Organise your players into teams quickly in training

Here are some tips on how to organise your players into teams quickly.

The line

• Line up the players and then go along the line giving them a number 1,2,3 or 4 (or whatever number of teams you have).
• Ask the players to get into groups of four and give themselves a number each, 1,2 ,3 or 4. This is often a good way to split up friendship groups.
• If they are more in some groups, they simply play with an overload – lucky them. You don’t want players standing on the sidelines.
• After a couple of games, if some teams are much better, then swap players around.

The friendship group break up

• Ask the players to get into groups of four (if you need four teams, for example). You can put these players in a similar position.
• Have the players decide on a letter each from A to D.
• Shout out each letter and ask for a hand to be put up so you can check each group has allocated their letters.
• Then ask As to go to one part of the field, Bs to another and so on. You are therefore splitting up potential friendship groups because players initially go with their mates.

The bibs handout

• As the players arrive at training, give them a coloured bib.
• If you have an equal number of bibs of various colours to start with, you pass them out as the players gather, hopefully making some decisions on who to mix into what team.
• Then run training as normal, splitting into those groups when required.