What is currently becoming visible in professional football
Positional flexibility is not merely a youth topic that you cast aside later. It has become an essential requirement at the top level of football.
FC Barcelona under Hansi Flick are currently the most visible example of this. Two distinct cases can be observed there.
Raphinha represents the first. The Brazilian played as a right winger for years, but under Flick, he was shifted to the left flank and repeatedly moved inside into the centre. The strongest season of his career followed. This example is vital because it proves that switching positions is not purely for youth development: it can make an established professional even better.
Eric García and Xavi Espart represent the second. Both came through the club's own academy and were never restricted to a single role in the first place; instead, they are deployed differently depending on the match plan and opposition. What sets such players apart is not mastering one single position to perfection, but the ability to settle into a new role, read the game from there, and carry out the task.
This requires something that does not develop in your twenties: the experience of how the game looks and feels from different areas of the pitch.
The four reasons for versatility
Better understanding of the game
Anyone who knows defence, midfield, and attack from personal experience understands match situations far more comprehensively. A child who has played as a centre-back knows which pass a centre-back can actually work with and which one they cannot. They have experienced what it feels like when no one is available to receive the ball.
Better decisions stem from this experience — not because the child has more theoretical knowledge, but because they understand the situation from their teammate's perspective.
Greater creativity and flair
Switching positions offers fresh angles. Players spot space much faster because they have learned to read the pitch from multiple vantage points. They are bolder in 1v1 situations and initiate attacking moves on goal, regardless of where they happen to be on the pitch.
The side effect is far more significant than it sounds: experiencing different positions reveals personal strengths that would never have surfaced in a single assigned role. The best holding midfielder in an age group was often a striker for years — they just didn't know it yet.
Team spirit instead of individualism
When all children play in all positions, the conversation changes. A goal is no longer just the striker's achievement, but the outcome of a chain of contributions that everyone has delivered themselves at some point.
This is not mere pedagogical sentiment. A child who only plays at the back never experiences scoring a goal as something they contributed to. A child who only plays up front fails to appreciate what their teammates do to make it possible. Rotation bridges both gaps.
Long-term development instead of early specialisation
The strongest reason is also the most uncomfortable one. Early specialisation optimises for short-term success: the tall player goes to the back, the quick one up front, the standout talent into the centre. This wins matches at U13 level, but shuts down developmental pathways you cannot foresee at the age of twelve.
A player who is physically dominant at fourteen often is no longer ahead at eighteen. What remains then is what they have learned — and that is far greater in a versatile player. Just how severe these misjudgements are is demonstrated by the Relative Age Effect and a look at late bloomers.
The calculation that refutes the objection
The most common objection to rotation is: there is no time for that; the children won't learn anything properly. This calculation shows that is simply not true.
A season consists of roughly 42 training weeks. From U10 to U13, that spans four years, or around 168 weeks. Divided across seven positions, that leaves:
24 weeks per position — for every player.
Six months in each single position, spread over four years. That is not just a brief snapshot; that is plenty of time to truly understand a role.
Two caveats are essential here. Firstly, this is a mathematical breakdown, not a session plan: no one keeps a child in the exact same position for 24 consecutive weeks. Secondly, it is a calculation across the entire age group, not per individual — not every child will rotate through exactly seven positions.
Yet what the figure achieves is decisive: it completely dismantles the argument that "we don't have time for this".
Which positions are actually meant
Before rotating, it must be clear what you are rotating across. And that depends on the match format.
| Format | Sensible roles |
|---|---|
| 5v5 and smaller | no fixed positions, only proximity to own or opponent's goal |
| 7v7 | goalkeeper, wide defender, central defender, wide attacker, central attacker |
| 9v9 | goalkeeper, centre-back, full-back, holding midfielder (no. 6), central midfielder (no. 8), winger, striker |
| 11v11 | the seven roles from 9v9, supplemented by attacking midfielder (no. 10) and wingers |
Two takeaways follow from this. Firstly: in small-sided games, you do not rotate positions, but tasks — sometimes closer to your own goal, sometimes closer to the opponent's. Secondly: the number seven from our calculation is not a dogma. If you define six roles in 9v9, you get 28 weeks per role.
By the way, the flanks also count. Right wing and left wing provide two distinct experiences, especially for developing the weaker foot.
The rotation plan in practice
This is where principle turns into daily reality. Seven points that make the difference between a real plan and a scrap of paper.
