All Posts by Mike Saif

0 Quick Combinations and Shooting

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

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

Start with two groups of players. Three players in each group start in triangles outside the 18. In the example below, players 1, 2 and 3 make a group and players 4, 5 and 6 make the second group. There is a keeper in goal and extra players for each group.

Player 1 starts with a ball and makes a quick pass to

0 Small-Sided Game For Goalkeeping

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a small sided game that will help with short penetrating passes from the keeper.

This game is on a 40 x 30 grid with full sized goals and a keeper in each goal. There are two field players on each team and one neutral player who is always on the attacking team.

One keeper starts with the ball. One of the easiest thing to do is for the keeper to

1 Tactical Analysis: Borussia Dortmund’s Counter Attacking – Part Three

By Stevie Grieve, author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1 and Attacking in the 4-2-3-1.  Part One can be seen here and Part Two here.  Part Four will be posted next week.

Dortmund Counter-Attack and score from the Low-Block Defensive System

Dortmund have 2 clear lines of 4 with Mkhitaryan supporting the pressure. The pass is forced into the 4v1 scenario on the edge of the box (it was 1v1 when the ball was passed), and now Dortmund are

1 Explosive Agility into 2v1

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise focuses on explosive agility before attacking in a 2v1 situation. Explosive agility, speed and power are key aspects of the top soccer players games. This exercise will help you to develop explosiveness in a high tempo situation.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below, showing the coach with a ball. There are two attackers in black and one defender in yellow.

Play begins on the coach’s call and all players perform agility before they can receive the ball. The defender must

0 Full Sided Game For Conditioning and Corner Kicks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured is a full sided game emphasizing conditioning and corner kicks.

Start with a full sized field with keepers and each goal. Ideally you would play 11 v 11 but if you have less players use what you have. The only unusual thing is you want to have a few balls in each of the 4 corners.

This is a normal scrimmage with one major exception. Any time a ball goes out of play, the opposing team

0 Two Fisted Punch Saves

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on two fisted punches and then quick recoveries.

Start with a keeper in goal, a server 40 yards out and a second server 25 yards out. Both servers have balls.

The far server starts by lofting a high ball in to come down around the 12 yard spot (if they can’t consistently

0 Tactical Analysis: Borussia Dortmund’s Counter Attacking – Part Two

By Stevie Grieve, author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1 and Attacking in the 4-2-3-1.  Part One can be seen here.  Part Three will be posted next week.

Dortmund Scoring Chance

Dortmund have just regained possession, and try to attack quickly. Sahin teases a pass into Bender and Reus, tempting pressure from

0 Reaction time, Agility and 1v1s

By Jebreel Bubtana

This is a great exercise to work on your players reactions, endurance, agility and quickness, which are very important components for soccer players in order to get to a loose ball first.

Set up and directions:

Set up your field as shown below in figure 1. Split your players into two teams (you can set multiple fields up like this so that there is not much waiting time between goes) and they start behind the goal that they are defending. Mini goals or pugg goals are great for this exercise. To their right is a line of discs with a gate in front and to their left is a ladder with a gate in front. The coach will start with the balls in the middle of the area to one side.

The next part you can do a number of ways but I will give you an example. When the coach

0 Receiving the Ball Under Pressure

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on receiving balls under pressure and passing away from pressure.

Start with 3 players in a 20 x 20 grid with a ball.

The black player starts with the ball and passes to

0 Making a Save When Screened

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on diving, shot blocking and reactions when screened.

Start with 4 keepers in a line 1 yard apart and a server 10 yards from the front keeper with balls. Each keeper is assigned a number.

The server starts by calling a number and then playing a ball on the ground to the

2 Tactical Analysis: Borussia Dortmund’s Counter Attacking - Part One

By Stevie Grieve, author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1 and Attacking in the 4-2-3-1.

One of Borussia Dortmund’s main strengths comes from the speed of which they attack, and the fluidity of the movement of the players in the front 4, a choice of either Blaszczkovski or Aubameyang, with Mkhitaryan, Reus and Lewandowski. All of these players have explosive pace, especially Aubameyang.

They have an interesting mix of attackers; Lewandowski brings old fashioned target man ability while having the combination play of a midfielder. Mkhitaryan brings balance to the attack as he fills in and opens up space well while combining with the midfield and providing a consistently good final ball, while Reus brings flair and penetration with runs from deep. Aubameyang offers penetration behind the defensive line as he likes to play high (similar to Walcott at Arsenal), while Kuba is the most defensive minded of the group, and is a vital part of the team balance – he will play deeper as Reus moves forward to play ahead of Lewandowski.

Borussia Dortmund have also perfected the art of ‘Counter-Pressing’ where the team press the ball after losing it, to win it back within 6 seconds, to ‘counter counter-attack’ and the speed of transition is a major way that they score goals.

Dortmund Mid-Block Positioning – Ball with full back or wide positioned center back.

Dortmund like to force play to one side, then ‘trap the opponent into passing into a specific opponent either on the

4 First Touch Whilst Working on Aerobic Endurance

By Jebreel Bubtana

This exercise will work on your player’s first touch into space and give and goes, which along with short sprints will work on your player’s aerobic endurance.

Set up and directions:

Set up the field as shown in figure 1 with a 15x15 yard square, 3 players and 1 ball.

The player with the ball passes to their teammate in front of them and follow their pass. The player receiving the ball now takes

1 Conditioned Passing Game

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured game is a regular scrimmage with an emphasis on passing

Depending upon the number of players available this can be a full field game (11 v 11) or smaller if less numbers are available. Play with full sized goals (or if keepers aren’t available play with small goals).

All regular rules apply and the only difference with this game and a normal game is the scoring.

