By Mike Saif
Question - I do a lot of possession work during my training sessions, but I still think we could do a better job of keeping possession during games, especially in midfield. What can I do to improve this?
I don’t know exactly what kind of possession exercises you are doing with your team, but I saw significant improvement in my teams ability to keep possession in games by teaching my center midfielders to “come and get the ball”. The mindset I wanted them to have was that no matter where the ball was on the field, that they should be in a position to show support and be open and able to receive a pass.
To instill this mindset into the players I would set up games of 7v7, 8v8 or 9v9 depending on the numbers available. Each team would have two center midfielders and there would also be one, or sometimes two neutral center midfielders to give a numbers up advantage. I would then include lots of conditions that really helped get the center midfielders involved and helped them understand their roles much better. I didn’t use all the conditions all the time, but here is a list of some of the conditions I used for the games.
• A goal can only be scored if both center mids have touched the ball.
• The ball can’t go into the attacking third unless both center mids have touched the ball.
• A goal can only be scored if both center mids have touched the ball.
• A goal can only be scored if both center mids have combined with each other.
• There has to be a minimum of three passes in the middle third before advancing to the attacking third.
• Defenders can’t pass directly to forwards.
Including conditions like these and others you could think of, really gets the center midfielders thinking about their role and gets them “showing” for the ball and being available for passes, which can really improve your teams ability to keep possession.
By Mike Saif
Founder and President of WORLD CLASS COACHING, Mike has coached 12 State Championship teams and coached the 87G Dynamos to a USYS National Championship.