Think in blocks, not in individual matches. Four to six weeks in one position is long enough for a child to grasp the role, yet short enough that they don't get stuck in it. Changing every single week causes confusion rather than building experience. A six-week block with two sessions a week amounts to around twelve training sessions plus five or six matches — ample time to develop a feel for the role.
Do not swap everyone at the same time. If half the team changes positions on the same day, performance drops for six weeks. A rolling approach is far better: rotate three to four players per block while the rest remain. Over the course of a season, everyone still experiences several roles, but the side was never completely dismantled.
Adjacent positions first. A full-back transitions into a winger more naturally than into a striker. Moving from defence to attack works best via gradual steps, not sudden leaps. This eases the transition for the child without disrupting the side.
One coaching point per block, not five. A child playing in defensive midfield for the first time does not need the entire job description. They need one clear instruction: "Position yourself so you can receive the ball from the centre-back." Six weeks later, you add the second point. What this means for communicating on the pitch is covered in coaching language.
Separate the training week from matchday. Rotation belongs in training first. On matchday, a child can still play where they feel secure — especially during the first two weeks of a new block. A sensible progression: week one in training only; from week two, one half of a match; thereafter, the full match.
Include the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper position is the most common blind spot. In grassroots children's football, every child should try it out, and goalkeepers, conversely, should regularly play outfield. Sticking an eight-year-old in goal permanently robs them of four years of outfield development. What youth keepers need is explained in goalkeeper training in youth football.
Track it, don't rely on memory. A rotation plan that only exists in your head will not survive the first losing streak. Memory is remarkably deceptive: almost every coach overestimates how much they actually rotated. You need a clear overview detailing who played where and for how long.
What a block plan can look like
An example for a 14-player squad in 9v9, using six-week blocks:
| Block | Switches role | Remains |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (Weeks 1–6) | 4 players: GK, CB, holding mid, winger | 10 players |
| 2 (Weeks 7–12) | 4 other players | 10 players |
| 3 (Weeks 13–18) | 3 players, plus one returning to a previous role | 10 players |
| 4 (Weeks 19–24) | 3 players | 11 players |
Across a season of seven blocks, each child will have experienced two to three new roles without the side ever being completely overhauled. Over four years, this adds up to the exact breadth of experience required.
What rotation needs in training
You do not learn a position through cone drills or rondos. Neither has directional play — and without direction, there is no forward and no backward, meaning no positional role.
What rotation requires in training sessions are formats with direction and specific roles:
Positional play with zones. As soon as the pitch is divided into zones and each player has a starting position, a role can truly be experienced. The difference compared to a rondo is detailed in rondo vs. positional play.
Small-sided games with two goals and a fixed formation. 7v7 with the same roles played at the weekend. This is where a child realises what their position means in a match.
Build-up play against pressing. The drill where differences between roles become most distinct: the centre-back has a different task from the holding midfielder, and both notice immediately.
A practical tip: in the week a block transitions, it pays to dedicate a session specifically to the new roles — using game formats featuring those exact positions. That is far more effective than trying to explain it on matchday.
Why the plan alone is not enough
And here is the element missing from most discussions.
A rotation plan allocates positions. It does not automatically ensure that a child learns something in their new role. For that, you need something far harder to grant than a plan: time.
Not more training time. But time in the sense of calm — permission to solve a situation independently, even if it takes time and even if it goes wrong.
A child in a new position will make mistakes. That is not an unwanted side effect; it is the learning process itself. A coach who immediately corrects every single error robs the child of the exact experience they were placed there to gain.
In youth football, there is a guiding phrase that sums this up: mistakes are helpers. This does not mean indifference towards mistakes, but assigning them a different function. A misplaced pass from a new position teaches the child something about their game directly: they turned too late or didn't spot their teammate. This feedback arises naturally from the situation rather than from outside — making it far more impactful than any shout from the touchline.
For rotation, this brings a very tangible consequence: the opening weeks in a new position see the most mistakes, but are also the most educational. If you lose patience and switch back during these crucial weeks, you abort the learning process mid-stride. A position switch reversed after two poor matches was never a genuine positional switch — it was merely an experiment.
What patience means in practice
Three rules you can apply on the touchline.
Do not interrupt when a player is deeply engaged. A child focused on working something out is in the most productive state training can offer. Any shout from the outside shatters it.
