Strike It
Passing and shooting with real pace. They are not too small to hit a ball hard — almost every weak pass at this age comes from the same three faults, and all three are fixable in one session. Teach the strike once, then use it twice: as a pass, and as a shot.
Kit — a ball each pumped up firm, 20 discs, two pop-up goals, pinnies, a pump in the bag
Team Name
Sit them in a circle in the shade. Every girl gets to say one idea, all the way round, with no discussion and no reactions — the only rule is that nobody is allowed to say "no" to somebody else's idea. Then hands up for each, take the top two, and vote again.
Cap it at five minutes even if it is not settled. If the second vote ties, you pick between the two and announce it like it was always the plan. A naming discussion left to run its course will eat twenty minutes and end with somebody crying.
Arrival — Traffic Lights
Straight into it, ball at every girl's feet. Green dribble, yellow slow, red stop it dead with the sole. Short today — it is a warm-up, not the lesson.
If half the team is still arriving at 0:00, flip this with the team name: get the girls who are there dribbling, and do the naming at 0:05 once everyone has turned up. Nobody should miss naming their own team.
Ball Mastery — The plant foot
Two minutes of touches: sole rolls and toe taps, own ball, to get everyone warm and touching the ball.
Then six minutes on the thing that fixes everything. Ball still on the ground. She walks up and plants her non-kicking foot right beside the ball, toes pointing exactly where she wants it to go — then swings through. No target, no pressure, just the plant and the swing, twenty times.
Walk round and look at one thing only: where the standing foot lands. Behind the ball or a step away from it and there is nothing to hit against. Beside it and the power appears by itself.
Water — in shade
Skill Block — Two stations, swap at eight
Station A — the Passing Lab. Pairs, eight steps apart, one ball. Four checkpoints, and teach them one at a time rather than all at once:
1. Plant foot beside the ball, toes at your partner. 2. Turn the passing foot sideways so the flat inside arch faces her — that is the biggest surface on your foot. 3. Lock the ankle stiff. A floppy ankle soaks up everything. 4. Swing through the middle of the ball and keep going toward her. Do not stop at the ball.
The test, and it is the whole station: the ball has to reach her still rolling — firm enough that she has to stop it with her foot rather than just letting it arrive. A pass that dies halfway does not count. Ten stationary, then ten with one step of run-up.
Station B — the Laces Lab. Still ball, empty goal eight steps away. Two steps back and one step to the side, so she comes in at a slight angle. Plant foot beside the ball. Toe pointed down, ankle locked, and strike with the laces — the hard bony top of the foot. Follow through so she lands on the kicking foot.
Water + Team Challenge — Knock 'Em Down
Stand a row of cones up ten steps away. Everyone passes at them; the team counts how many they knock over. A cone only falls to a pass with real pace on it, so the feedback is instant and nobody needs you to judge it.
Small-Sided — 3v3 to Four Goals
Two grids about 20 steps square, running side by side — with twelve girls that is two games of 3v3 and nobody standing out. Put a cone-goal in the middle of each of the four sides. No keepers.
Score in any of the four goals, from either side. After you score, your next goal has to be a different one, which keeps their heads up and stops the whole game collapsing onto one end.
Run two scoreboards. Goals, and separately firm passes that arrived — every pass that reaches a teammate still rolling is a point. Count them out loud. Announce both totals at the end and make more of the passing number than the goals.
Scrimmage & Keeper Club
6v6. One instruction for the whole scrimmage, repeated and nothing else: "pass it hard enough that she doesn't have to run to it."
Keeper volunteers in two-minute shifts. She rolls the ball out — punting is not allowed — and this is a good week to point out that a rolled ball arriving at a teammate's feet is exactly the firm accurate pass you have been teaching all session.
Huddle
Question of the week: "Who hit one really hard today?" Take five answers, not one, and get them to describe what it felt like.
Then the one piece of homework worth setting all season: twenty passes against a wall before the next practice. A wall never misses, never gets bored, and returns the ball at exactly the pace she hit it — which is the fastest feedback loop in the sport.
Finish with the new team name and the cheer.