At this age, basic ball handling skills are best. We put them three abreast, with a ball, and have them run the length of the pitch passing the ball back and forth (left has the ball, dribble a few paces, passes to middle, who dribbles a few paces and passes it to right, who dribbles and passes it to middle, to left, to middle, to right...etc).
The player in the middle is generally the best passer, and the two wings not as good (are more in need of the drill). At the end they turn around, so the person passing left now has to pass right and vice versa. The person in the middle does both all the time. The hardest part is keeping the kids far enough apart to make passing meaningful.
ALSO, for trap and control, three abreast again, but no dribbling...
players set up like this
A..................B.................C
A passes to B. B traps the ball, turns and passes it to C. C traps, passes back to B, B traps, turns and passes to A. After a dozen or so, rotate the players
B................C.................A
then
C................A.................B
teaches trapping and controlling the flow.
The thing that is hardest to drill into the little folks head is keeping their position (relatively). We had two goals scored against us this afternoon because fullbacks (defense) came up to help on a corner kick leaving the goalie all alone. The opposing team got the ball from the corner and lobbed it up field giving a one on one for our keeper. He stopped a number of tries, but on 2 occasions they got past him. Training will focus very much on team responsibilities the next few times out.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. - Carl Sagan
