All Posts by Mike Saif

1 1v1 Defending Drills for Conditioning

By Jebreel Bubtana

It is important to get your players to understand that when defending they must show the attackers away from goal and this set of exercises is great for developing this understanding and working on endurance.

Set up and directions:

Set up the field as below (figure 1). The cones are set up 10 yards apart and the cones act as attackers. The defenders must curve their run and close the space down to the cone quickly. The player must defend the cone for 3 seconds and then move onto the next two cones, doing the same thing before going back to the start cone. The defenders must complete this circuit using the correct techniques 6 times. This also works on the players’ endurance and the coach must emphasize that the players cannot get sloppy and not defend the cones properly as their legs get tired.

Coaching Points:

• Curve run as shown by the arrows above.
• Close down the cones quickly.
• As the defender gets closer they must

0 Penetrating Passes

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on possession, penetrating passes and defending.

Start with a 30 x 30 grid with a 10 x 10 area in the middle. This is a 5 v 5 possession game with 2 neutral players.

In this example, the black team is going to start on offense, the yellow team is defending and the white players are neutrals and are always on the

0 Dealing With Shot Blocking and Deflections

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on footwork, fitness, shotblocking and dealing with deflections.

Start with a regular goal and then two other goals made up of cones on angles.

There are two servers and two keepers. One keeper starts in the big goal and one keeper starts in goal 1. The two servers have balls and are

3 2v2 Tournament For Conditioning

By Jebreel Bubtana

This is a great way to get your players working hard and improve their endurance in a fun environment that gets them competing against each other.

Set up the field as shown below with an area of 12 yards x 10 yards and two mini goals 1 yard wide each. You can set up multiple mini fields depending on how many players you have (figure 1).

Split the group into pairs, with each pair being a team. The aim is to let your team play and have fun. At the same time they will be

0 Finishing on Goal After a Long Pass

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on long passes, receiving long passes, combinations and finishing.

Start with two goals 50 yards apart with a keeper in each goal. There are two players in the middle and a line of players on the right side of each goal with balls.

The first player in one of the lines starts by driving a ball to

0 Footwork and Fitness Drill

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

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

Start with a line of 8 cones 1 yard apart from each other. A keeper starts at one end and a server is 12 yards away with a ball.

To start the keeper slides side to side behind the cones and the server plays

0 How Higuain Creates Problems For Opposing Defenses

By Vasco Mota Pereira, PortuGOAL correspondent

Every once in a while my blog deviates from the analysis of a particular match's trends and incidents, focusing on a specific play or pattern from a specific team. Today we will be dissecting Gonzalo Higuaín and Mezut Özil's typical move during the match that pitted Real Madrid against Borussia Dortmund for the Champions League's semi-finals.

As always, Higuaín is often keen on leading defenders (especially direct markers) astray, clearing up space for his team-mates' penetrations through the middle. In this particular instance, it is Özil who profits from the striker's clever move.

In the first picture, Modric is shuffling the ball from one side to another, looking for the best passing option. Dortmund are apparently well positioned, with bender picking up Özil (orange) and Hummels doing the same on Higuaín (red). When Higuaín sees the Croat midfielder under no pressure, he immediately checks towards the ball, Mats Hummels marking him all the way up. Bender is under the impression that Hummels is free to pick up Özil and leaves him unmarked, with Schmelzer too far wide, ready to press Di María should he get the ball.

What happens next leaves a gaping hole right in the center of Dortmund's defense. Hummels is dragged out of position by

0 Team Warm-Up With the Goalkeeper

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a team warm up that helps the keeper with catching, footwork, and coming forward.

Start with two lines of players 30 yards apart. Each player has a ball. There is a 3 x 3 square in the middle with a keeper.

The keeper is defending the square. He picks one side to

0 2v1 Finishing Drill

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a 2 v 1 in tight space to try to finish.

Start with a grid that starts at the two corners of the D and then goes out 15 yards. There is a defender and two attackers in the grid. A server starts 20 yards away with balls and a keeper is in goal.

