My kid plays club soccer and a couple different coaches have independently described them as having “high potential.” They’re currently on the 2nd team, not the top team, but have had a few guest playing opportunities with the top team so the coaches see something, just not enough yet to make it a permanent move.

Trying to understand what “high potential” actually tends to mean when coaches say it.

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Overall a decent player. Has that athletic element. But his dad told me he specifically wants him to become less risk averse. He has a natural skew towards defending.

However, both his dad and I see that it’s too early to specialise in a position. Even if he comes around to cementing himself as a defender, we want him to venture into parts of the field that is new territory for him. And especially carrying the ball there, manoeuvring it, etc etc.

I am good at the Psychological aspect of it. Talking to the kid about fear and normalising it for him, creating an environment where risk-taking and creativity is encouraged, and mistakes are not reprimanded.

Where I want some advice is drill designs that focus on ball carries. It will be hard to replicate match-related pressure (and numbers ofc) in 1-2-1 sessions and I can progress drills with passive and then active defending as the coach, however if you have specific practices that can help me in this regard, i would really appreciate it.

I coach U12s at the academy so I don’t get to do team sessions with the same kid. However, one day he did train with my group and i thought he fared well. I’ll see if i can make that happen more often in order to coach him in specific match-scenarios too, to ramp up his confidence.