Last game of the league season for Ilaria, great performance to sign off on. Had a really impressive couple of months on the run in, really growing in confidence and taken her game up a level or 2.

Back in league action after the Easter break, hard fought draw for Ilaria and the girls this morning. Tough conditions pitches have now gone from water logged to rock hard, not a lot of fun for keepers with it bobbling and bouncing around.

After weeks of rain and no football, Ilaria has now spent two sunny weekends without football for an Easter break (who makes this stuff up)... Back in action tonight with a friendly against strong opposition, a good test to blow the cobwebs webs away...

Interested in opinions on here as I'm sure there are coaches, parents and players in the same position. Obviously youth football is about development and enjoying the game, but as with adults there are kids at different levels and with different ambitions even at a young age. Still being u9s Ilaria's side play 4 quarters and they have pretty much two sides that play in front of her, one of the is a group of very competitive girls with some talented little players and the other well is a long way off being any of that. They alternate a quarter on a quarter off and it's like a completely contrasting game which I get you don't learn anything sat watching. Watching them at full time on Saturday after narrowly losing their cup semi final 2-1 and seeing a group of girls absolutely gutted at the result while the other half chased each other throwing grass at each other got me thinking, when does being fair, become unfair on the ones that care?

My son is a full time keeper for his U7 team, he started out playing on pitch but each knock he took ended with him in tears which is what lead him to the goalkeeper position! He watches football on the TV a lot and in doing so can read the game very well. He knows when to let the ball go out of play so he'll then get the goal kick etc. I've happily supported this role and am putting as much as I can into helping him learn his new position, we go out together once a week for a bit of training and he attends a dedicated goalkeeper coach training as well, He always plays in goal during his team's weekend training so he's getting plenty of practice and learning a lot! But... He's a sensitive kid (hence getting teary when getting knocked on pitch) and isn't the sort the throw himself around the goal with diving etc. I'm trying to build up his confidence and make him more brave because at some point he's going to have to go for those low smothers and could ultimately take a knock to the body at some point 😬 My question is... Those parents that have started out with their little ones playing in goal at this age, does this all happen over the next few years so therefore don't push it or worry about it too much? I can't help but feel the more training he's doing the more he's thinking too much about every move he makes and that in itself is preventing him from moving forwards with certain things as well as the fear factor. Naturally I will support him as much as I can but at the same time I feel I need to be careful to not push him too much at such a young age. It's a real tricky one because I watch some young keeper's that are fearless from the getgo and wonder if they're the type that make it into the keeper world. If you've got this far then thank you so much for reading my post that I didn't expect to be so long haha!