When someone speaks of a strong defender, they are often talking about their aggression and how they are able to get the ball away from a dribbler by kicking it away or tackling it away. For many young players the physical contact involved in this inhibits their success as a defender as the aggression and competitiveness has not developed at that point.
At early stages of development, whether a player is aggressive or passive it is important to teach 'Individual Defending' as a technique. By teaching as a technique the player has an established movement pattern and understanding for later in their playing career and with the proper technique they have a platform for aggressive play as the fear of injury is lessened.
At U10-U12 the technique is introduced as a warm up. We are planting seeds not fully developing them into world-class defenders. We are providing players with a point of reference so we do not need to plan training sessions around defending at this age, we simply need to plant the seed of language and movement, then reference when needed.
