This advanced soccer coaching program of 6 eBooks and 10 videos will give your players that extra 5-10% they need to develop them from being a ‘talented’ player to an ‘elite’ player The Complete Guide to Coaching Advanced Players’ by Canadian U18 National Team Coach, Rob Gale is a soccer training course specially designed to give players
Continue readingWelcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on 2 v 0 breakaways.
Recently I have seen a few situations where two players broke through on a breakaway (either because of a poorly executed offside trap or the last defender makes a big mistake). In two of these cases the attacking player without the ball ran beyond the ball, into an offside position, which made him unusable. Here is a simple activity that will help prepare players for this type of a situation.
Start with a keeper in goal and two attacking players 40 yards out (one with a ball). Have a defender 10 yards behind them. The purpose of the defender is to force the attackers to go at speed.
Play starts with the
Continue readingBy Daniel Severn
This week the focus is on scoring goals from crosses. I have added in some ladders and need for short sprints to help improve the players’ agility and explosiveness. During this exercise the players will be in pairs as attackers and are required to work explosively in order to get on the end of the crosses and score goals. This is a continuous exercise that you will need a minimum of 10 players plus a goalkeeper to run. The short sprints, agility and sharp changes of direction in this exercise will all help develop your players’ anaerobic capacity.
Set up and Directions:
Firstly, set out ladders in front of your wide players (LW and RW) around 25yds from the end of the field. Add cones centrally, around 30yds from the goal – this is where your pair
Continue readingWelcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on footwork, fitness, diving and parrying.
Start with 2 cones 8 yards apart making up a goal. A keeper starts at one cone and there is a server 12 yards out from each side. A resting keeper is off to the side getting balls.
The keeper sprints across the goal toward the other cone. The server he is facing plays
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Continue readingWelcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on quick serves.
Serving the ball from out wide is an important part of the game but it’s not good enough to just be able to serve a stationary ball or a slow moving ball, it’s important to be able to get to it quickly, and get the ball served. This activity works on that skill
Start with a server near the corner of the D with balls. An outside player starts out wide even with the 18. There are 2 gates set up in the 18
The server starts by playing the ball toward the corner. The wide player must
By Daniel Severn
This weeks’ focus is on keeping possession of the ball when working with limited space. To make this even more challenging, I have added a conditioning circuit around the outside of the ‘possession area’. This practice will help develop concentration in possession when tiring, whilst developing a better endurance.
We will have three teams, each with four players, working here. Two teams will compete in a 4v4 possession game with conditions. The third team will perform techniques around the circuit.
Set Up and Directions
Possession:
The possession game takes place within the 20x20yd area.
Two teams compete to keep possession of the ball. Depending on the
Continue readingWelcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a game working on positioning, communication, shot blocking , distribution and much more.
Start with a 40 x 30 field with full sized goals and a mid field line. There is a keeper in each goal and 2 attacking players and 1 defending player in each half.
One keeper starts with the ball. He can play to
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Continue readingWelcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on long passes, receiving long passes and short combinations.
Start with players in groups of 2’s in a 50 x 50 area.
One player has a ball and they make a long pass (preferably between 30-45 yards) to another
By Daniel Severn
This exercise will help your players to develop an understanding of key defensive positioning, delaying an opponent and help to develop their decision making. It can be broken down into a more tactical practice, but I like to play this game with a continuous aspect to increase the intensity. It is also a great way to teach players how to keep focus when tiring in the game.
Set Up
You will need a minimum of 9 players to run this exercise as continuous (you can play this with just 6, but for the best intensity, 12 players is ideal). You begin with 1 Goalkeeper and 2 Defenders placed just inside the penalty area. You now have 3 lines of attackers set up as if they are playing the roles of a striker and the two wingers/wide midfielders. The Striker starts with the ball.
Set up is shown below in Fig 1.
Rules
- 2 minutes on the clock
- The defenders begin with 10 points
- Each goal they concede, they lost 1 point
- Winning pair are the ones with the most points remaining at the end
Directions
The striker begins with the ball centrally. As soon as the striker takes
Today's article is an excerpt from our new book, Coaching Spanish Soccer by Jordi Pascual
Coaching Spanish Soccer contains the player development and training methodology that has made Spain the #1 Soccer Nation in the World tells you everything you need to know about Spain’s rise to dominance. With an in-depth look at the players, formation and the infrastructure that created a golden era of success, this comprehensive book is the ultimate guide to unlocking the secrets to Spain’s success and how you can apply them to your own team.
This excerpt shows one of the training sessions introduced in Spain by Johan Cryuff when he was the manager at Barcelona in the '90s.
We talked before about how are the sessions organized in Spain and what is mainly the methodology. In this chapter, we’ll see some of the most typical exercises used in Spain.
The first thing to notice is that these activities can be used (and they are used), at all levels and ages. “Rondos” and possession games are introduced at early stages of development. It won’t be strange to find kids of 9-10 doing it. It’s just a question about how to adapt the size of the grid or the number of players and coaches.
