inside a federation exercise. Duels and defending The 1v1, the Belgian defending ladder, and pressing as FIFA publishes it. Goalkeeping The eight seconds, the corner, and what federations actually publish about the position. Physical preparation and injury prevention 11+, hamstrings, heading: the numbers, with their confidence intervals. Laws and equipment The 2026/27 Laws, the clause that makes 8-a-side legal, and goal safety.

These drills are in Paak

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 five-block minuted outline from this same library of 79 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.

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In Paak

These drills are in Paak

The generator is right on the session: plan by the players’ age band and the duration, pick a theme. Paak builds a minuted five-block outline (warm-up, two work blocks, a game and a cool-down) from this same library of 79 drills.

Planning, editing and saving the session is free.

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