All Posts by Mike Saif

0 Atletico Attack the Strong Side

By Stevie Grieve

Atletico Madrid may not regain the Spanish League title that they earned last season, but Diego Simeone has kept them competitive in 3 competitions with arguably a weaker starting XI than last season, losing Goalkeeper Thibaud Courtois, Left Back Felipe Luis and Talismanic Striker, Diego Costa all to Chelsea. Simeone replaced these players with players of similar playing profiles;

Jan Oblak and Guillherme Siqueirha from Benfica, Mario Mandzukic from Bayern Munich, while adding mobile attacker Antoine Griezmann from Real Sociedad. This has given them a team with similar profiles in each area from last season while arguably a weaker team, other additions such as creative midfielder Cani, have given them more options Siqueirha is an attacking left back, Manduzkic is the

0 3 v 3 with Quick Transition

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a 3 v 3 game with quick transition.

Start with a 40 x 25 grid with 4 foot wide goals on each end line. There is a 3 v 3 match up in the middle and each team has a second group of 3 behind their defensive end line.

The teams in the middle play a regular small sided game. The one exception is when a team gts scored upon, the team that gave up the

1 Four Goal Game with Goalkeepers

By Alex Trukan

The 4 Goal Game is focused on improving aerobic power in combination with a technical content of shooting and finishing. In addition, players get a lot of opportunities to practice 1v1 situations and decision making when to shoot. Organisation of the exercise ensures it is engaging and enjoyable for almost every player!

Set-Up and Directions

Organise a square of approximately 25x25 yards. Set up a goal on each side of the

0 Space to Deal with Free Kicks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s topic deals with the keeper giving himself room on free kicks (when possible).

We will start using the example of a free kick from 35 yards out and near the sideline.

Too often a keeper will allow the attacking team to get

0 Opposed Passing Pattern and Speed

By Alex Trukan

This exercise is a modification of a passing pattern with additional pressure from a defender to create sprinting situations. The main focus from a physical point of view is to improve starting speed and sprinting over short distances in a football specific context. Apart from that, this practice demands good quality of passing and receiving skills.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise six cones as shown on the diagram. Set up two small gates on the half way between two side cones. Organise two players on the middle cone, one player on each side cone and rest of the players with one ball each on the bottom middle cone. Minimal amount of players for this

2 Lyon’s Attacking Movements

By Stevie Grieve

Lyon have been this season's ‘surprise’ package in Ligue 1, with a team of cast-offs who have proved unsuccessful at other clubs and academy graduates, staying in the top 6 would be the realistic aim and top 3 would’ve been ambitious. As it has unfolded, Lyon have been one of the most attack minded teams in the league, scoring 60 goals in 31 games, and having the best goal difference in the league.

Some of the success has come from the emergence of Nabil Fekir and the continued improvement year on year of Alexandre Lacazette, the return to form of Yoann Gourcuff, and a stable 4-4-2 diamond formation, with attacking full backs providing the width when the dual strikers are more central.

Lyon use a fluid formation and one of the reasons for this is the above mentioned Full Backs, the fluidity of movement from the strikers and how they stretch the field when in possession.

Basic Shape; 4-1-2-1-2 becoming 4-3-3 becoming 2-1-4-3

Both FBs (black circles) are very high, on the line of the

0 Short Keeper Distribution

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on short keeper distribution.

This activity requires one keeper and 5 field players. One field player starts behind the keeper and the others are 10 yards away with balls. There are 2 cones 15 yards to each side of the keeper.

The first player with the

0 Preventing the Penetrating Pass

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on defensive shape and preventing the penetrating pass.

Start with a 20 x 10 grid just beyond the top of the D. There are three attacking players and two defending players. There is also a keeper in goal.

The three attacking players start with a

2 Juventus v Dortumund - 24-02-2015

HOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett UEFA Champions League February 24, 2015 Juventus Stadium Juventus 2 - 1 Borussia Dortmund Juventus is once again able to breathe in the atmosphere of the Champions League and prepare for the second leg. In or out in two matches, it’s not a League Season that is played

0 Making the Second Save

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on punching and making the second save.

