Full-field scrimmages should be used sparingly, if at all. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? However, if your intent is to develop young soccer players, full-field scrimmages are replete with deficiencies. As a youth soccer coach, you only have 1 to 1-1/2 hours, twice a week, to teach your players a game that professionals spend a lifetime trying to master. So with only a very limited amount of time to develop your players, it makes sense to maximize your practice time. Full-field scrimmages do just the opposite. Some of the more glaring deficiencies in full-field scrimmages include: 1) the number of times the players touch the ball is minimized, 2) the number of decisions required of the players is minimized, 3) the number of shots is minimized, 4) weaker players seldom touch the ball, and 5) bench players are sitting on the sidelines watching instead of playing. Small-sided scrimmages, e.g., 3 v 3, 4 v 4, and 5 v 5, eliminate all of these deficiencies. Small-sided scrimmages maximize the number of touches, maximize the number of decisions, maximize the number of shots, allow for all players to participate (regardless of skill-level), keep everyone off the bench and improve conditioning. To paraphrase Chris Brown at a recent PA West "E" license course, if small-sided scrimmages are good enough for Manchester United, they are good enough for your youth team. Chris played professional soccer in England and is the Director of Coaching and Player Development for PA West.
When playing small-sided scrimmages, play across the width of the full field and use portable goals or cones for goals. A side benefit to this approach is it decreases the amount of wear and tear on the goal areas of the full field. If you have too many players for one small-sided scrimmage across the width of the field, split you team into four teams and play two scrimmages simultaneously in smaller areas. Match the stronger players against each other and the weaker players against each other. Another option is to make four even teams and have them compete in a round-robin tournament of mini-games. If you want to scrimmage against another team, simply play two or three games simultaneously across the width of the field.
I first learned of this approach from Denny Kohlmeyer at a PA West course. At the time, Denny was the head coach for the Peters Township boys’ high school team. He is currently the director of the Beadling Soccer Club. I wasn’t immediately convinced this was the right approach. After all, my U-10 team played 8 v 8 in a real game. Why play 3 v 3 or 4 v 4 when scrimmaging? The kids on my team were a little skeptical, also. They wanted to play an 8 v 8 scrimmage against another team at the end of practice. It took one practice to realize Denny was right. The kids loved it. They touched the ball many more times during the scrimmage, had to make countless decisions, took many more shots, scored many more times and were exhausted in half the time. We consistently played small-sided scrimmages throughout the year and all players improved as ball handlers, decision-makers and playmakers. We also scrimmaged against the other team with which we shared a field, and simply played two games across the width of the field, playing the stronger players in one game and the weaker ones in the other game.
Please try this approach in your scrimmages. I believe neither you nor your players will be disappointed.