The first one is one of the most typical in warm-up, being used, first, by FC Barcelona (as far as I know, it was used in the 90s, when Cruyff was the manager; probably, it’s one of the exercises he
Continue readingWelcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Todays featured activity works on dealing with lofted balls.
Start with a keeper in goal and a server 35-40 yards out with some balls.
To start, the server simply lofts balls into the box for the
By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a warm up diving activity working on leading with the hands.
Start with 6 balls on the center circle with a keeper in the middle
The keeper starts by sprinting to one of the balls and dives on it as if it’s a breakaway. This means leading
By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on getting to goals and finishing rebounds.
Everyone loves the great shot. The blast from 30 yards out. The half volley from the top of the 18. The bicycle kick off of a cross. The thing people tend to forget is all goals count the same. Whether it’s a spectacular goal or a simple goal, they all count as one. For every spectacular goal, there are many more simple goals coming off of rebounds. The player who scores a goal off of a rebound doesn’t get nearly enough credit for being in the right place and making the effort to get to the ball first.
This activity is a 4 v 3 with a “keeper” in goal. The reason I put “keeper” in parentheses is because I would recommend using a coach or field player as opposed to a real keeper because a real keeper might develop bad habits in this game.
This is a regular game except all shots must be below waist height and the keeper can not use his hands. They must defend using the
By Stevie Grieve, Author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1, Modern Soccer Tactics and Winning Soccer Tactics.
In this exercise; the player in Red is the goal scorer from the 2nd line.
The defender can only press the striker once the ball is passed and on the way to the striker’s feet. The striker must
Continue readingBy Daniel Severn
This week we have a fun, exciting and competitive exercise for you to try in your session. When I think of the ‘complete player’ I think of someone who can dribble past opponents, pass over varying distances, has a great first touch, shows composure in front of goal and also has that drive to win the ball back for his team. This exercise will work on each aspect mentioned! It’s time to create your very own ‘Complete Player’.
Set Up and Directions
Firstly you will need to set up the five stations as shown in the diagram. You can put the players in groups of three or four (I use groups of four in the diagram; this number helps keep the exercise moving as quickly as possible). Two players at the beginning of station 1, one player in the middle of station 4 and the final player in goal. If you have only three players in a group, then you would start with just one player at Station 1. The players will rotate positions with every turn.
Station 1 – Agility. Jump over the cones with
Continue readingBy Jebreel Bubtana, BRASA, Brazilian Soccer Academy If you like to have your team play a high pressure game and win the ball back quickly when they lose it, then this is a great way to develop this. Playing a high pressure game can be very successful during games but must be worked on regularly
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible. Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on fitness, footwork and shot blocking Start with a keeper in a goal and a server 15 years away with some balls. The keeper starts by sliding, side to side, to one goal post He then slides to
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible. Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on one touch passing and understanding the importance of accuracy in passing. Watching various teams of different levels play, one of the big differences between the truly top teams and the others is the ability of the
Continue readingBy Stevie Grieve, Author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1, Modern Soccer Tactics and Winning Soccer Tactics.
In the recent Arsenal v West Ham United match, the score was 1-1 at half time. Santi Cazorla was playing at the top of the midfield triangle in a 4-2-3-1, and was being followed almost everywhere across the line between midfield and defence by Mark Noble. In the 2nd half, Arsenal changed shape slightly, with Cazorla dropping into a midfield 3 with Wilshere and Ramsey, in theory, allowing himself to drop deep and play without Noble. In effect, Noble continued to follow Cazorla as he moved even deeper, and this allowed lots of space to open between the lines and opened up passing lanes that Noble had previously covered playing in the defensive midfield role. In one instance, Cazorla’s goal, Noble followed him around the field but once Cazorla passed and moved to the blindside, Noble never recovered into position, and Arsenal exploited this via good movement from Podolski, Gibbs, Giroud and Cazorla.
Cazorla inside his own half in possession
Cazorla has dropped almost into a defensive midfield position to receive and distribute, but Noble has
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a 4 keeper warm up.
Start with 4 keepers in a 30 x 30 area. One keeper starts with the ball in his hands and the others are jogging around. You can alter the size of the area and the number of keepers.
The keeper with the ball rolls the ball, hard. to one of the other keepers. Before rolling the
By Stevie Grieve, Author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1, Modern Soccer Tactics and Winning Soccer Tactics. Grieve is the author of the "original" Coaching the 4-2-3-1 book and has now authored a book that focuses on the advanced tactics of the 4-2-3-1. This article is from the free eBook, Small-Sided Games to Train the 4-2-3-1. This eBook is given free
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a 2 v 1 game toward goal.
In designing training sessions we frequently create numbers up situations for the attacking team. This is done to create positive goal scoring opportunities. The problem with this is that most defenses are designed to always have one additional defender than the other team is attacking with. Since that is the case, shouldn’t we spend more time in those situations so both the attacking and defending players can be prepared?
Start with an attacking player 25 yards from goal with a ball. One defender is 5 yards closer to goal and the other one is 5 yards back. There is a keeper in goal.
The attacking player starts with their first touch and as soon as that touch