Do you change the team to protect a lead at U12?

Game management can be part of the learning at U12, but I would keep the player-development cost in view. If you are leading late, it is reasonable to ask the team what the game now needs. Can we protect central space better? Can we keep the ball for longer? Can our decisions become a bit less rushed? That is different from automatically removing the less trusted players and putting the strongest defensive group on. There are league tables at 9v9 now, so the players can start experiencing scoreline and game-state decisions. I think that is useful. The question is who gets to learn them. I would rather teach the whole group how to manage a lead than make “protecting a lead” something only the coach and the strongest players are allowed to do.