Fun soccer games for U6–U8: 9 games where every kid moves

With six- to eight-year-olds, a session works when every kid is moving and has a ball nearby. A child standing in a line isn't playing, and the longer they wait for a turn, the further their attention drifts.

There's research on how much time players spend waiting and how many touches they get, and we've gathered it in how to keep 20 players active in one training session. Here are nine games where nobody stands still for long. Each one is a ready-made drill in our library, so click a diagram and it opens.

The library tags these games U7+ or U8+. U7 means under seven, so the U7+ games already suit six-year-olds.

1. Traffic Lights

Everyone has a ball and the coach calls a colour: green means dribble at a good speed, yellow means slow with small touches, and red means the ball stops under the sole.

• Area: about 15 × 15 metres, bigger for a bigger group.
• Players: 4–12.
• Nobody's out: anyone still moving on red does five alternating sole touches on top of the ball and carries on.

2. Shark Attack

Everyone in the grid has a ball except one shark, who tries to kick the balls out. If yours goes out, you become a shark too, and the last player with a ball wins the round.

• Players: 6 or more.
• Losing your ball keeps you in the game as a shark.

3. Gate dribbling

Each player dribbles their own ball through as many gates as they can in the time given, but not through the same gate twice in a row.

• Area: 8–12 small gates.
• Players: 3–8.

4. 1v1 gate game

In pairs, the attacker dribbles through any gate and goes straight on to the next while the defender tries to win the ball. The same gate can't be used twice in a row.

• Area: several small gates.
• Players: 4–8, in pairs.

5. 1v1 to four corner goals

Two players go head to head in a square with a cone goal in each corner, and the player on the ball can dribble through any of the four.

• Area: a square with a cone goal in each corner.
• Players: 6–10.

6. 2v2 gate game

Two pairs play each other. Each pair defends two cone gates on opposite sides, and you score by dribbling the ball through a gate.

• Area: small.
• Players: 4–8.
• Duration: 90-second games, then the pairs rotate.

7. Ball tag

Three of four teams have a ball and the fourth are taggers. They can only tag the player on the ball, so get it to a free teammate before the tagger arrives.

• Area: about 23 × 23 metres.
• Players: 6 or more. A caught player is freed by a teammate's high five.
• For the youngest: start with hands, throwing and catching, and use fewer taggers.

8. Passing gate competition in pairs

Pairs pass the ball through the gates, switch to a new gate after every successful pass, and the pair with the most gates wins.

• Area: several small gates, two cones 2 metres apart.
• Players: in pairs.

9. Noughts and Crosses

The two teams race at the same time: one player at a time from each line dribbles to a 3 × 3 cone grid, drops a marker in a free square and dribbles back, and the first team with three in a line wins.

• Area: a starting cone about 10–15 metres from the grid.
• Players: 6–18.
• Play it with two or three per team and set up several grids side by side, so nobody waits more than about ten seconds for a turn.
• For the youngest: shorten the distance.

A 45-minute session

Four of these games make a full session:

For more games and drills for young players, see the library's football drills for kids.

Read article — TacticsBoard

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