All Posts by Mike Saif

1 Chelsea’s Midfield Rotations

By Stevie Grieve. The complete article can be found in the February issue of the WORLD CLASS COACHING Magazine in the Member Drills Database.

Jose Mourinho has had unparalleled success since 2004, he has won every possible trophy domestically in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain, while winning the Champions League twice in this period. His teams are always defensively strong, have a very organised system to deal with defensive transitions and are always incredibly dangerous on the counter-attack.

One aspect of Jose Mourinho’s teams that don’t get the praise they deserve, is the fluid attacking play that he gets from his teams, and this Chelsea team have some great players which allow for a fluid and attractive style of play, but the Mourinho defensive transition is always an element to look for, which explains why Juan Mata is being left out of the team in favour of Willian.

Chelsea Movements – Lopsided 4-2-3-1 – higher on the side that Hazard plays in

Blue; Back 4. Black; Mid 2. Yellow; Mid 3. Red; Striker

Left side (3 + 11 controls the movements); When Ashley Cole plays at 3, he will overlap and give Hazard more

5 Functional Speed Development

By Ioakim Ioakim

This is an amazing exercise to improve the players speed in all of its forms (reaction speed, maximum speed, speed endurance, fast decision making and finishing. It is fun and they will love it.

Set up and instructions
Create a 20x10 meters area and place 8 colourful cones on the side lines every 5 meters (use max 4 colours) next to each cone place a ball. Place two goal posts and the players standing on the side of them, you, as a coach pick a spot that you can monitor the exercise best (Figure 1).

The exercise starts when the coach shouts a colour, then the attacking player runs for the ball that is placed next to that cone. At the same moment the defender

0 Working Angles for Shot Blocking

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on shot blocking and adjusting angles.

Start with a keeper in goal and 5 balls lined up toward each of the sides of the 18. A server starts by one of the balls. The balls are approximately 3 yards apart.

The server starts by stepping toward the near ball and the keeper steps out to

0 One-Touch Passing and Agility

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on one touch passing and agility.

Start with the player at a cone and 4 cones in a horizontal line 5 yards in front. There is a server, with a ball, 10 yards from the line of cones.

The player starts by sprinting to the first cone, and as soon as he gets there

0 Small Group Training For Attacking

This is an excerpt from the chapter "Dueling: 1v1 Play" of our new book by Tony Englund, Competitive Small Group Training

1 vs. 1 to Goal Point of Service - 1/3 field
Here player 1 checks to get service from any of the perimeter players and tries to beat the defender 2 and finish. Encourage the defender to play aggressively and to try to intercept service where possible and if the attacker does receive the ball, to deny the turn and shot. The attacker should be deceptive, showing to one side and then sharply changing directions and demanding service from another point. The middle pairing should be changed after one minute so that players are playing at speed throughout.

Variations

• Serves are thrown or chipped in to
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1 Griffith Technical Fitness Ladder

By Keith Scarlett

This exercise is a great way to have your players put in some quality fitness work while also garnering a large number of touches on the ball at the same time. All team members can take part in this activity at the same-time. This is a fast paced and high intensity activity that will put a tremendous amount of strain on your player’s bodies and thus is recommended that it only be done twice a week maximum and also allowing at least 48 hours to elapse between each time this activity is run. This activity will help develop players’ fitness base; ability to change both pace and direction; acceleration and speed while moving forward, backward and lateral both with and without the ball. It will also help develop tight touches, handling the ball in tight spaces, turning with the ball, running with the ball at speed and control of the ball during acceleration and deceleration.

Set-Up and Directions
This exercise is set-up as shown below with all players beginning behind the start cone. There are two rows of cones; one straight in front of the starting cone and a second 10 metres to the right of the first row. Each row should have no more than 10 total cones each (include the start cone in the total count of 10) and each cone should be spaced 10 metres apart from each other. The first cone in the second row should be placed 5 metres in from where the first cone would normally lie so each proceeding cone in that line would form a zig-zag formation, per the diagram, when spaced 10 metres apart from the first.

The first player takes off and accelerates to a full-sprint for the first 10 metres before reaching the first cone where they now must

0 Head Positioning on Low Shots

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s topic deals with keeping your head down on low balls.

You would think that low balls right at the keeper would be some of the easiest saves to make. One of the biggest mistakes made on these low balls is the lifting of the head just before the ball arrives.

The thing keepers must keep in mind is when they lift their heads their hands rise as well.

Ideally the keeper wants to have his hands below the ball as it

1 Foot Skills with Short Sprints

By Jebreel Bubtana

The exercise below will work on your players’ foot skills and aerobic endurance.

Set up and directions:

Set up the field as shown below with a 20x20 yard square in the middle and a bigger square on the outside. All but two of the players on your team will have a ball (figure 1).

The players with a ball will dribble around the 20x20 square whilst the two players without a ball

0 Being Aggressive On Lofted Balls

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible. Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on being aggressive on lofted balls. Recently I have seen too many keepers come out for high balls and be tentative, or even soft, when trying to win the ball. In this activity there is a keeper in

0 Tottenham's New System of Play

By Michele Tossani

Tim Sherwood has been appointed as André Villas-Boas's permanent successor at Tottenham Hotspur by the chairman Daniel Levy after he signed an 18-month contract. A Premier League victory at Southampton, his ambition and his attitude was enough to be named as permanent manager. It is unclear whether Sherwood will remain effectively the Tottenham manager through the 2014-15 season but the deal make him more sure about it. Sherwood’s coaching staff includes Chris Ramsey, Les Ferdinand and Steffen Freund. Sherwood already tried to put his mark on his side, trying to develop an attacking 4-2-4 featuring two centre-forwards and two attack-minded wide midfielders adding the playmaker Christian Eriksen and Mousa Dembélé as central midfielders.

