Omegaball
If you have ever seen the movie Dodgeball, then you have probably heard of ESPN 8 “The Ocho”, or maybe you have seen the ESPN creation that came from the spoof in Dodgeball. Either way, the premise is an ESPN channel that plays obscure sports. Think basketball with trampolines, or competitive cornhole. One day my family and I went out to eat, and coincidentally, “The Ocho” was playing above our booth, and the game on was “Omegaball”. It was soccer, but also not. The game is played much the same as soccer, except there is an additional team and goal on the field. When I came to practice the next day and asked if any of the players had heard of it, they, of course, had and were dying to play, so we set it up for our next Saturday Session.
Again, set up is fairly simple. I took two goals and put them into the corners near the halfway line, pulled one goal towards the top of the 18, then divided the players into three teams and made sure each squad had a goalie. The boundaries of the field circled the goals making an O shape, and for the Goalie’s box we used an honor system, but you can also utilize small dots or cones to keep the goalkeepers confied to their spaces.. Once we had everything set up, I punted two balls into play, and we were off!
The first hiccup we ran into was anything in touch. Since there is two other teams that can gain possession from a turnover, we utilized two different options. First, we had it so whoever was closest to the player who touched the ball last before it went into touch got the ball. This was fairly effective, but when this led to a few disagreements, rather than getting the tape measuring tape out, we made it so that any ball in touch would be punted out by a coach into play. Next was after a goal was scored. We made it so that if a team got scored on, or if a ball went out that was a shot on their goal, it immediately became a goal kick for that team. These needed to be played quickly since, even though they had possession of that one ball, while they were setting up they could get scored on.
Honestly, the hardest part of this drill was keeping the excitment down, and making sure a goalie didn’t get hit wile they were saving another shot. But overall, for goalkeepers and field players the added visual cues challenged the players to need to continually scan and look for both openings and threats. Goalkeepers were forced to communicate amongst a dizzying amount of traffic, while their own responsibilites were doubled. There is definitely some coachable moments we were able to pull out, but I felt the key aspects we pulled from the drill was the scanning element, playing in extremely tight spaces since you are always at a attacking disadvantage, and fitness. All the players were exhausted by the end, and did not even realize how much ground they were covering.
