🎧 Heads and Volleys, Episode 44: https://pod.fo/e/2718b
Most coaches follow the same path. Start with the little ones. Get licenses. Get experience. Get "promoted" to the older, better teams.
Michael Carroll went the other way.
Michael coaches in Houston, Texas, and has been coaching since 1997. When we spoke, he was the grassroots coordinator at Total Football Club, working with players from U5 to U9. He's chosen to stay there.
His reason is simple: "It's the biggest need."
An unconventional start
Michael's coaching started in the Navy. His ship was in port for a long stretch, and his division was told to go and volunteer. The YMCA was on the list. He'd played there himself at four and five years old.
They needed coaches. So at 22, single, no kids, no training, he was handed a group of five- and six-year-olds and their parents.
"I was fully ill-equipped," he laughs. But he fell in love with grassroots coaching. He kept volunteering into his late thirties, until a friend told him: people get paid to do this way worse than you.
Soccer starts at home
The heart of Michael's approach is the parents.
"You can't maximize a player's development in five hours a week. You'd have to have a massive ego to think you're the reason a player is maximizing himself."
Many of his families aren't soccer families. Basketball dads, baseball dads, American football moms. So he coaches them too.
He runs early sessions that are as much for the parents as for the kids. Here's what we're working on. Watch. Record it if you want. Ask me questions. I'm your knowledge base.
And crucially, don't make it homework. Not "100 toe taps in two minutes, go." Instead: "What was that thing coach showed you? Can you show me?" Throw balls all over the house. Help them fall in love with the ball.
It's why Michael's club aligned so naturally with Tom Byer's Soccer Starts at Home work. Michael was already doing it before he'd heard of Tom.
He'll even tell parents of three-year-olds: you don't need a program yet. Get some balls, play with your kid at home, and come back when they're ready.
"I know it affects my paycheck," he says. "But it's the right thing."
The parent is trying you out
When young players arrive, Michael flips the usual tryout idea.
"I'm not trying the kid out to see if he's good enough to play for me. The parent is trying me out, to see if I have a spot that will help their player develop."
A seven-year-old who discovered the game yesterday isn't the same as a seven-year-old who's been with him since four. So players are placed where they'll develop best, and they move at their own pace.
"Too good to play for me"
One of my favourite moments in the conversation was Michael's story of a rival club referring a player to him.
He'd spotted a talented young center mid playing against his team. He mentioned it to the opposing coach, who was honest: "If I look at myself in the mirror, we've taken him as far as we can. We need to get him over to you guys."
That player moved, and his old club was happy for him.
That's the pathway every purist wants. Clubs working together instead of fighting over players. Michael put the goal perfectly:
"I want to develop players to the point where they're too good to play for me."
Trust comes first
For Michael, the relationship is the most important thing he does for a player.
Kids are skeptical by nature. You have to earn their trust, their respect, even their work rate. Once a player sees you as a mentor rather than a boss, everything gets easier.
How does he build it? He asks questions and lets the kids lead. How's school? Seen any good movies? They start talking about their lives, and that open dialogue makes the coaching land later.
He's demanding at the competitive level, and honest about it. But there's one line I loved:
"I don't get on them for making mistakes. I get on them for not trying."
That's also why he asks parents to stay quiet on the sideline. "I'm hard enough to play for. They don't need two of me." When the kid asks in the car how they played, the answer should be: "We just love watching you play. What did coach say?"
Guided discovery, and patience
Michael's big concern: we're producing technical kids, but not good decision makers.
So he uses guided discovery. Pause. "What do you see here? Should you dribble or pass? Tell me why."
"If I'm telling them, they're not necessarily absorbing it. If they tell me, then I know they understand it."
It takes patience, and patience is rare when everyone wants the next tournament trophy. Telling a player "play it there, then there, that's a combination" is quicker. But without the why, they haven't learned to make the decision.
How the sessions change, U6 to U9
Michael has 106 sessions mapped out from U6 through U9, with a clear progression:
Early on, around 25% of each session is one player, one ball: dribbling, turns, comfort on the ball.
As technique improves, that drops to around 15%, and the rest becomes small-sided and positional games. His U7s can run 3v3+2 positional games.
Over the years, decision-making goes up, the speed of decisions goes up, and technical work moves home.
It's the same idea I keep coming back to: the how at home, the why in training.
Experienced coaches belong at the grassroots
Too often, the youngest coach gets the youngest kids. Michael argues the opposite.
You need experience to spot what's inside a raw seven-year-old who joined late. You need experience to know where you're taking them.
And it's a fragile moment. A young child is walking into a new game, with new kids and new adults. One bad experience, and you've lost them. They might pick baseball, or whichever sport had the nicest coach.
So Michael places coaches carefully. Some personalities suit U13s better than U6s, and that's not about knowledge. Putting coaches in the right place is part of developing players.
He also coaches each child as an individual. Some need you eye to eye, one on one, making sure they've understood. Some need different words.
Say it so they understand
That led us into language. Michael runs vocabulary lessons and tactics board sessions. Players move the magnets: where should this player be? Later in practice he'll pause and ask, "Where would you put yourself on the board right now?"
It's the same reason I built a common language with my teams. English coaches in the Bay Area shout "whip it in" and "get on the front foot," and kids have no idea what it means. My dad used to tell me to "get chalk on your boots." I tried it on a kid once. He looked at me like I was mad. We play on turf.
Ten relationships, not one team
My players never had nickname culture until I gave them nicknames. One of my Maxes loves milkshakes, so he became Milky. Now that name means soccer to him.
Michael doesn't plan handshakes or rituals. They just happen as he gets to know each player. His point:
"It's not a relationship with the team. It's having 10 individual relationships."
When his players move up at U9, after being his only coach for half their lives, it takes him a day to get over it. They still come back. They still ask him to guest coach.
Maybe the grassroots is where you belong
If you're coaching the youngest ages and it doesn't feel as rewarding, or as glamorous, as chasing a state cup, think about the impact.
You're the reason a child falls in love with the game. You're giving them the chance to become a lifelong player, and maybe one day a coach.
It's where you'll find the most joy, and the most challenge: teaching the why, with the patience not to just hand them the answers.
Maybe the younger ages are your future too.
Thanks again to Michael for his time, and for his commitment to the youngest players in the game.
🎧 Listen to the full episode: https://pod.fo/e/2718b
@LeeDunneSoccer