Boys are more competitive and, if the game is set up well, will think their own way through it, while girls listen more and want to know the why, so Lisa adapts her style slightly for each. Both love the games. Up to under 14, before boys hit puberty and become faster and stronger, she rates mixed groups as a genuinely good thing. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
Specific is the part of SMART Lisa leans on hardest. Coaches go wrong when they slip into what she calls hockey 101, talking about passing, receiving, tactics and defending all at once until players have heard fifty things and kept none. Instead she names one skill, tied to a tactic where relevant, her example being the centre forward’s closing lines when cutting the pitch, and watches only for that. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
Six decisions shape every game Lisa sets up: space, time on the ball, numbers, reward or penalty, where on the pitch, and constraints. She is firmly a reward coach, using bonus points for the target skill or the mystery contents of Linda the lion, her prize bag. Constraints like two touch or reverse-only teach players when a skill fits, and overloads such as 3v1 give a new skill room to appear. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
Shouting parents get put to work in Lisa’s sessions: she hands them the M in SMART, a measuring job. Give them something to count during the game, how many long passes, how often the centre forward cuts the pitch successfully, whatever the group is working on. Higher up the game she’d use video for the same purpose, though she keeps it away from the little ones. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
There’s no fixed ratio for Lisa, who thinks in stages rather than age groups. Her preference is to start with gameplay because it shows the why, break the skill down in isolation only when the game isn’t improving it, then put it straight back into a game, roughly thirds if you had to split the time. A typical plan holds three or four different games, never one all session. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
Differentiation, for Lisa, means everyone moves from A to B in a session, just with those points set differently per player. Her levers are space, task, equipment and groupings, and she often lays out three versions of a skill, say basic receive, cushion receive and receive across the body, then lets players choose. In her experience kids almost always pick the level that’s right for them. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
Swap the hockey ball for a tennis ball or a basketball, Lisa suggests, and keep the same ideas going: still hunting 2v1s, still working on leading. She likes opening a session that way, and rates frisbee or kicking a football as options too. For little ones the multi-sport exposure matters, especially in Belgium where children rarely play anything outside their club sport. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
For eight and nine year olds Lisa suggests 40 minutes to an hour, with anything beyond the hour starting to turn tiresome. Within that she caps a single game at roughly 20 minutes, often switching after 10 if play is fast flowing, and keeps an A, B and C plan ready with isolated skill work to drop in when the game isn’t showing what she’s after. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
A continuous 3v1, or 3v2 for stronger groups, is the game Lisa reaches for most. Three attackers come on with the ball, and the defender only needs to touch it to force a turnover, which stops the attackers playing into contact; fresh players then enter from the opposite end so play never stops. From there she varies the numbers, the pitch size and the constraints. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
Even Lisa catches herself talking too long and has to get off the pitch again, so she accepts the balance is hard to find. Her markers: don’t stay in tell mode, use open questions and peer feedback, and keep every intervention on the one thing the session is about. Pure observation bothers her just as much, a coach who only stands back, or worse checks their phone, isn’t moving anyone forward. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
Hitting is one of the hardest skills to reach inside small sided games, Lisa admits, because it needs space. Her answer is a continuous 3v1 where every pass must be a hit, giving attackers time against a single defender. She then reinforces the parts of the technique separately, hands together, ball near the left foot, head over the ball and kept still. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.
Lisa’s fix for poor listeners is positive reinforcement: catch the child doing something even slightly right, jump on it immediately, and they will usually tune in the next time the group comes together. She adds a practical trick, stand with your back to the most boring part of the pitch so the players face you rather than watching the action behind you. Watch the full masterclass: Basic skills through Small Sided Games.