By Danny Carvalho
Question - “My players love it when we work on shooting, but they don't like it when they have to wait in line and take turns taking shots. Can you share some shooting exercises that don't involve waiting in line?”
Always a challenge when we think about shooting practices and waiting in line. More than the repetitions, we must concern about safety as no one enjoys having a ball smashed at their face or any other body part.
For this, my tips are:
- Add some other tasks between a shot and another.
- Use as many goals or other targets you can. This way you can split the team into small groups, lowering the time waiting
- Drills with a countdown to shoot
- Work on shooting with a combination play. This way you can distribute and activate more players per repetition.
- Work on shooting on a small sided game
Example 1 - Add some other tasks between a shot and another.
Setup
Just outside the goalie box, one player with a ball and another in front of him at about 5 yards from the box line. Some fitness and technical stations also set on the outside with hurdles, cones, agility latter and poles.
Execution
- Play a 1-2 and finish. Player who took the shot stays as wall passer and the former wall passer moves on to (2)
- Agility and coordination exercises on the ladder
- Agility around the poles. Can also be done by dribbling a ball
- Jumps over the hurdles. Can also add a heading or a passing drill with a partner
- Zig-zagging in an out the disc cones.
Players keep rotating stations after every repetition.
Example 2 - Use as many goals or other targets you can. This way you can split the team into small groups, lowering the time waiting
As shown above, use as many goals and targets as you have and make the most of your practice area. If many goals are not available, be creative. Mini-goals, cones, poles etc.
Example 3 – Drills with a countdown to shoot
This one works with any shooting drill you know and/or already use. The only thing is to set some time and make it a countdown to improve the tempo of the drill, which will help to give the players more repetitions and spend less time in line. Example: “You have 5 seconds to finish the play.”
Example 4 – Shooting with a combination play
More players involved in the execution of each repetition. This way they won’t spend much time in line not participating.
Example 5 – Shooting on a small sided game
In the example above it´s a GK+3v3+GK with regular sized goals and a smaller adapted field. The proximity to the goals and reduced number of players will guarantee a good number of shots in little time.
One last extra tip: Split the team into smaller groups. Have one group work on shooting, another group work on passing and another group work on dribbling. Split the field into different stations. This way you can have every one working at the same time and not worry about kids bored and bothered at a line.
By Danny Carvalho, DOC at Corinthians Campinas Youth Club, Brasil
