Soccer Field, Goal and Ball Sizes by Age
How big a soccer field really is, what changes for 4v4, 7v7 and 9v9, and which ball a child should be kicking at each age — with the numbers the Laws actually set.
Two questions come up every season: how big is the field supposed to be, and which ball do I buy? The answers are less fixed than you would expect, because soccer's own rule book allows an enormous range — and American youth soccer then layers its own standards on top.
Everything marked as a Law below is quoted from the IFAB Laws of the Game, the rule book the whole sport starts from. Everything marked as a U.S. Soccer standard is the national small-sided framework; your state association and your league can modify it, and often do. Check your own competition's rules before you paint a line or buy a set of goals.
The full-size field
Here is the part that surprises people: there is no single correct size.
Law 1 says the touchlines (the long sides) must be between 100 and 130 yards, and the goal lines between 50 and 100 yards. That is a legal field anywhere from 100 × 50 to 130 × 100 — one of them more than twice the area of the other.
For international matches the range is tightened to 110–120 yards long by 70–80 yards wide. Most professional grounds sit near the middle of that.
The Laws give both units; the metric figures are 90–120 m by 45–90 m, and 100–110 m by 64–75 m for internationals.
| Marking | Size |
|---|---|
| Touchline (length) | 100–130 yds (90–120 m) |
| Goal line (width) | 50–100 yds (45–90 m) |
| International matches | 110–120 × 70–80 yds (100–110 × 64–75 m) |
| Goal | 8 yds (7.32 m) wide, 8 ft (2.44 m) high |
| Penalty area | 18 yds (16.5 m) from each post, 18 yds deep |
| Goal area | 6 yds (5.5 m) from each post, 6 yds deep |
| Penalty mark | 12 yds (11 m) from the goal line |
| Centre circle | 10 yds (9.15 m) radius |
| Corner arc | 1 yd (1 m) radius |
That range is worth understanding rather than memorising. A team that presses high is doing something very different on a 70-yard-wide field than on a 50-yard one, and a club that plays direct will not mind a narrow, short one. The field is part of the tactics.
The goal, by contrast, is exactly one size everywhere in the eleven-a-side game: 8 yards between the posts, 8 feet to the underside of the crossbar. It has not changed in well over a century.
The ball
Law 2 specifies the match ball — what everyone calls a size 5:
- Circumference between 27 and 28 inches (68–70 cm)
- Weight between 14 and 16 ounces (410–450 g) at the start of the match
- Pressure of 0.6–1.1 atmosphere at sea level (8.5–15.6 lb/sq in)
The pressure range matters more than people think. A ball at the bottom of that range feels heavy and dead; at the top it pings off the foot and skids. If you coach, buy a pump with a gauge and put every ball at the same pressure every week — young players learn a touch, and a ball that behaves differently each session is quietly teaching them nothing.
Smaller balls — size 4 and size 3 — are not defined in the Laws at all. They are a youth-soccer convention, which is why manufacturers vary slightly and why your league's rule is the one that counts.
Small-sided soccer in the United States
U.S. Soccer's small-sided standards set out how the game grows with the player. The shape of it is:
| 4v4 | 7v7 | 9v9 | 11v11 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age group | U6–U8 | U9–U10 | U11–U12 | U13 and up |
| Goalkeeper | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ball | Size 3 | Size 4 | Size 4 | Size 5 |
| Field (approx.) | small grid | 35–45 × 55–65 yds | 45–55 × 70–80 yds | see the Laws above |
| Goal (max) | small portable | 6½ × 18½ ft | 7 × 21 ft | 8 ft × 8 yds |
| Offside | No | Only past the build-out line | Yes | Yes |
| Build-out line | — | 14 yds from each goal line | — | — |
Match lengths are deliberately missing from that table. They vary so much between state associations and leagues that a national number would be misleading; your league will tell you, and it is usually quarters at the younger ages and halves later.
Our field and ball size reference tool draws each of these to scale against a full-size field, which is the quickest way to see just how much smaller a 7v7 field really is.
The build-out line, and why it exists
At 7v7 there is a line across the field 14 yards from each goal line. It does two jobs.
When the goalkeeper has the ball in their hands, or is taking a goal kick, the opposing team must retreat behind the build-out line until the ball is put back into play. And offside only applies between that line and the goal line — a player cannot be offside in the big middle section of the field.
Both rules point the same way: they stop nine-year-olds camping on the edge of the penalty area, which means the goalkeeper can actually roll the ball to a defender, and that defender has time to look up. It is the single biggest reason American youth soccer looks less like pinball than it used to.
Why the ball and the field shrink at all
A size 5 ball is about a third heavier than a size 3, and a small child's leg is not a scaled-down adult's. On a full field with a full ball, a seven-year-old cannot pass the distance the space demands, so the game becomes a kicking contest and the ball spends the afternoon in the air.
Shrink both and the game comes back: passes reach, shots go in, and every child gets dozens of touches instead of two. That is the whole argument for small-sided soccer, and it is why the standards exist.
Practical notes for a volunteer coach
Marking a field. Discs every ten yards along the touchline take five minutes and make the field legible to children who cannot see a faint line from thirty yards away.
Buying goals. Anchor them. Every set of portable goals comes with anchors and every season somebody skips them. A goal that tips is the most dangerous object on a youth soccer field, and it is entirely preventable.
Buying a ball. Buy the size your league plays with, not the size your child will be next year. A too-big ball teaches a toe-poke.
One ball per player at practice. If you buy nothing else, buy this. The difference in touches per session is enormous.
Sorting your team out for Saturday? The line-up and substitution planner builds a rotation that gives every child equal minutes, and the gear guide covers what to buy and — more usefully — what not to.
Where these numbers come from. The full-size field, the goal and the size 5 ball are quoted from the IFAB Laws of the Game, Law 1 and Law 2. The U.S. small-sided figures are U.S. Soccer's national standards as published by U.S. Soccer and reproduced by youth soccer organisations. State associations and leagues modify them, so treat your own competition's rules as final.