Do not correct when they are in the flow. There is a right time for feedback — and it is after the action, not midway through it.
Do not give away answers they can discover themselves. A solution a child finds on their own sticks. A solution shouted at them works exactly once.
These three rules sound like restraint, but they are the exact opposite of passivity. They demand that a coach observes closely and decides when to say nothing. That requires far more effort than non-stop coaching.
The three most common objections
"We will lose matches then." Yes, probably a few. The question is what you weigh that against. In children's grassroots football, league tables have been abolished since the 2024/25 reform anyway — the structural reason to fix a child in one role solely for match results is gone. What this entails is explained in youth leagues in Germany.
"Parents put pressure on us." This is the more realistic objection. It can only be resolved proactively, not in the middle of a confrontation: if you explain at the start of the season why you rotate and how the children benefit, you will have far fewer debates later. Why external pressure for results causes so much damage is covered in parents and match pressure.
"My son is a striker, though." At ten, nobody is a striker. He is a child who currently enjoys scoring goals. That phrasing is not just playing with words — it is the crucial difference between a role and an identity.
From what age and until when
U7 to U9: Fixed positions do not exist here in any real sense. Everyone attacks, everyone defends. The goalkeeper rotates as well.
U11 to U13: The core rotation phase. This is where our 24-week calculation applies, and where the broad base of experience is built that everything rests upon later.
U15 to U17: Key areas of focus emerge, but secondary and tertiary positions are deliberately maintained. A player in this phase should be able to execute at least two roles confidently.
U19 and above: Specialisation with flexibility. And this is precisely where the groundwork pays off — the demand to fill multiple roles does not stop in professional football; that is where it truly begins.
Managing the rotation plan in Coach OS
Rotation rarely fails due to a lack of conviction; it almost always fails because it gets lost in day-to-day routines. If you put your line-up together spontaneously on a Tuesday evening, you do it by gut feel — and that feeling puts children where they seem most effective at that exact moment. As a result, the line-up is optimised for the next match, not for the four years ahead.
The existence of this feature stems from Malte Boven. His underlying argument extends beyond the rotation plan itself: a development principle will only be utilised in practice if it can be visualised effortlessly — right at the moment the coach needs it. As long as rotation involves bookkeeping on paper, it remains good intentions.
In Coach OS, you can specify in the team settings that you want to work with a rotation plan. It then displays which player should feature in which position over any given timeframe — providing a clear squad overview rather than vague mental notes.
The requirement does not have to depend on an individual coach, either. The club philosophy can define how many positions a player should experience in each age group — for instance, three per season at U11 and U13, and two fully mastered roles at U15 and U17. The club sets the guiding framework in the background, and the individual teams' rotation plans align accordingly.
This resolves the hurdle where youth development concepts usually stumble: they sit in a document that nobody opens during the season. When the framework is instead built into the tool the coach already uses for planning, it becomes second nature. And a coaching change over the summer no longer puts an end to rotation, because the framework belongs to the club, not a single individual.
The coach remains in full control: any allocation can be adjusted manually if a player is unavailable, if a block needs extending, or if a child wants to stick with a specific role for a bit longer.
The second feature offers the greatest daily help: the player card shows exactly how often a player has featured in each position. Asking "Where has he actually played so far?" is no longer a matter of guesswork. You can see at a glance if a child has stayed in the same role for months — which is precisely where rotation plans otherwise break down in practice.
On top of that comes your general planning: age group, squad size, pitch, equipment, and training times are set once, and your sessions are structured from there. Via Player OS, you track attendance and know exactly who is available before training begins. Backed by over 1,244 animated drills, filterable by age, group size, and training focus.
Coach OS suggests. The coach decides. Always.
Conclusion
- Versatility improves tactical understanding, creativity, team spirit, and long-term development.
- The time is there: from U10 to U13, there are mathematically around 24 weeks available for each position.
- Rotate in blocks of four to six weeks, and never with half the team at once.
- Adjacent positions first, one task per block, first in training and only then on matchday.
- The goalkeeper belongs in the rotation — in both directions.
- Positional roles are learned in drills with directional play, not in rondos or obstacle courses.
- A plan alone is not enough. Mistakes are helpers — without the patience to let them happen, no one learns anything in a new position.
Read more: Ajax Amsterdam: How De Toekomst develops players.