Start with a keeper in goal and 4 players spread around the 18 with balls.

One of the players out wide crosses the ball in and the

1 Playing Out of the Midfield

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on developing play out of the midfield.

Start using half a field with a line 35 yards out. There is a keeper in goal, two attacking players and two defending players in the final quarter and four attacking players and three defending players in the area near midfield.

The attacking team starts with the

4 3v3+3 Possession Game to improve Strength

By Alex Trukan

The following practice is aimed at developing functional football strength. It is a modification of a classical 6v3 possession game which is designed to further develop core strength needed in shielding and protecting the ball situations. It is physically demanding practice which makes the players working using mainly anaerobic energy system. Apart from that, it also challenges their ball control and retention skills under the pressure from the opponent.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise an area of approximately 20x25 yards. Divide the

0 Juventus Compact Defense

By Stevie Grieve

Massimiliano Allegri was appointed Juventus coach in the summer after the departure of Antonio Conte to the Italian National Squad, and has tried to adapt the Conte 5-3-2 formation and solid defensive system, to a more expansive 4-4-2 diamond formation, using the energy or Pogba and Marchisio in central midfield while giving Tevez and new summer recruit Alvaro Morata more freedom of movement by playing a front 2 with an attacking central midfielder giving a central presence behind them.

This has led to success in the Champions League this season, and currently leaves them in an almost untouchable position at the top of Serie A. A large part of this is the coach and team’s ability to alter the 4-4-2 diamond and change to a 5-3-2. In the game v Borussia Dortmund, Andrea Pirlo was unavailable and inside the 1st 20 minutes, Juventus lost exciting midfielder Paul Pogba to injury.

The coach reacted to this by changing to

0 Thiago’s Flexibility to Play Multiple Defensive Shapes

By Stevie Grieve

During the run to winning La Liga in 2014 and reaching the Champions League Final in 2014, Diego Simeone’s well organised team were very flexible in their defensive structure. Normally a team who would play 4-4-2 in attack, they could play defensively in multiple formations; 4-4-2, 4-1-4-1, -4-5-1 and 4-3-3.

To do this from a starting position and stay in these positions and defend in the one shape is fairly easy to coach, but much more difficult is to teach players to understand how to come out of a compact 4-1-4-1 into a high 4-4-2 press and who compensates for the player coming out of line to help the front player, and what the different roles are for the players around the space which is vacated.

Thiago of Atletico de Madrid has been able to demonstrate the flexible positional qualities to understand when to move forward or back, how to shift laterally and cover space, without being exposed between the lines or in the space left to press, such as against Bayer Leverkusen.

Thiago between the lines in a 4-1-4-1

Here, we can see a clear 4-1-4-1 shape for

0 Passing, Receiving and Overlapping Runs

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on passing, receiving and overlapping runs.

Start with an area 30 x 15. There are 2 players on each end and 2 players in the middle. One of the players on an end starts with a ball.

The player with the ball starts by passing to one of the

0 Reactions and Quick Dives

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on reactions and quick dives.

While keepers love the excitement of the extended dive to save the shot hit toward the upper corner, the reality is the tough save is the hard low shot just to the side of the keeper. That hard low shot to the side is difficult to get down in time for, difficult to get the legs out of the way and extremely difficult to hold onto the ball. This series of activities works to prepare the keeper for this situation.

Start with a goal that is 3 yards wide. A keeper is in goal and a server is 5 yards away with balls.

To start the keeper plays a hard ball just to the

0 3 v 1 Possession with Speed and Power Endurance

By Alex Trukan

The presented practice focuses on speed and power endurance. These physical qualities are needed to be able to produce high quality actions throughout the game and especially towards the end of it. This modification of a classical 3v1 possession game is engaging for both attackers and defenders due to often rotations between the roles and high intensity physical work.

Set-Up and Directions

Set up a square of 10 x 10 yards. Divide the team into two groups of three. Attacking three starts outside the square, one player on one side. The second group starts in line next to one of the outside cones. Supply of balls should be organised and ready to use.

