All Posts by Mike Saif

0 Passing Combinations in Threes

By Alex Trukan

This continuous passing pattern exercise is an engaging way to develop anaerobic endurance along with technical skills of passing. It is especially suitable for medium and advanced level players as in order to achieve physical objectives, it requires constant concentration and high intensity technical work. Once the players learned the rhythm of the practice, it is highly effective method of achieving specific fitness goals.

Set-Up and Directions

Set up four cones 10-15 yards apart and one in the middle. Organise three players as shown on the diagram below. One player on a bottom left cone has a ball. For a larger groups of players, organise separate squares to work in.

The exercise starts with a bottom left player passing the

2 Receiving that Ball Under Pressure

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on hard passes, applying high pressure and receiving a ball under pressure and beating a defender.

Start with a 40 x 20 grid with a line 15 yards from one of the end line. There is a player on each end line and the one closest to the line in the middle has a ball.

The player with the ball drives a

0 Quick Movement, Balance and Catching

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on quick movement, balance, and catching.

Start with a keeper standing in a 6 x 6 square. Each corner is numbered 1-4. There is a server 10 yards away with a ball.

The server calls a number and the keeper must

2 Developing Defenders with Patience

By Sean Pearson

Session Length: 90 mins

A lot of sessions focus on defending when players are dribbling the ball towards the defenders. I can’t remember seeing a session that focuses on defending players with their back to goal. This is an extremely important part of defending, because if done right will frustrate the opposition, slow down the opposition’s attacks and make them predictable. A lot of what I will cover will be counter intuitive to your players as they will want to lunge, kick and pursue the ball but is important not to let them do any of this and to be patient to know when and where they can win the ball.

Warm-Up Time: 10 mins

To warm up the specific muscles used heavily in

1 Supporting the Striker

Small-Sided Game - Supporting the Striker By Sean Pearson Area: 45x30yards Players: 10 Teams: 2 Length: 20-25mins This game has 3 zones. 2 end zones (10x30) and a middle zone (25x30). 1 striker and 1 defender allowed in each end zone and the defender must stay behind the striker. Everyone else in the middle zone. Each

0 Positioning for the Long Shot

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Todays featured activity works on positioning, reading the game and saving long shots.

Start with a 20 x 44 grid just outside the 18. There are three groups of 3 and a keeper in goal.

Two teams are on offense (in this case the

0 Warm-Up for Combination Play

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a warm up for combination play with a little bit of pressure.

There are two groups of four in a 20 x 20 grid with two balls. To start I’ll show this with only one group. Two players are on end lines and the other two are in the middle. The ball starts with one of the outside players.

The player on the outside starts by

0 Anaerobic Power Circuit with 1 v 1's

By Alex Trukan

This circuit exercise is focused on improving quality of football actions as well as technical and tactical aspects of 1v1 situations. From a physical perspective, it helps to develop speed and strength in order to make players more explosive and sharper. That can be especially used in short sprinting duels which happen all over the pitch.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise three hurdles and a coordination ladder as shown on the diagram below, place one cone in front of the hurdles, one in between hurdles and a ladder, and a third one next to the ladder. Distance between the cones should allow 10 second break between the work on the ‘stations’. Set one group of players with one ball each behind the first cone. Organise goalkeeper in goal and one

0 Penetrating Through the Lines

By Sean Pearson

This session is purposely detailed to give you, the coach, as much information on why, where and how specific things should happen.

