lorddulaarsenal my lad started at that age too and the games were good for about 5 minutes before they'd switch off and start watching the clouds or something. Especially on away days when they were somewhere new. Its funny how eventually their heads just click into it though. I don't know what your kids are like but getting them used to tackling was something that had to be worked on too. At that age I think they worry about hurting their friends.
Ball at feet is the main thing at that age. We are only starting now to do more passing drills now as the more confident lads have a tendency to hog the ball. Its a fine balance because you don't want to discourage kids from expressing themselves and trying to take people on.
Coombs that peer motivation stuff is interesting. I've tried to get our lads to go and cheer their team mates (we play 2 games at a time) if they finish first but they usually prefer to just grab a ball and go and play. Not that thats a bad thing either.
Our big issue this season is that we have way to many kids so we need to split the team in 2. The struggle was deciding how to do it. Originally I thought split them in a balanced way but we played a friendly this weekend and the other side had split theirs by ability so we had to too. I coached one of the less skilled teams for a game and I've changed my mind since, the kids were much happier, much more confident and got way more of the ball than when we balance the teams. If you have 3 strong players and 2 guys who are less along in their development they just get bypassed. I'm guessing you lads haven't had to deal with that yet though.
