All Posts by Tom Mura

Set Piece Options

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 set piece options variations of short corner kicks and free kicks from distance that can help your team find more success than just pumping the

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How to Teach Offside Without Working on It

Most young players (and many older ones) have a difficult time understanding how to stay onside. Last weekend I found that something I had worked on in our previous session made it VERY easy for even my U9 players to understand.

I have a training session focused on teach players how to complete a successful give-and-go. After a passing warm-up I have the players move through this pattern:

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When I'm teaching the give-and-go I focus on

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The Importance of a Dynamic Warm-Up

A dynamic warm up is vital to a successful training session.    There are many different versions and mixed feelings regarding whether there needs to be a ball involved or not.  Many feel any time in training that doesn’t utilize a ball is wasted time.  I, and others, feel it’s more important to get a good warm up and to have the players truly ready (both physically and mentally) for when the ball is then added to the warm up.

In this activity, start with 4 cones in a line, 10 yards apart.  Another 2 cones are in a different line 10 yards apart and 10 yards to the side of this first line. 2 more cones are in a similar line 10 yards to the

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Passing on the Move

We often train passing in static lines where the passes go all go in the same direction. Teaching players to pass while moving is important to transfer the techniques of passing to game situations. These exercises are ones that I've used to make the transition from static to dynamic passing.

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Passing on the Move

Players pass the ball back and forth up the field receiving with

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Finishing and Fitness Exercises

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 utilize various methods of physical and mental training combined with finishing repetitions applicable to the game. Activity 1 Players will begin in one of

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Giving Players Confidence to Go 1 v 1

I've seen coaches run sessions that work on executing fakes and moves. Then when I watched the team play there was no sign of any moves. Why bother working on them if the players aren't going to use them in the game?

If you ask players why they don't try the moves in games they'll tell you that they are afraid of making a mistake. That tells me that the coach has not built confidence to actually use the moves into his or her session.

It's not complicated or difficult to build the confidence needed to use the moves in the game but as with all confidence it must be built on success.

This simple progression will help your players become more

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Team and Goalkeeper Training

By Chris Kouns These activities utilize working with the team as a method of creating scenarios for goalkeepers to train in an environment that provides multiple repetitions of technical or tactical skills Activity 1 Set up involves a grid roughly the width of the box (determined by the total number of players you have available

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Motivation to Score

I've always had a standing challenge to my teams (U13 and below), if they score a headed goal, I buy ice cream for the next practice. It's been a way to encourage the players to try and score with their head if they can. This has been most successful with the girls teams I have coached. The extra incentive has become something that the team rallies around.

After spending a few weeks working on our combination play to score we played very well in our next games. Two of our three goals came from combinations in the middle of the field.

Another area that I've wanted to address

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The Most Efficient Form of Conditioning

We all have such limited time to impact the technical, tactical and physical abilities of our players that finding ways to integrate each of these into our training sessions is very important. If we were training four or five times a week we could afford to practice them in isolation but most of the coaches reading this won't have that luxury.

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Ajax Shooting Game

Like many coaches I focus on one particular aspect of the game during each training session. Sure, I try to train the technical, tactical, physical and psychological components around the specific skill so that the practice is as economical as possible. But in the past if my focus was on passing and receiving I wouldn't have thought about ending the session with any type of shooting.

When WORLD CLASS COACHING conducted a tour of Dutch club a few years ago I was fortunate enough to attend. While visiting the Ajax Academy I watched a session presented by

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