What to Practice Between Games: A Parent's Weekly Plan

The most common parent question we hear isn't "what's the best drill?" — it's "what should we actually do between games?" This guide is the honest answer. A realistic week-long rhythm built around 15 to 25 minute daily sessions, properly timed rest, and the kinds of work that actually transfer to game day. Built for ages 8 to 14, adaptable up and down.

The frame: most youth players have one to two team practices and one to two games per week. That leaves three to four open days. What you do (or don't do) on those days is what separates kids who improve quickly from kids who plateau. The wrong move on the wrong day can also leave them flat for games — so timing matters as much as content.

The Core Principle: Frequency Over Intensity

A Realistic Sample Week

Assume a Saturday game and Tuesday/Thursday team practices. Here is a week-long training rhythm that fits a typical youth schedule. Adapt the specific days to match your team's schedule.

Total solo work: roughly 70 to 90 minutes across the week, spread out so it stays fresh and never becomes a slog. That's the dose. More is not better at this age.

What to Practice on Each Solo Day

Monday: Technical Foundation

The day after rest is the best day for clean technique work. The body is fresh, focus is highest, motor learning happens fastest. Use this day for the fundamentals: passing, receiving, first touch.

• 5 minutes wall passing (right foot)
• 5 minutes wall passing (left foot)
• 5 minutes first-touch direction changes
• 5 minutes free juggling

See the full wall drills guide for the patterns and the first-touch guide for the technique.

Wednesday: Dribbling and Weak Foot

Mid-week is the right time for the harder, more demanding skill work — dribbling at speed and weak-foot reps. Both require focus and produce the most meaningful long-term gains.

• 5 minutes inside-outside cone work
• 5 to 7 minutes 1v1 moves practice (scissor, body feint, drag-back)
• 5 to 10 minutes weak-foot only (wall passing or cone slalom)
• 3 minutes free dribbling — try things, no pressure

The weak-foot block can stand alone as its own 30-day project — see the 30-day weak foot plan for the full progression.

Friday: Light Touch Only

The day before a game is for keeping the touch sharp without taxing the legs. Stay below 70% effort. No sprints, no full-power shots, no demanding sequences.

• 5 minutes juggling
• 5 minutes light wall passing
• 5 minutes visualization — close eyes, picture making good plays in tomorrow's game

What to Skip

Equally important: knowing what doesn't help. These are common parent additions that usually don't pay off and sometimes set the player back.

• Long conditioning runs. Soccer fitness comes from soccer movements (sprints, change of direction). Long jogs build a slow-twitch engine that doesn't translate.
• Heavy weight training before puberty. Bodyweight strength work is fine; loaded barbell work below age 13 to 14 is unnecessary and sometimes harmful.
• Marathon shooting sessions. 50+ shots in a session leads to bad form reps. 20 to 30 quality shots beats 100 sloppy ones.
• Sideline coaching during games. Worse than no coaching — adds stress, undermines the team coach, and slows decision-making.
• Two-a-days. Common in older youth players, almost always counterproductive at U14 and below. Recovery is when adaptation happens.

The Parent's Role in the Week

Your job during the week is logistics and environment, not technical instruction. Get them to practice on time, fed, hydrated, and in the right gear. Keep the routine consistent so the daily 15 to 20 minutes happens almost on autopilot. Resist the urge to coach — that's the team coach's job, and any conflicting input creates confusion.

For game days specifically, see how to give feedback without killing their love of the game — the post-game car ride is the single highest-leverage parent moment in the entire week, and it's the one most parents get wrong.

Adjusting for Age

Ages 8 to 10

Sessions 10 to 15 minutes, 3 days a week. Heavy emphasis on fun and free play. The goal is touches and love of the ball, not structured progression. Free dribbling in the backyard is more valuable than rigid drills at this age.

Ages 11 to 12

Sessions 15 to 20 minutes, 3 to 4 days a week. Structured drills start to make sense. Begin tracking progress with simple metrics (juggling reps, wall passes in a row). The week template above fits this age perfectly.

Ages 13 to 14

Sessions 20 to 30 minutes, 4 days a week. Add light strength work (push-ups, squats, planks) once or twice a week. Bigger emphasis on weak foot and 1v1 skills. Players this age can also start to benefit from structured film review of their own games — typically 10 to 15 minutes once a week.

When Things Go Wrong

Real life will mess with the plan. Tournaments compress the schedule. School gets heavy. Kids get tired or sick. The plan should bend, not break.

• Tournament weekends: Skip Friday and Sunday solo work entirely. Rest is more valuable than reps.
• Heavy school week: Drop to 10-minute sessions or skip Wednesday. Don't add stress on top of stress.
• Kid says "I don't want to": Listen. One day off won't ruin development. A week of forced practice can ruin motivation for months. If it's daily and persistent, that's a real signal — read should my kid play club soccer for the readiness conversation.
• Returning from injury: Halve all session lengths and intensities for the first two weeks back. Add load gradually.

The Long Game

The kids who become great soccer players at 18 are not the kids who trained the most at 10. They're the kids whose love for the game survived the years 12 to 16. A sustainable weekly rhythm — short, consistent, fun, with real rest built in — protects that love. A high-volume, high-pressure rhythm puts it at risk.

20 minutes a day, four days a week, for two years adds up to nearly 290 hours of focused individual training. That's the real lever. Find the version of the routine your child can actually keep doing, then keep doing it.