Soccer Tips for Short Players: What Smaller Kids Should Actually Work On

The best soccer tips for short players all point at the same thing: win the ball before the contact happens. A smaller player who receives on the half-turn, releases a pass one beat earlier than everyone else and keeps the ball on the floor never arrives in the physical contest they would lose. And the selection research says something more encouraging than most parents expect — the positions built around exactly those habits are the ones where size barely counts.

The part worth saying first, because it reframes everything else: in most cases a child is not short. They are early. Two 12-year-olds of identical age can sit five to six years apart in skeletal maturity, so the smallest player in a U13 squad is often simply the one whose growth has not started yet. The question is not whether height is a ceiling. It is how a player keeps improving — and keeps getting picked — during the three or four seasons before their body arrives.

Does being short actually hold a soccer player back in youth soccer?

For a stretch of adolescence, yes — and it shows up in who gets selected, not in who can play.

A 2023 study in Biology of Sport measured the biological maturity of 159 players in the Football Association of Ireland's U13, U15 and U16 national pathway and international squads, using the percentage of predicted adult height each player had reached. Across the whole sample, the squads skewed towards early-maturing players by a moderate margin (mean maturity Z-score of 0.54, effect size 0.67). As the authors note, that bias appears around the onset of puberty — roughly age 11 to 12 — and grows with age and level.

So the smallest child on the pitch carries a real, measurable headwind at selection — and a temporary one. Every late developer matures eventually, and by adulthood the strength-and-speed gap that decided those U14 trials has closed. This is the same mechanism behind the relative age effect, and it is distinct from the temporary clumsiness of a growth spurt — a player can be small and coordinated, which is exactly the profile that gets underrated.

Where on the pitch does size matter — and where doesn't it?

This is the most useful finding in the research, and almost nobody tells parents about it. The Irish study split the squads into eight specific positions instead of the usual three, and the bias was wildly uneven:

Read that bottom row again. Among central attacking midfielders the selected players were essentially average in maturity for their age — the physical head start bought nothing. Central defenders were the most biologically advanced group in the sample, and significantly more mature than attacking midfielders, defensive midfielders and full-backs.

The authors' explanation is plain: at senior level the central attacking midfielder contests the fewest aerial duels while spending the most time in possession, and the holding midfielder's job is built around passing sequences rather than sprinting. The attributes early maturation hands a player — mass, strength, top-end power — are not the core requirements of those roles, so coaches don't select for them.

Do short players actually make it as professionals?

In the central positions, height does not appear to be what separates the ones who make it.

A decade-long study of 98 players in the reserve team of a Spanish first-division club compared those who went on to sign and play in Spain's top two divisions with those who never did. Height was a clear advantage in three positions: promoted goalkeepers averaged 1.90 m against 1.86 m for those who didn't go up, promoted wide midfielders 1.79 m against 1.72 m, and promoted attackers 1.85 m against 1.79 m.

In the middle of the pitch it vanished. Promoted central midfielders averaged 1.78 m versus 1.80 m for the ones who stalled — a trivial difference, and in the shorter direction. Promoted central defenders were 1.84 m, identical to the central defenders who never made it. Over the ten years studied, the club's central midfielders actually got shorter on average, from 1.82 m to 1.77 m.

The honest summary: for a centre-back or a target centre-forward, height is part of the job description. For the roles that run a team's possession, the evidence says it is not.

What should a smaller soccer player actually work on?

The research points at a specific skill set rather than a longer list of everything.

Receiving on the half-turn. The duel a small player loses is the one where they receive flat-footed with a defender on their back. Opening the hips before the ball arrives and taking the first touch into space turns a physical contest into a passing decision. Practise it against a wall: pass, open the body, touch away at 45 degrees, pass again.

Releasing a beat earlier. Smaller players survive by seeing the picture sooner — scanning before the ball arrives rather than after. That is trainable, and it is most of what coaches mean by soccer IQ.

Change of direction over top speed. A lower centre of gravity is an advantage in a 3-yard turn and a disadvantage in a 40-yard race. Train the turn: cone work, repeated decelerations, 1v1 patterns in tight squares rather than long sprint sets.

