THE IDK DRILL- Coach O Memorial Boys Soccer (NJ)
In Episode 406 of the Coaching Soccer Weekly Podcast, we interviewed Memorial High School Boys Soccer Coach Dominique Ocello and discussed her philosophy on building relationships, developing a culture, and how simple tweaks to a drill make a world of difference. As always, we challenged her to present her favorite go-to drill, and she didn’t have a name for it, so we will call it the IDK Drill.
The drill starts with a half-field split from touch line to touch line. In the middle of each of these mini fields, you place a goal on each side in both boxes. These goals should be medium-sized, so not full-sized, but larger than a pug goal. Each has a goalkeeper. If the situation necessiates it this drill can be done with two pug goals and no goalie, if you can’t fill each goal or don’t have the material. Each grid is then filled with three players from each team. The goals each side should also be inverted in a way that team A who is on the left side, is defending the left side goal near the halfway line, and attacking the goal on the left side nearest the 18-yard box.
The drill starts with one team on the ball, looking to possess and connect X number of passes. Each team has has their six players and they are split three to a side and cannot cross the line between the boxes, but they can pass between the boxes to achieve their objective. Once a team is able to complete their passing objectives they then can move to attacking one of the goals on either side. The purpose of the goals being inverted is to challenge players to look for long diagonal switches if they lose the ability to attack in a numerical overload in their own box. If the defending team wins the ball the count resets and that team now must work to hit their passing goals before trying to score.
Coach O talked about how in this drill she uses it for so many of her focuses, and just tweaks some of the rules to try to create the situation she wants. If she wants quick restarts she places balls near the edge of the area, if she wants to work on resets from throw ins she will make all restarts throw ins. You can vary the number of passes needed to attack the goals, limit touches, etc. to shape the drill to how you want it.
