What should a ten-year-old be able to do in football?

There is no list from the Swedish FA, and the lists in circulation rest on age windows the research does not support. What the format demands at 10–12 is 7v7 with throw-ins, penalties and free kicks, in every position. Train that, in play, with lots of touches.

For coaches

What should you train at which age? The game formats are the answer, not the milestones

By Gustav, founder of Breakout · 5 min read

The Swedish FA publishes no list of what a player should be able to do at a given age, and no figure for how much a child should train per week. What exists is the set of game formats: 3v3 at 6–7, 5v5 at 8–9, 7v7 at 10–12, 9v9 at 13–14 and 11v11 from 15. They decide what the match demands, and therefore what you train.

The formats are the backbone

The formats were adopted unanimously in 2017, have been mandatory since 2019 and rest on three peer-reviewed studies. Children’s football runs to and including age 12, youth football from 13 to 19 (Swedish FA laws for children’s and youth football, 2023). The age bands are national and did not change for the 2025/26 season – Stockholm’s exemption for 11v11 at 14 and its rule letting the home team choose the pitch at 13 are district rules, not the FA’s.

Each step adds something, and that list is the one to read as a specification: what the match demands next season is what you train in now. Ball size goes from 3 to 5. Since 2025 the green card is used only in 5v5 and 7v7, and from 3v3 to 9v9 the coaches are responsible for the match climate.

3v3, ages 6–7: no fixed positions, the ball in play the whole time.
5v5, ages 8–9: retreat line at goal kicks.
7v7, ages 10–12: retreat line stays, throw-ins, penalties and free kicks arrive.
9v9, ages 13–14: offside, the retreat line goes, league tables begin.
11v11, ages 15–19: full-size pitch, senior laws.

Ages 6–9: 3v3 and 5v5

Play, lots of touches and basic motor skills. The player development plan’s wording is that "all players should be given the conditions to perform many football actions", and that is also the measure of a good session: how many times each child touched the ball, not how well organised it looked. Small areas, small groups, short queues.

No league tables. The decision was taken in 2015, has applied since 2017 and covers all of children’s football up to and including age 12. The children still compete – they count the goals themselves – but the result must not decide who gets to play.

Ages 10–12: 7v7

Technique in play, every position, one theme per training week and the match talk built on that week’s theme. Group composition should be varied (the FA’s Play, Play and Learn framework). According to the Swedish FA there is "no reason" to stack teams at this age (2021). The distinction you need to be able to explain at the parents’ meeting is between adapting and streaming: adapting happens within a session, streaming across one or two sessions or the odd match – never permanently (Stockholm FA 2024, Claes Eriksson).

In practice: rotate positions every match, let the goalkeeper play outfield, and talk about the week’s theme at half-time instead of the score.

Ages 13–14: 9v9

Offside arrives, the retreat line goes and league tables start to count. The game demands cooperation between units in a way 7v7 did not, and that cooperation is what goes into training. The player development plan lets the "individual’s interest" decide how much the player commits – the player’s choice, not yours.

Puberty makes every assessment uncertain. Even in a group of ten-year-olds, biological age ranges from 8 to 12 (Swedish FA medical committee), and selection during puberty largely measures maturity rather than ability (Malina 2015). It shows in the birth months: at one Swedish academy the odds of being born in the first quarter of the year were 2.3 times higher than expected among 12- to 14-year-olds (Ek et al. 2020), and Sæther (2017) found 63 per cent born in the first half of the year and only 14 per cent in the last quarter. The Swedish Sports Confederation’s conclusion is that "talent selection during puberty has a very weak link to long-term development".

Ages 15–19: 11v11

These are the investment years. Côté describes adolescents around 13 choosing between specialising and continuing recreationally, and around 16 entering a phase where they invest in their sport (Côté, Lidor & Hackfort 2009). Physically, strength responds best to training after the growth spurt, speed and endurance before and around it (Lloyd & Oliver 2012) – so a player who has not finished growing should not be trained like one who has.

Early specialisation gave no advantage for playing at 21 in Swedish data (Söderström & Garn 2022). For elite environments there is the Swedish FA’s Blågula tråden (2024), covering girls’ and boys’ U15 to U23.

How much

The Swedish FA sets no dose. Its guidelines for physical training (2013) say individualisation, coordination, variety and technically correct strength training; Sustainable Sport (2020) stresses rest, nutrition and other sports. That is all the federation says about volume, and this guide does not add a number.

The figure in circulation – no more training hours per week than the child’s age in years – comes from Jayanthi et al. 2015, a clinical case-control study of 822 injured and 368 uninjured young athletes in the United States. Those who trained more hours than their age had 2.07 times the odds of injury, and those with more than twice as much organised training as free play 1.87. It is a risk threshold, not a recommendation: it says where injury risk rises in that sample, not how much is right, and the association weakens once other factors are accounted for. A conversation opener with parents, not a schedule.

What this guide cannot promise

No "should be able to" lists, and that is right. The lists in circulation rest on the Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model’s "windows", where certain qualities are claimed to be especially trainable at certain ages. The windows lack longitudinal support – "all qualities are trainable throughout childhood" (Lloyd & Oliver 2012; Ford et al. 2011), and the consensus of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) of 2016 finds no evidence that early specialisation is required. If you see a milestone list, it is a club document, not the federation’s.

What you can promise is the environment: the right format, lots of touches, every position, varied groups and a coach who knows the difference between maturity and ability.

Common follow-up questions

How much football should children train per week?: The Swedish FA gives no figure, and guides that do are based on club documents. What exists is an injury-risk threshold: more training hours per week than the child’s age in years gave 2.07 times the odds of injury in Jayanthi et al. 2015. Below that, the child’s appetite and the room to do other things decide.
When does offside start in youth football?: In 9v9, played from age 13. At the same time the retreat line goes and league tables begin (Swedish FA laws for children’s and youth football, 2023). Start training it the season before, in 7v7, so offside is not new at the first match.
What should a ten-year-old be able to do in football?: There is no list from the Swedish FA, and the lists in circulation rest on age windows the research does not support. What the format demands at 10–12 is 7v7 with throw-ins, penalties and free kicks, in every position. Train that, in play, with lots of touches.