The server starts by playing a ball into

2 How Arsenal Expose Defensive Problems of Manchester United

By Vasco Mota Pereira, PortuGOAL correspondent

Robin van Persie's return to the Emirates hogged most of the headlines of last April's meeting between Arsenal and Manchester United, where Arsène Wenger's men offered a guard of honor to the new champions.

Even though Manchester United's newfound linchpin ended up scoring a goal, it was Arsenal's goal that showed some of the frailties in Sir Alex Ferguson's team - which leads up to a sub-question: is the midfield pairing of Michael Carrick/Phil Jones enough to bring United the victories they crave, especially in the European stage? Let us then break Arsenal's goal down and see what Manchester United did and didn't do.

1. Van Persie misplaces the pass
In this picture, the ball gets to Van Persie after Manchester United had just won it back. Van Persie almost immediately tries to get the ball to the other side, but the pass goes astray (kids everywhere, this is why your coach is always insisting that you do not try this sort of pass) and eventually arrives at the feet of Arsenal left-back Gaël Clichy.

2. Clichy quickly passes the ball to Cazorla
Clichy delivers the ball to his team's chief orchestrator, Santi Cazorla, so that the Spaniard can

0 Technical Station - Including Through Pass and Shooting

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise is again a two player exercise. It helps to develop agility, first touch, the timing of runs and through passes, dribbling techniques, passing and shooting. It is a great all-round exercise with a high intensity.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. Our player in yellow will be our ‘attacker’ and the player in black will be the ‘feeder’ in this situation. Our attacker begins positioned behind a line of five cones. Two cones are positioned at opposite diagonals, approximately five yards from the last cone from the attacker. The feeder starts centrally between these cones.

Play begins with the attacker performing agility (e.g. shuffling / quick feet / jumping) through the cones. When the attacker gets to

0 Combination with Through Ball

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise is a two player combination play which includes give & go’s, agility, a through ball (in which the weight and timing of the pass are key) and also crossing and finishing. It is a continuous exercise that focus’ on many aspects involved in the game. Short, fast-paced repetitions with longer breaks between each rep’ will help develop excellent anaerobic cardio.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below.

Our central midfielder starts with the ball at his feet, dead center, around 30-40 yards from goal (dependent on age/ability). Our wide player starts behind a

0 Receiving and Distribution

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

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

Start with a keeper and a server 40 yards apart. Then spread some gates around the area.

The server starts by playing balls on the ground to the keeper. The keeper has one touch to receive the ball and then

0 2v2 SSG for Defensive Organization

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on defensive organization in a 2 v 2 situation

Frequently we train by starting with the players in traditional positions and then see how they react. In this activity we have a 2 v 2 going to goal but the 2 attacking players start one in front of the other.

Start with a keeper in goal and 2 defending players. The first attacker starts 35 yards out with a ball and then second attacker is 10 yards further back.

The player with the ball starts with a dribble and then it’s a live attack on goal. The defenders want to concentrate on

1 Improving Aerobic Capacity through Agility & Coordination Training with a Ball

By Gabriel Celante

This drill helps to improve aerobic capacity, agility, and coordination in an economic and dynamic way. This drill also helps to develop the team’s ability to work at moderate/high intensity for sustained period.

Organization

• Set up the field as showed on the diagram:
• First Part:
• Players with a ball in the
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1 How to Deal With Corner Kicks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

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

Corner kicks are one of the most difficult situations for keepers to deal with. The reasons range from having a lot of players in a small area which makes decision making difficult (“Can I get the ball?”, “Should I punch or catch” etc). It also is difficult as different teams take completely different approaches to corner kicks so the situation a team saw last week might be very different the next week. One big reason corner kicks are so difficult for keepers is they don’t prepare for them enough.

To start you might have a keeper in goal and a player serving balls in from the corner.

The keeper decides whether to come and get the ball or whether to stay back.. The problem is many keepers

5 Conditioned SSG - 6v4 Offense vs Defense

by Gabriel Celante

This drill focuses on teaching the art of attacking in numbers and building attack from the center of the field and finishing in the 4-2 (from 4-4-2 Diamond formation). This soccer drill also focuses on innervating tactical movements.