Session Length: 1hr 30mins

Warm-Up Time: 10mins

• In pairs pass through gates. Make sure the pair are 10-15 yards apart when passing.
• Player A passes ball the player B, B takes ball and dribbles, player A finds a new gate, player B passes to player A’s feet through the gate.
• After the players have been going for a minute, introduce body position and receiving on the back foot. Explain how the receiver should have their shoulder facing the ball, NOT the chest. The reason is because, when the chest is facing the ball, every first touch is back in that direction. When your shoulder points to the ball, this opens up the body to a sideways stance and naturally the instep of the back foot (which is the foot furthest from the ball) is now at a different angle and will push the ball forwards, in front of you but at a different angle. Later we will see why this is important.
• Make players aware that it is not just good enough to stand sideways and face the side of the field but the must face in field to see as much as they possibly can. This may mean turning 180 degrees to be in the correct position. You will see players cheat and receive on their front foot because they are being lazy, do not let this happen and reinforce correct body shape.
• Explain that their first touch must not stop the ball underneath them, so their head goes down to see the ball for their second touch, but it should be pushed in front of them so they can make a decision with their second touch.
• Move on to receiving the ball on the move. Here player A passes the ball into the space beyond the gate for player B who is at the side of the gate and can run onto the pass. Again it is important to have your shoulder facing the direction of the passer, to turn your body and receive on your back foot in order to go forwards with your next touch.

1 Wolfsburg v Bayern Munich - 30-01-2015

HOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett Bundesliga January 30, 2015 Volkswagen Arena Wolfsburg 4 - 1 Bayern Munich The 4-1 victory of Wolfsburg over Bayern Munich came from two sources: Wolfsburg’s sharp teeth and Bayern’s ability to bite itself. Bavarian losses are rare and they always warrant an explanation. This time the defeat was

0 4 v 4 + 3 Transition Game

By Alex Trukan

The 4 v 4 + 3 transition game can be used as a tool to develop not only technical aspects but also tactical and physical ones. From the fitness perspective, it focuses on improving Anaerobic Endurance which is responsible for maintaining high quantity of actions throughout the whole match due to quicker recovery between high intensity efforts. In addition to that, from a tactical point of view, this exercise places high demands on players to make quick transitions from attack to defence and vice versa.

Set-Up and Directions
Organise an area of approximately 20x30 yards. Divide the team into two groups of 4 players and additional group of 3 neutrals. One team of 4 players stays outside the square, second group of 4 is defending inside the

0 Scrambling to Make the Save

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on scrambling to make the save.

This activity is designed to work on when the keeper has been caught out of position (possibly because of having made a save and then given up a rebound).

Start with two goals, three yards wide that are six yards apart. There is one keeper and two servers with balls 10 yards from the goals.

One server starts by

2 Quick Counter Attacks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

This activity uses half a field, three attacking players, five defending players and one target player at midfield for the defending team. There is also a keeper in goal.

The attacking team starts with the ball and tries to score. The defending team tries to

10 Messi’s New Position at Barcelona

By Stevie Grieve

Despite the criticism of Luis Enrique this season, he has made an improvement on the work by Tata Martino last season, by re-introducing a pressing game and adding an aggressive offside trap, while finding a way to play the front 3 of Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi and Neymar. Earlier in the season, Luis Suarez and Messi failed to connect with enough regularity so Enrique had to find a solution; change Messi from being the false 9 and instead play Messi in a right sided free role with Suarez central.

Obviously, having Messi on the side and not in the centre would make him less effective, so to allow him to drift inside and have Suarez occupy several defenders, there has been a newly formed right sided triangle created with the occupation of the wide zone rotating between Messi and Rakitic, with Alves playing slightly deeper due to his declining physical prowess.

Normally, we will see Ivan Rakitic as the right sided central midfielder, with Messi as a

0 Barcelona v Ajax -21-10-2014

HOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett Champions League October 21, 2014  Camp Nou Barcelona 3 v 1 Ajax With over five decades of shared history between the two sides embedded with legendary figures such as Johan Cruyff and Rinus Michels, Ajax and Barcelona are two teams that have gone on opposite trajectories over

1 Member Drills Database Improvement Feb 2015

THE NEW AND IMPROVED MEMBER DRILLS DATABASE   Well, we asked for your ideas and feedback on the Member Drills Database and you certainly let us know with more responses than we ever imagined. You came up with lots of good ideas. Thank you so much. Check out the video below for all the exciting

