All Posts by Mike Saif

0 'Numbers' Game to Improve Anaerobic Power

By Alex Trukan

This exercise is focused on improving Anaerobic Power which is required for acceleration and speed qualities. ‘Numbers’ game is appropriate and fun for almost any age group and ability level. Apart from physical area, it also focuses on 1v1/2v2 or 3v3 attacking and defending scenarios. It can be also used to develop skills needed to deal with underload (1v2/2v3) and overload (2v1, 3v2) situations.

Set up and Directions
Set up a pitch of approximately 20x30 yards. Divide a team into two groups of equal numbers. Organise them on each side of the pitch, next to the goal. Each player should have a number. Place one goalkeeper in each goal. Take coaching position as shown on the diagram. Prepare spare balls.

The game starts by coach passing the ball into the playing area and calling a

81 Mikes Accident

PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM MIKE SAIF   Unfortunately I was involved in a serious accident recently.  I want to apologize for things being quiet at WCC.  I explain all in the video and although things have been a little quiet around here, we have big plans for some great new stuff coming real soon.    

0 Bayern Munich's Positioning in Midfield

By Stevie Grieve

Bayern initial set up – 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 hybrid

With Alonso (yellow) screening infront of the defence and playing laterally, this allows Rode (yellow) and Hojbjerg (orange) to be free to drift between the lines and support if Robben or Ribery (Red) stay wide. If they stay wide, Bernat/Rafinha stay deeper and tuck inside as inverted FB’s and help overload centrally to look for forward passes through the defence.

Bayern 4-3-3 with 1v1 zones on the side and inverted full backs

As Robben and Ribery are excellent 1v1 players, staying wide opens up a lot of space in

0 Passing and Dribbling Square

By Alex Trukan

The passing and dribbling square exercise is focused on improving technical skills along with physical capabilities. The main emphasis is placed on aerobic endurance maintenance which serves as a basis to improvement in anaerobic power and capacity. Apart from that, this practice enables the group to develop two different core skills – passing and dribbling. That can be used to suit the needs of individual players.

Set up and Directions
Organise a square as shown on the diagram below (area size depends on the number and characteristics of players). Divide a team into two groups. One group of 4 players takes positions around the square with one ball per group. Every player from the second group needs one ball each and should take starting position inside the square.

The outside group passes the ball to each other in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. Players inside the

0 Decisions When Attacking

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible. Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on attacking with pressure or playing away simple. Start with a 4 v 4 game plus keepers in a 50 x 40 grid with full sized goals (the number of players and size of the field can

1 Dealing with Distraction

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on dealing with distractions.

Start with a keeper in goal, a server 15 yards out and two players in front of the keeper. The server has a few balls.

As the server shoots a ball, the two

0 Crisp Passing and Receiving

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on crisp, hard passes on the ground and receiving the same type of passes.

In a grid 12 x 6 with a midfield line, there are two groups of 2 players. Each group is on one side.

One team starts with a ball and makes a crisp hard pass, on the

3 Lack of Defensive Cover in the Midfield

By Stevie Grieve

In the last few seasons, Arsenal have tried to play a possession and pressing system, but often with massive instability, mainly through Mikel Arteta’s bad decision making at the bottom of the midfield triangle when deciding to press (and often foul) or drop off.

As he was always more of a controlling central midfielder than a deep playmaker in the #6 position, adjusting to this position in an attacking sense has been a lot easier than the defensive aspects needed for the role, such as pressing, covering, screening passes into strikers, tracking runners and offering protection to centre backs.

In the recent game against Manchester United, the lack of stability in the Arsenal midfield out of possession was again evident, particularly when pressing, and often with no stability around or behind the pressing zone.

Example; Rooney’s goal for 2-0 in the 86th minute

In this image, the ball is rebounded to the central midfielder. Above the dotted line, there is only 1 player able to confront the ball carrier and delay play, and not from a weak side position. This dictates that

0 Catching and Footwork

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Todays featured activity is a simple drill that works on catching and footwork.

Start with two keepers facing each other from 5 yards apart. Each keeper has a ball in his hands.

Each keeper tosses the ball, underhand, slightly to

0 Circle Race

By Alex Trukan

The presented practice can be used across all age groups as a fun game as well as conditioning exercise. The main focus is on developing speed and agility when dribbling with the ball.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise eight cones in a circle and set min. 2 players on each cone. Every player needs a ball. The dimensions of the circle will depend on group characteristics. Each group has to have a designated number.

On the coach’s signal, a player from the first group called becomes an attacker and a

1 Bayern Munich v Frankfurt-08-11-2014

HOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett Bundesliga November 8, 2014 Commerzbank-Arena; Frankfurt Bayern Munich 4 v 0 Frankfurt Bayern Munich went for the jugular when they faced Frankfurt. Frankfurt tried to keep up the pace with aggressive pressing, but the Eagles had their wings sliced off, as they were caught ball watching excessively often and

0 Attacking in Numbers Up Situations

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on attacking in numbers up situations.

Start with a 20 x 20 field with two full goals and a keeper in each goal. There should be a midfield line.

In one half is a 2 v 2 matchup and the

0 Reacting to Runs in the Box

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on reacting to runs in the box.

Start with a keeper in goal, a player on the end line at the corner of the 18 and two players ready to make runs.

The players start their runs and the player on the

0 Creativity to Create Goalscoring Chance

By Stevie Grieve

One element in tactical development is the ability of players to do the unexpected to open up scoring chances. Tactics allow for the team to have a structured playing style which leads into a game process to find a way to win a game, but often a game is won by players in attacking areas making a chance to score from a piece of inspired play, often in tight situations.

