Rotating Positions

Rotating positions in youth football - My thoughts.


Social media is awash with coaches of youth teams signing the praises of rotating positions for their players, swapping goal keepers etc. I'll be the first to admit that prior to this season it's not something I've really put into practice with any of the teams that I've coached. However in our last game we switched out most players positions every 10 minutes (we play 4 10 minute quarters). Now I automatically thought to myself "this is the best thing for their development blah blah blah" but is this because I hear and read how good it is to do and we must do it? Or do I actually buy into the idea?

Sunday was definitely the most I have swapped players positions around in a game, this was mainly due to not having a regular goal keeper. And it was probably one of our worst performances since I've been coaching them. Now I'm not saying that it was down to the rotations, it could have been a number of things, but I started to question after the game was rotating regularly good for the players? As a player I personally don't like changing positions in a game, it can take time to get into the game. So would my u8s have liked playing 2 or 3 different positions in a game? Probably something I'll have to ask them. Could it have been a reason that some of them struggled to get into the game?

Looking at our opponents; they won the game comfortably, kept the same player in goal who had little to do all game, kept their 3 strongest players on the field for the whole game and in the same positions. This is the case with pretty much every team we have played, I can't recall any team swapping their GK. I'm not having a go at them, they obviously want to play as well as they can and probably measure success on results to some extent, but this is u8 "non competitive" football. The fact we lost doesn't bother me at all, but it was disheartening to see us play way below our normal level.

So my question to everyone is do you rotate your players regularly? What are your thoughts? Is there a balance to it?

Personally I'm looking at the long term picture with our players, but sometimes feel parents really want to see results, trying to strike the balance!!


Below is an article by Nick Levett from a couple of seasons ago, clearly a good argument for rotating. 

 http://www.thefa.com/news/my-football/players/2013/dec/to-stick-or-twist-141213