So an offensive shape made Spurs able to create a high number of goal scoring chances although it left them exposed to oppositions counterattacks. Sherwood seems to rely on

0 Defensive Shifting

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on Defensive shifting

Start with a keeper in goal, four defenders across the back and two center midfielders.

The attacking team has a center midfielder who initiates the play, two forwards

3 Passing Combinations and Aerobic Fitness

By Jebreel Bubtana

The following exercise and progression will work on your player’s aerobic fitness whilst using a ball. It is important to incorporate the ball into fitness exercises, as this will ensure that your players are working on their technique as well as their fitness during exercises.

Set up the field as shown below in figure 1 in a 30x30 yard area. Depending on the age of your team, you can make the area smaller. The gates made by the discs are 5 yards apart. You will also need to split your team into four groups, with each group having one ball.

The idea with this exercise is that all 4 groups link together with passing in an anti clockwise direction. The exercise starts with the player who is

0 Functional Game For Crossing and Finishing

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a 2 v 1 situation out wide playing into a 3 v 2 in the box.

Start with an outside midfielder near the touch line and a central midfielder with the ball. There are 3 attacking players at the edge of the box and two defenders in the box. A keeper is in goal.

The play starts with a pass from the central midfielder to

0 Explosiveness, Fitness and Diving For Goalkeepers

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on explosiveness, fitness and diving.

Start with 3 hurdles in a line, one yard apart (the height can vary based on the size of the keepers and what you have available). A keeper starts behind the first hurdle and a server is 10 yards in front of the last hurdle with some balls.

The keeper jumps off of both feet and goes over the first hurdle and then quickly

4 Tactical 4-3-3 Exercise

This post is part of the "Tactical Exercises" chapter for our Training Sessions for the 4-3-3 book.

TACTICAL EXERCISES – 1

Development:

• 6 to 8 players.
• Two teams of 3 or 4 players (3x3 or 4x4) in a reduced field of dimensions of 15x15 meters.
• Each team will have two smaller goals to defend and two smaller goals to score.
• Each player can give a maximum of 3 touches on the ball. If more touches than allowed the ball will be given to the opposite team.
• The player may not, in any circumstances, stand still inside of the goal, making the role of goalkeeper. Also will not be allowed to
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18 Online Coaching Seminars

I'm really exctited about our latest project of online coaching seminars. We have received lots of questions from coaches asking if we are doing our coaching seminar at Nebraska this year. The answer to that is "no". Instead, we have decided to do a series of online coaching seminars. Instead of assembling a group of

0 Building From the Back by Switching Fields

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on working the ball out of the back and switching fields quickly.

Start with a full field and one full sided team (in this case I’m using a 4-4-2 but can be in any formation you choose) and an opposing team with a couple less players (in this case they are in a 2-3-2)

The ball starts with the keeper of the full sided team and they try to

0 Angle of Approach For Goalkicks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s topic deals with the approach on a goal kick.

One of the most common questions I receive is “how can I improve my goal kicks?”. I start my response by letting people know that this is NOT an area I’m strong with but like with everything else, repetition and good habits are the foundation for success.

If you watch football kickers (American football) you see that they take the same approach, same

0 Tactics to Beat Barcelona

This blog post is an excerpt from our new book, Tactics for winning soccer.  The complete article includes tactics on how to deal with Messi and how best to apply pressure on Barcelona.

By Waleed Zaghloul.

Watching the latest Classico, I was wondering how much change will be seen from both teams based on the analysis of some vulnerabilities in a previous meeting this year (discussed in previous blogs). Some of the points analyzed back then showed two vulnerabilities for Barca, defending the counter attack specially against speedy opposition and the other was their left back. Real Madrid were overly aggressive in closing down Messi that they left other Barca player wide open at the back. Madrid were also notably losing their heads and committed very hard fouls when whatever they tried tactically did not work. Let us have a look at some instances of the latest Classico and decide for yourselves.

Asleep at the Wheel

This first image shows, in addition to the fact that this goal should very well have been called off for offside, a lack of interest from the Barcelona players. Four of the five players are

0 Striker Training With Conditioning

By Jebreel Bubtana

This exercise will work on the aerobic endurance of your players whilst being specific to the movements that your strikers will perform during a game.

Set up the field as shown in figure 1 below. The two goals are 30 yards apart with a 15x15 yard square in the middle. The coach must have two balls with them for this as well.

The player with their back to goal must check into the middle of the square, receive a pass from the coach and pass the ball

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

By Stevie Grieve, author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1 and Attacking in the 4-2-3-1.  This is the final part of this article.  Part One can be seen here and Part Two here and Part Three here.

Dortmund Counter-Press Goal v Arsenal

Ramsey wins possession from a loose pass by Reus, but this is where Ramsey finds himself in danger, as Lewandowski has already transitioned to defense, and is pressing Arteta, blocking a forward pass and forcing the ball into Ramsey if he wants to play 1st time. Kuba has also transitioned and is in line with

1 1v1 Recovery Runs

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise can be used as a technical warm-up or as the main technical focus of the session. Ideally you will use 4-6 players for this exercise but could add more to a group if necessary. The exercise will be performed at a high tempo and help to develop dribbling, first touch, and sharp changes of direction.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below, showing one player with a ball, one waiting behind him and two players at the opposite end.

The player with the ball begins the play by dribbling the ball across towards

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