Origi creates a chance for Chadli

De Bruyne dribbles inside to look for a diagonal pass into the feet of a player between the lines or into the

0 Changes of Direction and Anaerobic Power

By Alex Trukan

This exercise is focused on improving speed of acceleration and change of direction in a dribbling scenario. That will help players to produce better quality dribbling and 1v1 duels in the match. Competition between two teams in this practice keeps players engaged and motivated.

Set Up and Directions
Set up four gates and starting positions as shown on the diagram. Divide the players into two groups and organise them on the opposite cones. Every player needs a ball. First two players step forwards and stand in between two cones, facing each other. One of the player is a “leader”, second one follows.

A “leading” player, starts dribbling and changing direction in between two cones. There should be a

0 Lyon v AC Marseille-26-10-2014

HOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett Legue 1 October 26, 2014 Municipal de Gerland; Lyon Lyon 1 v 0 Marseille With a goal from Gourcuff midway through the second half, Olympique Lyonnais ended their run of eight consecutive defeats at the hands of Olympique Marseille. Here is what I thought were the key tactical aspects

0 Reaction Speed and Finishing

By Alex Trukan

The reaction speed and finishing exercise is designed to improve the time needed to accelerate, change direction and win a 1v1 duel. In addition to that, there is an engaging element of finishing and competitiveness, what makes the practice enjoyable and motivating.

Set Up and Directions
Set up two triangles as shown on the diagram. Divide the team into two groups and organise players between the two cones on the edge of the penalty area. Goalkeeper should be ready in the goal, and coach should be on the opposite side, with min. of 5 balls. Players shuffle between two cones and wait for the signal from the coach.

As the players move between two cones with the back to the goal, a coach plays

0 Passing, Receiving, Quick Turns 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, receiving, quick turns and movement off the ball.

Start with 2 lines of players 20 yards apart and one player in the middle. A ball starts with the first player in one of the lines.

The player with the ball passes to the player in the

0 Protecting the Posts on Corner Kicks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s topic deals with protecting the posts on corner kicks.

When watching many professional teams defending corner kicks we see one, or both, posts left unprotected. Without looking at the data but rather using general observation, it also seems there are a lot more goals being scored on corner kicks. One might say this is because of better services, better attacking players etc. but I have a hard time believing this isn’t partly due to lack of players on the posts.

My suggestion, especially at the youth level, is to have a player on each post.

It’s not good enough to just have a player on each post, they also need to know how to position themselves.

Too often I see players on posts with their entire bodies facing the corner.

There are a couple of problems with the players lining up this way. The first one is the player at the near post tends to

0 Arsenal's Terrible Defending v Anderlecht

By Stevie Grieve

Arsenal have been notoriously bad defensively for several years, but this looked to be changing in the past 18 months, Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker becoming a solid partnership at the back as both players strengths complement each other’s weaknesses. In this game v Anderlecht, recognised 2nd choice left full back Nacho Monreal played at Centre Back with Per Mertesacker, in what was always destined to be a horror pairing, and so it turned out to be.

From the 1st whistle, neither player looked comfortable with the pairing, and in the 1st half, Anderlecht could’ve easily scored 3 goals, while Arsenal tore into a 2-0 HT lead.

In the 2nd half, Arsenal made it 3 through some

3 Juventus v AC Milan-09-20-2014

HOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett Serie A League Game September 20, 2014 San Siro Stadium, Milan Juventus 1 v 0 AC Milan After two wins in as many days, the "new" AC Milan failed to pass their first real test of the season at home against Juventus. Facing the Italian triple champions,

0 Distribution with the Feet

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on distribution with the feet.

Start with a keeper in goal, a server 30 yards out (with balls), a line of players even with the server and a player out wide on each side.

The server plays a ball back to the

0 Bayern Pressing and Direct Attacking

By Stevie Grieve

Bayern Munich under Guardiola have changed significantly since the treble winning team under Jupp Heynckes, but one thing which has returned this season is the direct passes over the top of a defence in attacking transition. This was an aspect missing last season but with Xabi Alonso, David Alaba, Xherdan Shaquiri able to play accurate passes over 40m, and players able to run behind a defence in Robert Lewandowski, Arjen Robben and Mario Goetze, they have the ability to do so.

Pressing results in regain and instant forward pass resulting in a goal

As Bayern press from the front, Bayern like to make play predictable. Here they leave the pass to the full back available but as the CB is under pressure, both CM’s turn and move away to recover the expected loose ball. Instead, the CB recognises the offered pass, but makes a bad decision to pass short into the Bayern press.

Shaquiri is in position to treble up with any of Robben and Lahm or Lahm and Alonso for any

0 Anaerobic Endurance Circuit

By Alex Trukan

This circuit is focused on improving anaerobic endurance – the ability of a body to produce high quality actions throughout the whole match. The organisation of the practice is rotational. Players are constantly involved and rotate between different exercises in a circuit. All of the exercises should be football specific and if needed, adapted to the needs of the team.

Set up and Directions

Organise four cones and four exercise stations between them as shown in the diagram. In this example, there are following exercises: dribbling square, ladder, shooting, sprinting slalom with one-touch passing. On each of the four cones, there should be a minimum of 2 players. Rotation can be in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. It is crucial that all exercises are performed with a maximal effort. Between each station, players should jog in a slow tempo.

On the coach’s signal, one player from each group starts the practice on each station. Following instructions apply to each exercise:

1. Dribbling square: a player dribbles to each of the four cones and touches them. Player has to return to the middle of the square before dribbling to the next cone.
2. Ladder: different combinations of quick feet and sprinting work.
3. Shooting: a player starts on the red cone, runs to one of the balls, shoots and comes back to the red cone before running on to the second ball and shooting on goal.
4. Sprinting slalom and one touch pass: a player performs a slalom between the flags and then passes the ball back to the coach using one touch.