All Posts by Mike Saif

0 The Formation of the Future - Part Two

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

Recently, Chile played against Spain, and deployed a 3-4-1-2 formation, with Arturo Vidal as the number 10, which performed 2 duties.

• He was the outlet for central penetration as he is capable of creating and scoring goals
• He has a great engine and works hard defensively, show in his performances for Juventus

Vidal’s role was to stop Spain from gaining easy possession in the build-up and consolidation phases of play, giving the defence time to reset into shape.

As Spain played with their usual tiki-taka game, and with a mixture of a 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 formations (both with a false 9), Chile’s 3 central defenders could afford to make sure that one can go out to mark the false 9, as there were no players to mark centrally, only wide. The Chile wing backs were asked to mark the attacking full backs of Spain if they came forward, but often they came back to help the defence and mark the wingers, allowing the near side centre forward to play against the full back and stop him from being an outball, or commonly, not moving forward ahead of the ball as Chile would be left

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 parries, getting up quickly and making the second save.

Start with a keeper in goal, on one knee, a server 15 yards out with balls and a second server 15 yards out on an angle also with balls.

The first server starts by playing a hard ball to the side of the keeper (the side where

0 High Pressure and Defensive Transition

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on defensive transition and high pressure.

This is a 6 v 6 plus keepers on half a field with 2 full sized goals and a midfield line.

The ball starts with one of the keepers and the defending team plays

0 Goalkeeper Exercise For Strength and Balance

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on strength, balance, catching and a little bit of fitness.

Start with a keeper and a server 10 yards apart. The server has a ball in his hands.

For a one minute period the server volleys balls to the keeper who catches and then

0 The Formation of the Future - Part One

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

Coaches nowadays are always looking to find a way to take advantage of the spaces left by each formation that is commonly used in football, whether it is 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 3-5-2 or 4-5-1. I feel that the way the game is going, the next major ‘trend’ in football may well be the utilisation of a flexible 4-6 man midfield/attack, in the form of a 3-3-3-1, 3-3-1-3 or a 3-2-4-1 or 3-4-2-1.

Most teams play with a lone striker and the space made around the centre backs made by forcing full backs to defend from wider positions means that they either allow more space for flexibility centrally, specifically around zone 14 (the zone UEFA studies suggested most goals are scored from), or they defend narrower, allowing the attack to pass the ball wide and then draw out full backs and wide midfielders, and try to exploit the space in the spaces they have just left to press the ball.

If we analyse Barcelona under Pep Guardiola, when Busquets drops deep, Alves and Abidal pushed into midfield, creating a flat 3-4-3 with Xavi and Iniesta in midfield, Pedro and Villa wide with Messi in the fairly new ‘False 9’ position between midfield and attack – playing as a center forward in a more withdrawn role to play between the lines and either bring out a center back, or pull deeper a central midfielder to pick him up.

If neither happens, he finds himself able to receive and turn with Pedro and Villa making diagonal inside runs from

0 Fitness and Technical Circuit Training in Pairs

By Jebreel Bubtana

This is a great way to work on your player’s fitness and technical ability on the ball, with passing, first touch and dribbling included in the circuit.

Get your team to partner up and set up the field as shown below in figure 1.

There are 5 stations in this circuit described in more detail below:

Station 1 – The player without the ball must shuffle through the ladders as quickly as possible. After this is done, that player then

0 Counter Attacking and the Recovering Defender 1v1s

By Jebreel Bubtana

This exercise works on counter attacking and recovering as a defender.

Set up the field as shown below in figure 1, with two goals 25 yards apart and two lines of players to the right of each goal.

The exercise starts with one player attacking the goal in front to

0 The Art of Passive Defending

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on passive defending and looking to penetrate in the attack.

Start with a 30 x 20 grid with 2 goals on each end line that are 3 yards wide. There is a midfield line and 2 teams of 5 players.

The teams try to score in either of the two opposite goals. As soon as a team loses possession all of

0 Working On Hand Strength For Goalkeepers

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activities work on hand strength.

One of the things we want to do is condition our hands both to make them stronger but also to prepare them to catch the ball with the proper hand position.

This activity only requires a keeper, a flat surface (wall or even a goal post) and a ball.

