Mini Soccer 2006-7 & 2007-8

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Children are introduced to football through what is known as Mini-soccer. Mini-soccer is played on smaller pitches, with scaled down nets, fewer players per team and matches of ten minutes duration.

The Irish Football Association deems mini-soccer to be the most appropriate and fun introduction to football as it provides quality experience for all young players at all levels and allows greater involvement in the game, with more touches, dribbles and passes

Meeting the Needs of Children

The main theme throughout mini-soccer is to meet the needs of the youngest children. Children are more important than the activities in which they are engaged. The game is not the thing, the child is. Eleven a side football does not meet the needs of the youngest. Young children need a modified game that suits them. Mini-soccer is a modified version of Association Football which retains the essence of the adult game.

It is the experience of Aquinas Football Club, built up over many years of provision of mini-soccer that the youngest children have more fun and learn more playing a game with smaller teams, smaller pitches, smaller nets and modified rules. Consequently, mini-soccer is a game that children can actually play rather then struggling to understand a game created for adults. This experience is borne out, we believe, by wider research and observation.

If children are to enjoy and take part in soccer they need to:

-feel success

-take an active part in the game

-learn to play as a team

-understand the Laws of the Game

-develop soccer skills

-be able to take part whatever their ability

-develop fitness

Mini-soccer meets all these needs and also recognises the facts that younger children perform better in games with smaller teams and simple rules. However, at the same time, it is more than merely another version of five or six a side football, for the following reasons:

-it recognises that children perform differently form adults and therefore, its Laws, which have been researched and piloted by Football Associations, meet the needs of children;

-it has all the features of real football;

-it doesn’t set unrealistic expectations. Mini-soccer does not emphasise result over performance, an unfortunate element, so often, of the adult game;

-Mini-soccer defines the targets for children at different ages;

-It is for young children regardless of their ability. It is intended for boys and girls and for players with disabilities and learning difficulties.

Colm Keenan

02890 289 741

Wednesdays 18.00 to 19.00 at the PEC Playing Fields (Astro Pitches)