Legal use of the body. Being light is not the same as being easy to move. Getting the body in front, holding an arm across an opponent and defending on the front foot are technique, not mass. Small players who learn to use contact well win far more than small players who avoid it.

Strength, properly supervised. Appropriate, well-supervised strength work builds usable force well before puberty. It will not make a child tall, and it will not accelerate maturation — but it closes part of the gap that selection is reacting to.

Which positions suit a small, technical player?

Follow the data: the number 6 and the number 10. A holding midfielder who can receive under pressure and switch play, or an attacking midfielder who takes touches in congested space, are the two roles where the research found no premium at all on being physically ahead. Wide roles reward low-to-the-ground acceleration too, though the Irish data shows coaches do select early maturers out wide. For the mechanics of each role, the breakdown of soccer positions by number is the clearest map.

What a smaller player should be slower to commit to is central defence — the position where, in this sample, physical advantage mattered most.

What should parents do in the meantime?

Keep them playing on smaller pitches. The Irish authors' own first recommendation for supporting late developers is reducing pitch sizes in training so technical skill decides outcomes instead of size. Futsal and small-sided games do this automatically.

Ask whether the club measures growth. Some do, and it changes conversations about selection. The Premier League has run maturity-matched competition for a decade: a Journal of Sports Sciences study of 66 academy players aged 11 to 14 who were all between 85 and 90% of their adult height found that when the late developers played each other, they valued having the room to use and show their technical, physical and psychological ability — and the early maturers, no longer the biggest, had to lean on technique and tactics instead. Belgium's national federation has run a dedicated "Futures" programme for technically capable but late-maturing players since 2008 for the same reason.

Don't let one tryout become the verdict. Among the players most likely to be released at 13 and 14 are the ones whose only shortfall is a birthday. If that has already happened, what to do after your child doesn't make a team covers the next steps.

At FlickTec the daily sessions are individual rather than age-banded for this reason — a smaller player's development is better measured against their own technical baseline than against the biggest kid in the squad.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a short player make it in soccer?

Yes, and in some positions height is not a selection factor at all. In a decade-long study of a Spanish first-division reserve team, promoted central midfielders were no taller than those who never reached the top two divisions — and the club's central midfielders got shorter over the ten years, from an average of 1.82 m to 1.77 m. Height did separate promoted goalkeepers, wide midfielders and attackers, so the answer genuinely depends on the role.

What position should a short soccer player play?

Central midfield is the best-supported answer. In a study of 159 players in Ireland's U13–U16 national pathway, the selection bias toward physically advanced players was absent for central defensive midfielders and central attacking midfielders, while it was very large for central defenders. Those two central midfield roles are built on possession, passing and decision-making rather than mass and top speed.

Is my child too small for competitive soccer?

Usually they are not short so much as early in maturing. Children of the same age can differ by as much as five to six years in skeletal maturity, which means much of the size gap in a U12 or U13 squad is a difference in timing, not in final height. The practical risk is being judged during those years rather than lacking ability.

How can a smaller soccer player win more duels?

By not entering the ones they will lose. Receive on the half-turn so the first touch takes the ball away from the defender, release the pass earlier, and train change of direction rather than top speed. In the duels that are unavoidable, technique does most of the work: get the body in front, hold an arm across, and defend on the front foot instead of reaching in.

Does being small affect youth soccer tryouts?

Yes, measurably. Across the whole Irish national-pathway sample, selected players skewed toward early maturity with a moderate effect size (0.67), and the authors note the bias appears around ages 11 to 12 and grows with age and competitive level. It is worth knowing before a tryout that this is a known bias in the system rather than a verdict on a player.

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The uncomfortable truth in this research is that youth soccer does quietly select for size, most of all in the middle of the back line. The encouraging truth is that it does not select for size everywhere — and the positions where it doesn't are the ones that keep teams playing. A small player who can receive, turn and decide faster than everyone else is not compensating for anything. They are building the skill set the game pays for later.