The game starts by coach playing the ball in to

0 Switching the Play

By Sean Pearson

Session Length: 90 mins

This session focuses on players recognizing when, where are how to move the ball away from pressure on one side of the field to a point on the other side of the field to attack from. One of my frustrations with players is not seeing the ‘bigger picture’ of the situation in front of them when the space around them is crowded. Players either force the ball further into the ‘scrum’ or if the ball gets passes out or pressure, because of a lack of awareness and incorrect body position the player receiving this ball, plays the next pass back where it has come from. The end result? Usually a loss of possession. So below I talk about when to switch the ball, player movement to help the switch and where to attack from after the switch. The reason I talk about this last point is the point of a switch is to change the point of attack to create a scoring chance, not to just keep possession by going back and forth over and over again.

Warm Up: 10 mins

Use a basic passing warm up to get players moving, receiving, passing and making decision.

• 3 teams passing to only their own team, everybody on two touch. So players have to move to see the ball and make decisions on where and when the ball can be played,
• Players can pass to anyone but if they receive from the same color they keep the ball, if they receive from a different color they must play a one time pass back, but it can’t be in the same direction.

2 Helping Struggling Goalkeepers

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter.  Today’s topic deals with when keepers are struggling.

Too often, when a keeper is struggling the coach thinks the proper response is...work harder.  Unfortunately, that isn’t always the right solution.

The alternative is when a keeper is struggling, go back to the basics.

This is the time to look at the most important parts of the body for catching.  One of the very first articles I wrote for FineSoccer.com was the three most important parts of the body for catching.  16 years later, they are still the

0 Playing Off of the Target Player

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on playing off of the target player.

Start with a target player at the top of the 18, a defender right behind him (and players prepared to take their place) a server 40 yards out and a line of attackers even with the server. The server has balls and there is a keeper in goal.

The server starts by playing a ball into the

2 Ball Challenge 1 v 1 Game

By Alex Trukan

This practice involves high intensity, power and strength work in a ball challenge situation. The demands placed on the players help in developing body capacity to deal with a pressure of a defender when challenging for the ball and receiving it. It also focuses on dealing with man to man marking and movements to receive.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise a square of approximately 10 x 10 yards. Four players should be positioned outside the area, one on each side. Two players start inside the square, one being an attacker and the second one, defender. One of the players outside the square starts with the ball.

On a coach’s signal, inside attacking player attempts to receive the

0 Shot Blocking from Different Angles

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on shotblocking from different angles.

Start with two servers with balls on the 18, each even with a goal post. There is a keeper in goal and another keeper waiting on the side of the goal.

The first server starts by

0 Quick Passing Combinations to Shoot

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on quick passing combinations and shooting.

Start with three players in a triangle just outside the 18. The first player has a ball. There is a line of players outside the triangle with balls waiting to take the first player's spot. There is also a keeper in goal.

The first player passes to the

0 Stopping Bayern’s Positional Play with Man-Man Marking

By Stevie Grieve

Pep Guardiola a main exponent of ‘positional play’ (or ‘Juego de posicion’ in Spanish) and uses a system based on overloads via occupying multiple defenders, occupying specific spaces, creating overloads and spaces to attack into whenever possible, and looking for ways to turn 11v11 into a 2v1 or 3v2 by placing players in areas where a zonal defence can be exploited.

A common feature of this is positioning a player in a pocket of space between the lines and in particular in the channels between wide and central players while between the lines. If a defender comes out of his zone to press, this leaves a gap for another to move into, and often de-stabilizes the defence for a few seconds, which is often exploited and leads to scoring chances.

If a player is unable to receive in any position, often they will only stay there for 2-3 seconds then make another quick run; the position will be interchanged with someone else, and the defenders have the decision – mark or stay in zone. The attackers regularly rotating positions causes confusion and often leads to Bayern overloading 2v1 or even leaving someone 1v0 in a dangerous area against the defensive line.

With the regular movement and occupation of several defenders with 1 or 2 players, this frees up players in defence or midfield to overload, gain control of the centre of the field then force the defence deeper.

Playing against positional play with a zonal defence is a job which requires a well drilled team and have the ability to deal with playing 3v2 or 4v3 in wide zones, but