One common question that I get, and I still get to this day from parents is, can you teach my young soccer player to be more aggressive? And I usually say no. Until now, I finally realized that the aggressiveness that you’re talking about actually comes from the athletes lack of confidence in their athleticism. I’ll give you an example. A lot of times in soccer, when the ball is free, you may see your athlete never go after the ball. They usually just wait for their opponent to get the ball and then they go and play defense and try to use their foot skills to get the ball back.  Well, I found the reason they do this is because they lack the confidence in their speed so they won’t go get the ball because they feel like they’re not going to get it anyway. 

So what am I trying to say? In order to get the aggressiveness needed, It’s going to come from training.  Preparation leads to confidence, and that confidence is going to come from their speed and agility training, not just skills training.  I found that in youth soccer players, training their speed, quickness, and explosiveness, is when you will see a change in how they play.  You’re going to see a change in their aggressiveness because now they’re confident that they can get that ball before their opponent.  

So in conclusion, the key to your soccer player being aggressive is simply speed.  Not just speed, but having your youth player learn how to accelerate and watch how their aggressiveness on the field will grow.