By Matt Carroll The #9 is easily the most identifiable role in the whole sport. The idea of the strong, powerful talisman baggin 30+ goals is an image every player shooting on the net in their backyard conjures, but is the 9 a necessary role that every team has to field? What if your best
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By Matthew Carroll With an ever increasing focus on playing out the back goal kicks have moved from a mundane element of the game to a useful attacking set piece that helps attack minded teams set up the opposition how they want. They can play short and draw opponents forward to beat a press, or
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By Matt Carroll In a game dominated by the concept of seeking numerical overloads, it makes sense that going down to 10 men can often be seen as a sign to pack things in and pray for the best. Teams down to 10 men, usually later in the game, tend to “park the bus” and
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In this week's Animated Drills Video Matthew Carroll shares a drill to train your players how to see opportunities to switch the play. The diagram is created with the Academy Soccer Coach software. See more at www.academysoccercoach.co.uk
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By Matthew Carroll Hybrid Zone for Defending Set Pieces The zone for defending corners has become a much derided tactics, the main criticism being it leaves too many question marks for defenders in such a high intensity moment. There is truth in this since it can lead to situations where both players go to the
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By Matt Carroll To start off it is not recommended that this be used at the 9v9 level, rather than in short sided games for older players as a teaching method. This strategy can be used as a defensive way to neutralize a team's advantages in possession if they are a team that likes to
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In this week's Animated Drills Video Matthew Carroll shares a competitive shooting drill that your players will love.The diagram is created with the Academy Soccer Coach software. See more at www.academysoccercoach.co.uk
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By Matthew Carroll - Description ; The 3v2 vs 3v2 drill can be used to either focus on the attacking players or the defending players. With the focus on the attacking players the teaching points can be moving with pace to take advantage of numerical superiority, scoring off numerical mismatches, or counter pressing. If the
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By Matthew Carroll Overload Kickoff Play A few years ago my team was playing in the Sectional Championship for our region. The opposition won the coin toss and received the kickoff. I was still busy just giving some last minute tweaks to the positioning of our defenders when the whistle blew and they kicked off.
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By Matt Carroll Playing With A Target Man Out Wide When people think of the prototypical winger in modern times it is the pacy, Ronaldo type, cutting in to score tremendous goals or play pinpoint crosses as near to the box as possible. Rarely do we think of a strong and sturdy carrier of the
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In this week's Animated Drills Video Matthew Carroll shares a small-sided game that teaches players their roles in the formation. The diagram is created with the Academy Soccer Coach software. See more at www.academysoccercoach.co.uk
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By Matthew Carroll - Description: The long and short game is designed to help players understand the importance of maintaining possession in order to create opportunities to play more direct or dangerous passes. The short passing option in this game requires skill but is much more forgiving if a mistake is made. The long passing
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By Matthew Carroll Corner Play: Swords For this set piece players line up diagonally across from each other at the top of the 18 while facing each other to start. A player lines up on the near post, as well as the back post, to stretch out the defense as much as possible and force
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By Matt Carroll Playing With Two Target Men Up Top Conventional wisdom is to striker pairings is big and small, a target man and a dribbler or speedster. Balls played to the tall target man are knocked down to the smaller partner who then looks to find a quick finish. This is a tried and
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In this week's Animated Drills Video, Matthew Carroll shares his thoughts on taking goalkicks to a zone area rather than to individual players.The diagram is created with the Academy Soccer Coach software. See more at www.academysoccercoach.co.uk
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By Matthew Carroll - Description: This drill can be used to train defenders to be able to play under pressure near their own goal with confidence and to utilize the keeper in the build up. It forces players to take on 1v1 duels with the added pressure that if they lose the ball or do
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By Matthew Carroll This corner play is effective because it creates a line of players that collapses onto a defensive set up like a crashing wave, and is flexible enough to fill the gaps left by the adjustments that the defensive is forced to make as each player makes their respective run, one after the
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By Matt Carroll Although facing a dramatic decline in the 20/21 EPL Season, Sheffield United became Premier League darlings when the pushed for Europe during the 2019/2020 season utilizing “attacking centerbacks”. While a number of other factors led to their decline, the concept of attacking centerbacks still holds merit and can be useful, and an
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In this week's Animated Drills Video, Matthew Carroll shares a drill to train the all-important functional first touch.The diagram is created with the Academy Soccer Coach software. See more at www.academysoccercoach.co.uk
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By Matthew Carroll - Description: This is a twist on the classic transition game that helps players recognize opportunities to overlap within a game. Coaches should allow the game to start off naturally, and then stop midway through to ask players to identify when overlapping was effective, and when it was ineffective because they were
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By Matthew Carroll The key to the flexibility of the 4231 is the diverse applications of the two CDMs. The ability of one to push forward with the other providing defensive cover allows teams in the system to differentiate their attacks based on the positioning of the ball on the field. While this is a
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In this week's Animated Drills Video, Matthew Carroll shares a drill to train combination play to switch the field.The diagram is created with the Academy Soccer Coach software. See more at www.academysoccercoach.co.uk
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By Matt Carroll A 3-5-2 provides plenty of attacking options in the midfield, but sometimes that can get messy, a “too many cooks” situation. Players can play on top of each other closing down passing or dribbling options, and in a effort to get on the ball players tend to crash central, reducing the width
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By Matthew Carroll - Description: This is a great drill for teaching transition moments both offensively and defensively. There are opportunities to discuss counter pressing, transitional passing patterns, width, depth, and can even be used as a game day warm up to start players focusing on the flow of the upcoming game. Setup: Create a
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