0 Marseille under Bielsa - Attacking from Wide

By Stevie Grieve

Marcelo Bielsa is a coach who many of the great coaches have studied methods from, coaches like Pep Guardiola among many others have credited Marcelo Bielsa with provoking the way they think about the game and implement many of his ideas into their own teams. One of Bielsa’s trademarks in his traditional 3-3-1-3 /3-4-3 diamond formation was attacking wingbacks or full backs. This strategy has had to be adapted to be successful in Europe however, and he has adapted a 4-2-3-1 or flexible 4-3-3 hybrid formation with a player dropping between the CB’s to build up play, with a massive emphasis on using the pace and attacking instincts of Djadjedje down the right with Thauvin, while Pierre-Andre Gignac play almost as a left forward – playing on the far side to attack crosses.

When they attack from wide areas, they like to play 2v1 against the full back, with at least 3 and normally 4 or 5 inside the box, positioned within 3 key zones, and often looking for loose balls from other positions inside the

0 Diving with a Quick Change of Direction

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on diving with a quick change of direction.

Start with a horizontal line of 6 cones, 2 feet apart. A keeper starts on one end of the line and a server is 10 yards away with a ball.

The keeper starts by sprinting behind the cones to get to the

0 Passing and Movement off the Ball

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on passing and movement off the ball.

This is a simple diamond passing activity. One player starts by himself, 3 players are opposite him, 15 yards away and there are cones on each side, 10 yards apart.. The first player in the line of 3 has a ball.

The player with the ball passes to the

0 Overload Switching Play Game

By Alex Trukan

This exercise is focused on improving aerobic power as well as tactical content of switching play. From conditioning perspective, the practice will help players to recover quicker and sustain the quantity of actions throughout the whole game. Apart from that, players will learn how and when to switch the point of attack (team in possession) as well as how to defend as a compact block when overloaded by the opponent (defending team).

Set-Up and directions

Organise a pitch of approximately 50x25 yards with two goals on each end in the corners. Divide the team into two groups, one of which should have one player more than the other. There are no goalkeepers but the goal can only be scored from one-touch finish on the attacking half. The team that has more players starts every time from the own half. After set period of time, the roles can be rotated.

Having less players then the opposition and defending goals in wide areas will force the

0 Mainz 05 v Bayern Munich - 19-12-2014

HOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett Bundesliga December 19, 2014  Coface Arena Mainz 05 1 v 2 Bayern Munich Bayern Munich may well have put out their weakest showing to date against Mainz. They were uninspiring when on the attack and at times lacking coverage defensively. Let us see if we can single

0 Creating and Capitalizing on Finishing Opportunities

Training Activities for players U14 and above By Chris Kouns These activities are designed to help your players not only get repetitions in terms of some of the technical aspects of finishing, but, to also create an environment for them when they can hone their “Finishing Mentality” Activity 1: 3v1 / 3v1 + GK’s Field

0 Turning, Shielding and Taking Players On

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on turning with the ball, shielding and taking players on.

Start with groups of 2’s with a 30 x 10 field for each group and a small goal on each endline. There is one ball per group.

This is a simple 1 v 1 game with an

0 2 v 2 Game with Extras

By Alex Trukan

The 2v2+2 practice on two goals focuses on developing Anaerobic Endurance in a game scenario. From a physical point of view it helps to sustain high intensity actions throughout the whole match what can be crucial element especially in the last minutes of the game. As all the players are active and involved in the game, it is very engaging practice for almost every age group.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise a pitch of 25x35 yards with a goal on each end. Divide the pitch into two halves. One goalkeeper should be starting in each goal. Divide the group into two teams of four. Two players from each team should be inside the area and two of them outside on the opposite sides as shown on the diagram below. The game starts from the goalkeeper.

The aim of two players in the middle is to score in the