All Posts by Mike Saif

2 The Importance of the Triangle Midfield

Today's post is the introduction from our book, The Triangle Midfield.  This book has proved very popular since its release a few weeks ago.

A Triangle is a shape that has three distinct points creating three sides that may be even or uneven to one another and form angles at each connection. A Triangle Midfield is a formation that includes three players centrally in a triangle formation that maintain the same or similar distances from one another while maintaining the same or a similar pace in the same direction staying with the flow and progression of the game.

This book will not be for basic or fundamental training or coaching, but is designed for more of a higher level of training and understanding. It will cover different formations associated with three central midfielders and not only formations with JUST three central midfielders. It will explain the functionality of the formation, how the formation is trained for possession and attacking roles and responsibilities, and training for defensive roles and responsibilities. Formations covered will include the

0 Defending a 2v1 Situation

By Jebreel Bubtana

Learning how to defend a 2v1 is very important, as it is a situation that comes up many times during the course of a game.

Set up the field as shown below in figure 1. Mini goals or Pugg goals can be used in the top right and top left corners of the area. The exercise starts with the defender who passes the ball across the area to the two attackers.

The attackers try to dribble the ball through the gate on the other side of the field in the middle. The defender must

0 1v1 Penetration Drill

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on 1 v 1 penetration

Start with a 30 x 30 grid with two teams of threes. There is a player from each team in diagonal corners and a 1 v 1 in the middle. There is one ball

In this example the yellow team starts on offense. The player in the corner with the ball starts by

0 Drill For Parries and Break-Aways

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on parries, quick recovery and breakaways.

Start with a keeper in goal, one server on an angle 15 yards out with a few balls and a second server on a similar angle on the other side, also with balls.

The first server starts by

3 Defending Without Kicking the Ball Away

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

A long time rule of thumb for soccer in the defensive part of the field has been “If in doubt, kick it out”.

The logic for this rule of thumb is when the ball is in the defensive part of the field, if you have possession of the ball and can’t find a good option, if you kick the ball out of bounds, it will give your team time to get back to help you defend.

The problem with this is when you factor in that more than 50% of all goals come from dead ball situations, do you really want to give the opposing team a dead ball situation? Needlessly giving away corner kicks and throw in’s can create a lot more danger than working your way out of danger.

Most of the time, when a player has the ball in back, even when they are under pressure, they still out-number the opposition (especially if the keeper is providing support as opposed to just standing in goal yelling “Clear!, Clear!”.) Think about the amount of time spent in training working on 3 v 2, 4 v 2 and 5 v 3 and most of the time, this is the exact same situation. It’s just a matter of

0 Numbers Game

By Jebreel Bubtana

This exercise works very well to provide a fun training environment for your players whilst ensuring that they are working on their endurance and reaction time.

Set up the field as shown below in figure 1. Two goalkeepers are needed then split your group of players into two teams and have the players’ number themselves (this is based on how many players are on each team, in the diagram below, the players would be numbered 1-3). In order to keep the players working hard continuously, ensure that you have plenty of soccer balls with you.

With the players lined up either side of the coach, the ball is thrown or passed into the middle of the area and at the same time the coach

0 Recognizing and Working on Weaknesses

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s topic deals with recognizing and working on weaknesses.

Recently I was thinking about some of the differences between coaching field players and keepers. Besides the obvious things one thing that came to mind was the emphasis on focussing on strengths vs weaknesses.

If a field player has a strength we want to really work on that strength. As an example, a great goal scorer who is somewhat deficient in his marking would be someone we would try to put in a position to score as much as possible. We would want to help him with his marking but when a field player has a true talent, you

1 Passing and Receiving

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on passing, receiving and taking players on.

Start with 3 groups in a confined space. In this example, we have 3 groups of 4’s in a 40 x 40 area. One of the groups starts with a ball.

The yellow group starts with a ball and they are looking to

0 The Secret of Building a Style of Play Around Specific Types of Players

Today's article is a blog post from Paul Grech and his blog, Blueprint for Football.  The blog post is an interview Grech did with Jordi Pascual, the author of our books, Coaching Spanish Soccer and Developing a Style of Play.

Given that he had a team that contained the talents of David de Gea, Thiago Alcantara, Iker Muniain and Isco, it is tempting to assume that Julen Lopetegui's job as the Spanish Under 21 manager is a fairly easy one. Yet there was more to Spain as they won their second consecutive European title then a collection of talented players; their typical play based on short passing and intense pressure placed those talents in a position to excel.

Again, the temptation is there to generalise and assume that a Spanish national team playing that kind of football is a given; that it is automatic. Yet it is not. Players spend only a fraction of their time with the national team and during such restricted time-frames it is practically impossible for them to 'learn' a method of playing.

So how do Spain manage to play in that manner? An explanation was provided in part by Lopetegui himself who said "We have a crystal clear philosophy on how to play football...ultimately for all Spanish national team football we want to

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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