Research has shown that youth sports is still dominated by traditional methods, whether this be the understanding of learning, rote learning where information recall is dominant, or coaching behavior’s where shouting and controlling players is still the go to action of a coach.
Football is a complex and dynamic environment, where learning is affected by these characteristics, and to compound the effectiveness, there must be an understanding of the learning phases of the individual child; this is key to understanding as to why the youth game is a completely different game to senior/adult level football.
Player development is long term, with short term learning aims providing direction is what is a non-linear learning experience.
See the following presentation for more depth to what is learning in youth sports.