The keeper starts with the ball in his hands in proper catching position (ball starts head height). He should be between 2 and 3 feet from the flat surface (depending on the

2 Attacking in the 4-2-3-1 Blog

This is part of the first chapter of our new book, Attacking in the 4-2-3-1, by Stevie Grieve

When we are trying to make training sessions for the 4-2-3-1, we must be mindful of which areas we can take more risks in to try and score a goal.

Build Up Phase
When close to your own goal, you should try to build safe possession and ensure that the ball can be brought forward into the Consolidation phase. Players should look to keep the ball moving across longer distances across the defensive line and if possible, into the

2 Conditioning 1v1s

By Jebreel Bubtana 

This is a fun way to have your players compete against each other whilst working on their endurance.

Set up the field as shown below with the cones in a zigzag shape all the way to the edge of the 18-yard box (figure 1).

The players at the front of each line race against each other to the edge of the 18-yard box by touching each cone in the zigzag with their hand (figure 2). As they make it to the to the last cone, the coach will

0 Transition For Quick Counter-Attacks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on transition for quick counter attacks.

Start with 5 attackers (2 forwards and 3 midfielders) attacking a goal with a keeper, 4 backs and 2 midfielders.

Next we add 2 outside midfielders for the defending team BUT they do not get involved with

0 Receiving Balls Outside the Penalty Area With Confidence

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Todays’ featured activity works on receiving balls outside the 18 with confidence

Start with a keeper just outside the top of the 18. There are 5 gates spread out around the field.

A server starts at the midfield line and plays balls into the keeper. The server then calls a

7 French v USSF Coaching Model

THE FRENCH ELITE FORMATION COACHING LICENSE METHODOLOGY (WHOLE, PART, WHOLE) 
VS 
THE USSF COACHING METHODOLOGY (SIMPLE TO COMPLEX)

This article is contributed by John Pascarella, Sporting Kansas City Assistant Coach. Pascarella played professionally for nine seasons before beginning his coaching career in 1998 at the University of Maryland. The complete article includes training sessions and can be found in the October 2013 issue of the WORLD CLASS COACHING Magazine.

Beginning in February of 2013, MLS and The French Football Federation entered into a cooperative agreement based on a study conducted by US Soccer that showed that the FFF are one of the leading federations in player development. Based on this relationship each of the MLS Academies sent a coach to participate in the Elite Formation Coaching License in Clairfontaine. Speaking with Jon Parry, our Sporting Kansas City Academy Director and delving into the FFF methodology and pedagogy, I found some interesting differences in how US Soccer teaches coaches to organize their sessions and the FFF’s model.

I want to strongly emphasize that in my opinion, neither is right or wrong………neither one is better than the other. That’s not the objective of this article. The objective is to show the differences and to stress that coaches need to have the ability to teach in more than one way to be effective.

Both methods can be used to get your ideas across to players at any level given the right circumstances. Coaches must have various ways of getting their point across to players or suffer the consequences of not having them understand all that they are trying to convey!

You haven’t taught until they've learned!
The late, great, master coach, John Wooden had a saying: You haven’t taught until they've learned.” That simple saying (and reflecting on my conversations with Jon Parry regarding the FFF course) has caused me to think about my own coaching pedagogy and ask the questions:

“How many times have I had players who don’t

2 Favorite Triangle Midfield Exercises

By Rob Podeyn Author of Triangle Midfield  This is the first part of an article that appears in the November issue of the WORLD CLASS COACHING Magazine and will be uploaded to the Member Drills Database on November 1.

There are many exercises for training the triangle midfield. These five exercises represent my five favorite training exercises for training and developing the triangle midfield. They are generic enough that you can use them with just about any formation that uses the triangle midfield.

EXERCISE #1

Four Square Game- This is a great game for working on possession while also learning how to quickly read the pressure of the opposition. It is also excellent for teaching your players how to transition quickly from attack to defense and vice versa.

Start by creating a large square that is 40 yards by 40 yards (reduce it to 30 yards by 30 yards if for older players who are more skilled). Divide the large square into four equal squares that are 20 yards by 20 yards. Have five players in each grid for a total of 20 players (you can also go four in each grid for 16 total players). Have each group of five players in their own color (i.e. grid 1 wears red, grid 2 wears yellow, grid 3 wears black, and grid 4 wears blue).

