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See the full collectionFootball Drills for Kids: Repeat, Don't Rotate
Skill-Building Games
I used to feel like a bad parent for running the same drill, night after night. That was instead of the twenty-item list I'd found online, until I actually looked at what the research said about it.
Real research on children learning a football kick found repeating the same drill worked about as well as an elaborately varied rotation, so the pressure to mix it up properly can be dropped. Three drills follow, a couple of minutes each, one parent and one child, meant to be picked one at a time and repeated across sessions rather than rotated through a long list.
Simple football drills at home
Three Drills, Repeated
Repeat one for a week or two before introducing the next, rather than rotating through all three within a single evening.
Wall or fence rebound.
Kick against a wall or fence from a short distance and control the rebound. Repeat for two minutes without switching feet or distance.
Two-marker weave.
Dribble between two markers set a few strides apart, turning at each one. The same two markers every time, not a growing course.
Target strike.
Aim at one fixed target, a taped X, a bucket, from the same spot each time, counting hits without moving the target between attempts.
One study, honestly limited
Why Repetition Isn't Cutting Corners
Read a study of children learning a football kick (Godoi Filho and colleagues, 2026), a controlled study of 70 children aged 6 to 11 over seven practice sessions. It found that a carefully varied practice schedule and a plain repetitive one produced a similar amount of improvement, tested four days later.
This citation could only be verified at abstract level because the full paper returned an access restriction when fetched directly, so no exact numbers can be quoted beyond "similar improvement". The age band, 6 to 11, overlaps most of this site's 5 to 9 range but reaches two years older, and one study is not the final word on every skill or every child. It's cited as a specific, honest reason not to feel guilty about repeating the same drill rather than proof that variation never helps at all. See how Our Kickabout researches its pages.
Drills or digital games
This Is Not the Skill-Games Sorter
Football skills games sorts into four existing digital games by skill gap. This page is real-world, no-screen drill repetition, useful alongside those games rather than instead of them.
Use the sorter to find which skill needs work. Use this page for the plain repetition once you know which one. The two aren't rivals: a couple of minutes of drill repetition in the garden and a few minutes on a targeted digital game cover different ground, and most evenings only have room for one of them anyway.
Pace yourself
How Long to Stay on One Drill
Run one drill for a full week or two before introducing the next, rather than cycling through all three in a single evening. The research above compared repeating one drill against varying it across a whole block of practice sessions, not within a single one, and found the two produced a similar amount of improvement.
If a drill still feels shaky after two weeks, stay on it. There's no schedule to keep beyond what actually improves. Watching for boredom rather than counting sessions is the better signal: a child who's still enjoying the wall rebound in week three has no need to move on just because a fixed number of days has passed.
Quick answers
Common Questions About Football Drills for Kids
Do I need to vary football drills for my child to improve?
Not necessarily. A study of children learning a football kick found repeating the same drill worked about as well as an elaborately varied one.
How long should we stick with one drill?
A week or two of the same drill is a reasonable stretch before introducing the next one. There's no need to rotate within a single evening.
What equipment do these drills need?
None beyond a ball and something to mark a spot, such as a trainer or a piece of tape. No cones or kit required.
Can these drills work for more than one child at once?
Yes, with turns rather than simultaneous attempts. Two children alternating on the same target strike or the same weave still get full repetition each, just spread across a slightly longer session.
Keep going
Where to Go From Here
Three routes out of here, depending on what your evening actually needs.
Want a specific skill instead?
Sorts into four existing games by skill gap.
See football skills gamesNew to all this?
Start at the beginning if five minutes of football together is still a new idea at your house.
See where to startTonight's five minutes
Pick one drill and repeat it, not all three.
The research says variation barely matters here. Consistency does.