All Posts by Tom Mura

0 How to Start Your Shooting Sessions

One of the perks of being apart of WORLD CLASS COACHING is that I have access to a large library of training sessions from some of the top professional, collegiate, and youth coaches. We have published books and videos on every aspect and topic of coaching.

I often refer to our videos especially for new ways to approach topics to keep my coaching fresh and interesting to the players I work with. I think we’re all probably guilty of using the same few drills or exercises for a specific technique over and over. This can be a good thing because it allows us to focus on teaching the game rather than having to spend a lot of time teaching the drill. But changing things up on occasion can breath new life into a stale session and

1 Body Positioning, Movements and Cues to Better Defend as a Unit

By Chris Kouns USSF A License (USSF Coaching Education Instructor) – NSCAA Premier Diploma (NSCAA Coaching Education Associate Staff Coach) – Head Women’s Soccer Coach – Georgia Gwinnett College In these activities we are working on the player’s body positioning, movements and cues to better defend as a unit. Exercise #1 In an area approximately

0 CSW Extra 3 – All In One Exercise

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0 #038 Indoor Attacking Training Session

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1 Repetitive Turning Exercise

I like using high energy, repetitive exercises for skill training. They engage the players and give them a lot of opportunities to practice a skill that we have worked on before.

One of my favorites is Tag Turning.

Basic Pattern

1. Two lines of players are facing each other
2. One player has a ball (Player 3)
3. A player from the opposite line starts in the middle (Player 1)
4. Player 1 goes back toward his line and tags the next player (Player 2)
5. Player 1 then checks back toward the ball and Player 3
6. Player 2 follows closely behind
7. Player 1 calls for the ball and Player 3 passes it to him
8. Player 1 receives the ball and turns around Player 2 using one of the four turns taught earlier
9. Player 2 then moves to tag Player 3 while Player 1 passes to Player 4 and the pattern continues

0 Direct Play

By Sean Pearson Area Size: 40 x 35  Yards Teams: 7 v 6 Time: 20-25 Minutes Objectives To be more direct when the scenario presents itself To pass to players with open shoulders Be positive in your play When we hear the term ‘direct play’ a lot of players/coaches automatically think of the long ball or as some

0 #037 Conquering Your Next Coaching Course

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1 The Foundation of Solid Team Defending

I think coaches spend a lot more time teaching offensive skills and techniques than they do teaching young players how do defend individually and in small groups. The attacking techniques of dribbling, passing and shooting are easy to create training sessions around and they are definitely the sexier skills of the game. But teaching a young player to defend a 1 v 1 effectively is vital to their development as a player.

John Walker presented an excellent session on

0 Speed of Play

By Chris Kouns USSF A License (USSF Coaching Education Instructor) – NSCAA Premier Diploma (NSCAA Coaching Education Associate Staff Coach) – Head Women’s Soccer Coach – Georgia Gwinnett College In these activities we are working on the player’s body positioning, movements and ability to receive & play the ball at pace. Exercise #1 Up to

0 #036 Training Session - Decision Making on the Ball

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0 Movement Before the Pass

By Sean Pearson Area Size: 40 x 35  Yards Teams: 5 v 5 Time: 15-20 Minutes Objectives To understand when and where to move before the pass To think 2 passes ahead This session focuses on player’s movement off the ball. Personally I feel this is one of the most important aspect of a soccer team. To

1 Four Fun Ways to Start Training Sessions

This was a topic of a podcast on CoachingSoccerWeekly.com but I'm sure their are some coaches that read this blog that haven't heard the podcast or visited  the web site.

I've also included the printable show notes that I created for this episode at the bottom of the page.

The warm-up activity you choose is important to get your players mentally and physically ready for the session. Your players are usually coming from school or other activities and you need to get their attention and focus before they’re ready to learn what you have to teach.

Fun warm-up games are a great way to engage players of any age. I think we sometimes forget that unless we’re working with professional teams ( and I doubt that anyone listen to this podcast is )we’re coaching kids. These kids are playing soccer mostly because they enjoy it. The more they enjoy what they’re doing the more eager they will be to listen and learn what you have to teach them.

Some of these games have names that might indicate to you that they are only for young players. I’ve used them with teams of every age from U8 to U18. I suggest that

0 #035 11 Different Diamond Drill Variations

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0 Before You Can Play...

More and more coaches want their teams to play creative, attacking soccer but they are often playing against teams that are content to simply launch the ball up the field in hopes of taking advantage of a mistake to score a goal. If you want your team to be able to play skillful soccer you're going to have to spend some time teaching them how to get the ball down and under control.

These two exercises are ones that I have used to train my players to control balls out of the air quickly and cleanly so that we can

0 Passing in the Final Third

By Chris Kouns USSF A License (USSF Coaching Education Instructor) – NSCAA Premier Diploma (NSCAA Coaching Education Associate Staff Coach) – Head Women’s Soccer Coach – Georgia Gwinnett College These activities are designed to offer the players opportunities to work on the types of passing that is necessary in and around the box. Exercise 1

0 #034 Getting More Out of Your Finishing Exercises

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0 Change of Direction with Increasing Pressure

Each week my club uses the first training session of each week to focus on technical training. The sessions cover every technical skill divided into three week mircocycles. This allows us to progress each skill over these three weeks.

This is a progression of exercises to

0 Developing 1 v 1 Attacking

By Sean Pearson Area Size: 35 x30 Yards Teams: 4 v 4 + 1 Time: 15 Minutes Objectives To understand when and where to attack 1v1 To be positive in decision making A lot of emphasis in today’s soccer is put on possession and passing but what if a team is ‘parking the bus’ passing in front of

0 #033 Three Sessions to Teach Combination Play

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4 Using Small-Sided Games

Presenting your players with many different small-sided game environments is a great way to keep them thinking and adapting to the format of the game. If you choose the format carefully you can put the emphasis of the game on just about any area of the game that you've been working on in training .

We have three different books that I look to for new ideas when it comes to small-sided games. One of them is 'Coaching Soccer Champions'. The author, Terry Michler, is the winningest high school coach in the country. He's been the Head Coach

0 Economical Training

By Chris Kouns USSF A License (USSF Coaching Education Instructor) – NSCAA Premier Diploma (NSCAA Coaching Education Associate Staff Coach) – Head Women’s Soccer Coach – Georgia Gwinnett College These activities are designed to allow the different lines of players to better understand and work on movement and possession in their zone as well as

0 #032 How to Transfer Training into Matches

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0 Small-Sided Games to Encourage Combination Play

For me, the beginning of the season revolves around getting a group of players to work together within a framework of a system. Lately that system has been the 4-3-3. This involves teaching each player the role and responsibility of their position: How the defenders work together to stop attacks and win the ball. How the midfielders connect the team together. How the attackers create goalscoring opportunities. All of this gives the players a starting point but the most important learning comes next.

Helping the players to think and act creatively within the framework of the system is what will

0 Training Two Types of Turns

By Sean Pearson Area Size: 50 x 40 Yards Teams: 7 v 7 Time: 20 Minutes Objectives To understand when and where to use the front foot to turn To understand when and where to use the back foot to turn The area is split into three zones, two end zones of 15x40 yards and a larger