How to Give Feedback to Young Footballers After a Game

The final whistle goes, your under 11s have lost 4-1, and twelve children are walking towards you waiting to hear what you think. What you say in the next five minutes, and what parents say in the car afterwards, shapes whether they turn up next Saturday wanting to improve or wanting to hide. Giving feedback to young footballers is a skill most grassroots coaches never get taught, so this is the method I use with the teams I coach and the one I teach on coaching courses.

It is built on three ideas: timing beats content, specific beats general, and the player should do most of the talking.

Why the first five minutes after a game are the worst time to coach

Straight after a match, a child's heart rate is still high, their emotions are louder than their memory, and they are thinking about the score, their snack, or the friend who missed the sitter. Detailed tactical feedback at that moment barely lands. Research on young athletes and plenty of coaching experience point the same way: a player who is upset hears tone, not words.

So the post match huddle has one job. Keep it to two minutes at most and cover three things:

One thing the team did well, named precisely. "We won the ball back within five seconds three or four times in the second half" is better than "great effort".
One thing to work on, framed as the focus for Tuesday training, not as a verdict on Saturday.
A normal ending. Water, kit, see you Tuesday. No speeches.

The real feedback happens later, usually at the start of the next session, when everyone has slept and the score no longer stings.

How to give feedback to young footballers one on one

Individual feedback is where players actually change. I aim for a short conversation with every player at least once every three weeks, which with a squad of 12 means four players a week, about three minutes each, during the warm up or a water break.

The structure I use has four steps:

Ask first. "How did you feel about your game on Saturday?" Let them answer fully. Children are often harsher on themselves than any coach would be, and you need to know that before you speak.
Name one specific moment. "In the first half, when you got the ball by the touchline, you looked up before your first touch. That is why you found Maya so quickly."
Give one next step. Just one. "This week, try to do that scan before every pass you receive in the drills."
Check they understood. Ask them to say it back in their own words. If they cannot, the feedback was too vague.

Notice the next step is behavior, not outcome. "Score more" is not something a nine year old can practice. "Look over your shoulder before the ball arrives" is. If you want a drill to back that up, our piece on scanning before receiving the ball has a simple progression.

Specific praise and the ratio that actually works

You will often hear that coaches should give five positive comments for every negative one. The intent is good, but the ratio misleads people into counting compliments instead of making them useful. Ten rounds of "well done" are worth less than one sentence that tells a child exactly what they did and why it worked.

Specific praise has three parts: the action, the moment, and the effect. "You tracked their number 7 all the way back in the 30th minute, and that stopped the cross." The player now knows what to repeat.

Vague comment	Specific version
Good game	You won four of your five headers from goal kicks
Be more confident	Ask for the ball out loud when you are free in midfield
Pass it quicker	Try playing it in two touches when the defender is closing
Concentrate	When the ball goes out, check where your player is before it comes back in

Praise effort as well as results, but make the effort concrete too. "You sprinted back every time we lost the ball, even in the last ten minutes" tells a child that effort is noticed and specific.

The counter-take: stop sandwiching criticism

The feedback sandwich, where you put a criticism between two compliments, is still taught on many introductory courses. In my experience with players aged 8 to 14, it backfires once they are old enough to spot the pattern, which is usually around 10. They learn to ignore the first compliment because they know the "but" is coming, and they forget the last one because they are still stinging.

The alternative is to keep praise and correction separate and honest. Praise when something deserves it, on its own. Correct when something needs work, framed as the next step, also on its own. Players trust a coach whose praise is never a setup, and that trust makes the corrections easier to hear.

The same goes for parents. If a child gets the same lap of praise whatever happens, it stops meaning anything. If they get honest, kind, specific comments, they start asking for more.

Managing parents and the car ride home

The coach is rarely the only person giving feedback. Many young players get a second debrief in the car, and that one is often longer, louder, and more focused on mistakes. A child who hears a coach say one thing and a parent say the opposite stops listening to both.

At the start of each season I ask parents for one simple agreement: in the car, say "I loved watching you play" and then let the child lead. If the child wants to talk about the game, ask questions instead of giving verdicts. "What was the hardest part today?" works better than "Why didn't you shoot?".

I also share each month's focus with parents in a short message, so their comments point the same way as mine. If the focus is receiving on the half turn, a parent saying "I saw you turn with the ball twice" reinforces training instead of undoing it.

Adjusting feedback by age group

A six year old and a fourteen year old need very different conversations, and the same sentence will land differently.

Under 7 to under 9: almost all feedback in the moment and during play, through questions and short cues. Keep it to one idea a session. Long talks fail at this age, and so does labelling a child by one position; our piece on rotating positions in youth football explains why.
Under 10 to under 12: introduce short one on one chats and simple video clips if parents consent. This is the age where specific praise has the biggest effect on confidence.
Under 13 and up: let players set their own targets for a block of four to six weeks, then review together. Self assessment becomes the main tool, with the coach as a second opinion.

Whatever the age, track what you said. A notebook with one line per player per fortnight is enough to stop you repeating the same point or forgetting a quiet player completely.

Frequently asked questions

Should you give feedback to kids straight after a football match?

Keep it very short. Straight after a game children are too emotional to take in detail, so give one positive, one focus for training, and move on. Save individual feedback for the start of the next session.

How do you tell a young player they made a mistake?

Ask them how they saw the moment first, then describe what happened without judging it, and give one thing to try next time. Focus on the action they can change rather than the result. Keep it private if the mistake led to a goal, so they do not feel singled out.

How often should a youth coach give individual feedback?

A short one on one conversation every two to three weeks per player works for most grassroots squads. Combined with brief cues during training, that is enough to keep each child working on a clear, current target without feeling watched all the time.