Team games involve communication, trust and lots of competition, as a pair or as a whole team. That's the best way to teach teamwork to kids. Check out the exercises here.
Kids are actually egotistical and the rest of the team are not so important to them. The stars of tomorrow want to be winners; with whom and how is completely irrelevant.
Nevertheless, we aim to promote team spirit at an early stage with the aid of some captivating stories. All the kids have to participate and will soon understand that playing as a team makes it easier to win and the joy of playing soccer can be shared.
Kids often start to lose their motivation after a while. The coach's job is to create a series of new challenges with varied content that interests the kids and ensures that they have plenty of fun.
It doesn't help to moan – if you're in charge of a team of mini-soccer players, you knew what you were getting into. Coaches are animators and comforters and sometimes have to bite the bullet and act the clown.
Even team games should be built around stories, and sometimes it's difficult to find the right words. Our training exercises come complete with short stories. The stories are short because the kids have come to soccer training and are keen to get going. If the stories are too long, they become more nervous and the urge to move makes them restless. We quickly appeal to the kids' imagination and then off we go.
Team games develop the kids' social awareness. All the kids have to be part of the team, because this is the only way to be successful. This sometimes leads to conflicts, because kids who are considered to be "weaker" may cause the team to suffer a defeat. The coach must ensure that such conflicts do not occur by addressing the teams appropriately and arranging them well.