A “negative” pass counts as 1 point. This would be a pass made away from the goal you are attacking. In this case, negative means away from and NOT bad.

A “neutral” pass in the defensive half of the field counts as

0 Moving Forward On Dives

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on coming forward on dives.

Set up 2 goals (using cones) 4 yards apart. A keeper is in the middle of the 2 cones and servers are 10 yards from each goal with balls.

A server starts by playing a ball toward the

1 Progressive Soccer Training - One Grid - MORPHING

This is the Introduction to our new book, Progressive Soccer Training in Grids by Dan Minutillo and Rich Rafloski

INTRODUCTION

Too much time is wasted by a coach or staff setting up grid after grid before and during a training session to accommodate different exercises to be accomplished by a soccer team during the session. Morphing during soccer training allows a coach to set up just one grid with very minor modifications for an entire session, changing only the exercises during the session but not usually changing the grid size or shape. This is done by maintaining the same grid for an entire training session (except for the usual scrimmage at the end of the session) re-configuring players, adding target players, adding neutral players, adding wide players or moving goals in and about the grid, allowing variations in exercises by this reconfiguration based on a singular training theme during the session.

To add value to this book, soccer training themes are discussed, one theme per chapter, with the elements of that training theme broken down in detail and analyzed to help the novice or expert coach recognize those elements during the training session. Each technical and tactical training theme is explained in detail. Four small sided games per theme per chapter are provided and described in detail, including

1 Conditioning With a Finishing Circuit

By Daniel Severn

This week we have an easy to set up, fun, but hard working exercise. This exercise works well using 7+ players. This game involves tons of shooting so it is always easy to get the player motivated and on your side straight away for this one. It is a very rich exercise as we see shots from different angles in situations. One v Ones, Long Range Shooting and Crossing and Finishing are all included in this exercise.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. Three lines of players are set up as shown in the diagram below. As we see in the picture, left to right, we have the One v One line, the Long Range Shooting line and the Crossing and Finishing line.

Play begins with our first player running in a one versus one with the goalkeeper. While player one attempts the one v one, player two is

0 Stance and Balance for Individual Defending

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today's featured activity works on defensive stance and individual balance while defending.

Coaches frequently talk about defensive stance and the need to stay low, balanced etc. The thing that frequently gets neglected is the approach and how the defender should get from running toward the attacker to the good balanced stance. This activity will work on this important part of defending.

Start with a group of attackers near the midfield line, a group of defenders on the end line, a keeper in goal and a server out wide with some balls.

The server starts by passing a

0 Positioning and Shot Blocking

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today's featured activity works on positioning and shot blocking

Too often keepers are working on cutting off angles on stationary balls. While this is a good way to start to understand the concept it's quite limiting in that it's not the way most positioning is done in a real game.

Start with a keeper in goal, a server 30 yards out with balls, and a line of attackers on each side of the server.

The server starts by passing the ball in front

1 Recovering Back to Goal to Make a Save

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Todays featured activity works on recovering back to goal to make a save.

Most of the time keepers work on shot blocking with the assumption they are starting in a proper position. The reality is keepers occasionally do get caught out of position and this activity works on that situation.

Start with a keeper in goal, a server at the 12 yard spot and a few balls at the far corners of the 6 yard box.

The keeper sprints out to one of the balls and

0 Decision Making and Turning

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on turning and the decision making on how to turn.

Start with a keeper in goal, a server 45 yards out with balls and a target player starts at the top of the D. There are other players waiting to take the place of the target player.

The target player checks away and then

0 The Formation of the Future - Part Three

By Stevie Grieve author of, Attacking in the 4-2-3-1  (Read Part One here and Part Two here)

We have also seen Real Madrid over the last 12 months being able to stop Barcelona in La Liga, and win in the Nou Camp, and Bayern Munich destroy Barcelona 7-0 over 2 legs in the Champions League semi-final, that a totally possession based game can be beaten if you set ‘traps’ for the possession team, and win the ball when they enter specific areas of the field. Once the ball is won, the counter attacking team can then exploit the fact that they defend deeper and have more space to play in on the counter attack behind the defense and between the lines to build the attack quickly.

The trap is set by, for example, showing a certain space and leaving it open for an opponent to move into, and when the pass or dribble is made into that zone, the defense quickly ‘flood’ the zone with players, forcing a turnover of possession via an overload. From the trap, 3 or 4 player will know where and when to run, where the ball will be played and attack quickly to the opposition goal.

If we look at Borussia Dortmund, they have bought wisely in the past 2-3 years to ensure they can perform this style effectively – they have a solid back 4 in Piszczek, Hummels, Subotic and Schemmel, with 2 very effective

0 Pass Combination with Sprints

By Daniel Severn

This week we have an easy to set up, fun, but hard working exercise. This exercise works well with groups of either five or six players.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. The exercise runs with a simple passing combination running around the outside of the marked square (around 10-15 yards each side). Ensure to have 2 or more players at the starting cone and only 1 player per spare cone, as shown.

The ball will be passed around the area in an anti-clockwise rotation. The players must sprint to the

0 2v1 Small-Sided Games

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity involves a series of 2 v1 attacks working on possession, penetration and scoring.

Start with a 10 x 40 grid broken into fourths. There is a 3 yard wide goal on each line (except where the attackers will start) and a defender in each goal.

The first two attackers start with a ball and as soon as they enter the grid, the defender can

1 Checking and First Touch Exercise

Jebreel Bubtana

This technical warm up works on movement to create space away from a defender (checking) and first touch at various heights.

Set up the field as shown below in figure 1.

The player without the ball will sprint to the disc on the right (check to the disc) to start the exercise. As soon as they as they