Start the exercise by passing the ball into one of the grids. The team in that grid must

0 Continuous Paired Finishing

By Daniel Severn

This week we have an easy to set up, fun, but hard working exercise. This exercise works well with either two or three players.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. We will show the exercise using just two active players and a goalkeeper. You could still keep a good, high tempo with three active players. You will begin with one player at the corner of the six-yard-box (this will be the ‘feeder’) and the other player (active player) facing away from the feeder, towards a line of cones.

Play begins with the active player shuffling through the cones as quickly as possible.  As he gets to the end, the feeder plays a pass out in front of the active player, who curves his run around the tall cone in order to run onto

0 Dribbling and Awareness Small-Sided Game

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a game that works on dribbling and awareness.

Start with a 30 x 30 grid with flags 10 yard on the outside of each corner.

Players are in teams of 3’s inside the grid and each player has

2 Eight-Cone Goalkeeper Drills

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

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

Start with 8 cones 1 yard apart in a line. They are numbered 1-8 as shown in the diagram below.

A keeper starts in front of cone 1 and one server starts

0 Dribbling and Passing Warm-Up Game

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a dribbling and passing warm up game.

Start with 15-18 players in a big circle (40 yard diameter) with a small square (5 x 5) in the middle

Start with one player having a ball. This player dribbles into

2 Goalkeeper Organizing the Defense

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a small sided game inside the 18 working on defensive organization, shot blocking and short distribution.

Start with a keeper in goal, 2 small (3 yard long) goals in the far corners of the 18 and a 4 v 3 in the 18.

The four black players try to score in the big goal so the keeper concentrates on

2 New Tactics For the Number 10

By Kieran Smith - UEFA 'A' License Coach

This rise of team’s formations like 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1, and more specifically using a defensive midfield to sit in front of the defense and screen, has led to a bit of a dark period for the traditional Number 10 position; but has that led to the creation of a new position? The Central Winger.

The number 10 traditionally stayed centrally and played off of the CF but with the rise of the likes of players like Makelele and Busquets, has led to space in the central area becoming scarce at the top level. The central winger takes up the same position on the pitch as the traditional number 10 but as they play unfolds, they cover a lot more of the field than before.

This picture shows the traditional movement of the No 10 which you can see is the same area defensive midfielders cover showing how difficult it can be to find space in attack.

In picture two you can see an example of how the umber 10 can find the

5 Technical Team Relay with Finishing

By Daniel Severn

Team competitions are always fun. They demand each player to work to their maximum effort as they represent their team. This technical relay race will focus on techniques of dribbling the ball and ends with the player shooting.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. We have 3 players representing each team, Yellow and Black. Player one begins at the end line of the field, with a ball at his feet. Player one has a line of small cones in front of him. Player two waits behind the tall cones, which are placed in a zig-zag formation, diagonal from each other. Player three waits behind a ladder; this is the player that will finish the relay by taking a shot.

Player one will complete his station before passing the ball to the player at station two, who in turn completes his station and passes to player three; who completes his station beats the flag and takes a shot to finish.

Station one – Dribble through the cones using the

4 Attacking Features of the 4-3-3

This post is from the Training Sessions For the 4-3-3 book.  This excerpt is from the section that takes a look at the attacking features of the 4-3-3.

When our team had possession of the ball, our Wings had freedom to attack.

The only caveat to both was not to reach the attack line together, and always position one a little further back, quickly recovering the defense if the ball was intercepted by the opponent. One or both wings could also assume the role of offensive midfielder, helping in the attack and creating an offensive superiority situation.

Our offensive midfielder advanced his position by getting to the point of the

1 High Tempo 4v1 Conditioning Game

By Daniel Severn

Today we have a simple variation of a popular and efficient exercise. By putting in this one twist, we add in movement, timing, speed of play and lots of conditioning. Again, there are many variations and ways to change or adapt this depending on the age and ability of your players – I’ll show you some of my favorite variations at the end of this article.

Set Up and Directions

The exercise is set up as shown below. We have four small cones marking out a 15x15 yard area. We also have four tall cones positioned centrally outside each side of the area, approximately 5 yards away.

The players will play a ‘regular’ 4v1 keep-away within the area marked by the small cones. The twist is this simple, after making a pass, the player must