Organization

• Set up the field as showed in the diagram:
• Two full size goals (GK in each goal)
• Two smaller goals (made with cones)
• Divide one team into
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0 Developing a Style of Play - Defensive Transition

This is an excerpt from our new book, Developing a Style of Play by Jordi Pascual.

The excerpt is from Chapter Three that looks at various principles of Attacking, Defending, Transition From Attack to Defense and Transition From Defense to Attack.  This particular part looks at the principles of Transition From Attack to Defense.

Developing a Style of Play - Chapter 3.4

We'll go into Defensive Phase from the moment that the opponents have recovered the ball and don't do counter attack, either because they refuse to do it, either because we managed to stop it, but they still have the possession of the ball. Since our aim is to have the ball in attack, this means that, the objective of this phase is that the opponent team make a mistake and, as a consequence, make them lose the ball.

Here we have the following Principles and Sub-Principles:

The First Principle is what is referred t

1 Technical Conditioning

By Daniel Severn This week’s exercise can be used as a technical warm-up or as the main technical focus of the session. There are endless variables with this exercise; I will share some of my favorite ones at the end. This works best if the players can be paired up, but there is also a

0 Using Width in Attack

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on using the width of the field in attack.

This activity uses half a field with a full sized goal. The field is broken into thirds with two lines going from the end line to the the midfield line 10 yards in from each end line. There is a keeper in each goal and an attacking player in each wide zone. In the middle zone is a 3 v 4.

The rules in this game are quite simple. No defending player can enter either wide area until

3 Continuous 1v1 Under Tight Pressure

By Daniel Severn

This week we have an exercise which will work close control, changes of pace, protecting the ball and plenty of skills and trickery. The exercise can be used as a fun game after a warm up or as the technical part of your session as you can focus on many different aspects of the game in this situation.

Set Up and Directions
Players will work in pairs, with one ball between two. The exercise is set up in a 20x20 yard area with small, 1 yard gates scattered around the area.

Through the diagrams, I will show the exercise running with just one pair of players but I would often use around four or five pairs working at any one time.

When play begins, the two players will compete one versus one to score as many points as possible within the time limit. The players score points by

0 Attacking With a Front Three Barcelona Style

This article is an excerpt from our new eBook by Scott Allison - Coaching the Barcelona 4-3-3  This is from the chapter - Attacking in the Final Third

ATTACKING IN THE FINAL THIRD – INTRODUCTION

It’s the part of the game that Barcelona under Pep Guardiola will be forever remembered - Attacking in the final third with some of the best team play, individual quality and finishing we have seen in modern times. Players, coaches and spectators have all enjoyed watching some fantastic football and the success of Barcelona’s play in the final third can be attributed to three key elements:

1. Penetration
2. Combination play
3. Individual brilliance

In this section we will look at how Barca unlock packed defences using their version of the 4-3-3 system. It is worth noting from the outset that those close to the club will always state that the philosophy and vision play a central part in how all Barcelona teams from youth to first team play. However, the first team under Pep Guardiola evolved to accommodate the individual brilliance of players like Messi and Iniesta and the system was adapted to maximise the strengths of these great players. The Barcelona version of the 4-3-3 system may not suit all types of players so coaches should always be aware of the quality, attributes and game understanding of the players they are working with before trying to adapt to this style of play. Indeed Barcelona at times have had issues with world class players like Ibrahimovic, Eto’o and Henry finding it difficult to adapt and fit into a system that is very much geared to getting the best out of exceptional talents like Lionel Messi.

First of all lets look at the general setup and deployment of players as Barcelona begin to build attacks in the final third. When looking at attacks in the final third you must first look at

0 Recovering For Rebounds

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on shot blocking and getting up quickly for rebounds.

Start with a keeper in goal, a server at the top of the 18 and two other servers on angles. Each of the servers has a few balls.

The server in the middle starts by shooting toward

0 Using One-Touch Passing to Improve Attacking

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 attacking in a game situation.

This is a small sided game (although it can be 11 v 11 on a full sized field) with only two limitations.

A player can only play one touch

The only exception so rule 1 is if they attack a defender or the goal with their first touch.

As an example, in the picture below the black team has the ball.

The player can pass one touch or can