Creating Overloads at Midfield: Part 2 The Rondo For part 2, we are coming off a long break for rest and hydration after a heavy start to practice with our strength and conditioning. Here, we want to activate the players mentally and get them to start recognizing the focus of the session. To do this,
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Creating Overloads at Midfield: Part 1 Strength and Conditioning This session is the second session that I have designed for my high school aged teams for our open summer session here in New Jersey. This is a period where you can hold open sessions, clinics, tournaments, and leagues. The catch is none of this can
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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
Continue readingAn often hotly debated topic on Matt and I’s Coaching Soccer Weekly Podcast is how do we go beyond the traditional line drills and get players more touches and scanning more as a part of their warmup. In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day I posted this drill I got from the Irish FA that introduces
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Now more than ever, the importance of set pieces in growing in the game at all levels. From local club teams all the way up to the Premier League (where Arsenal is competing to win the league on set piece mastery and some other tactics that this bitter Tottenham fan does not have a lot
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I am a huge believer that games are the best teacher and in order to maximize the most of your team, it needs to be competitive and you have to be going against live competition. Athletes today get more enjoyment out of the session when everyone is competing and involved in game-like situations. It also
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Session: Pressure Cover Balance Part 4: 6 Goal Game As always, making it to the United Soccer Coaches Convention was an enlightening experience. So many brilliant minds and concepts all pulled together at the same time, it's hard not to get excited to get back onto the field. In particular, I was inspired by the
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Session: Pressure Cover Balance Part 3: Three Keeper Box Game As always, making it to the United Soccer Coaches Convention was an enlightening experience. So many brilliant minds and concepts all pulled together at the same time, it's hard not to get excited to get back onto the field. In particular, I was inspired by
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Session: Pressure Cover Balance Part 2: The Rondo As always, making it to the United Soccer Coaches Convention was an enlightening experience. So many brilliant minds and concepts all pulled together at the same time, it's hard not to get excited to get back onto the field. In particular, I was inspired by the presentation
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Session: Pressure Cover Balance Part 1 As always, making it to the United Soccer Coaches Convention was an enlightening experience. So many brilliant minds and concepts all pulled together at the same time, it's hard not to get excited to get back onto the field. In particular, I was inspired by the presentation by Coach
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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
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100 Ways To Do The Same Thing Part 2: Feedback In part one of this article, I discussed a session that I designed to work on scanning as a general topic during around the third day of my pre-season training here in New Jersey. This would be the day after cuts, and it would be
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Having interviewed several different coaches for the Soccer Coaching Weekly Podcast (formerly WCC Podcast) I got to thinking. Everyone has all of these great ideas, how they run their sessions, how they view the game philosophically, how they approach each issue in their own unique way, so I decided that I would take a session
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The Two Ball Check Your Shoulder Game is designed as a quick visualization warm-up to teach players to check their shoulders to gather information. At every level, the player with the most information makes the best decision they can, and the only way a player can do that is if they see the whole field.
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In the final episode of The WCC Pod of 2025, we discussed some of the drills that we had developed throughout the year, and I really enjoyed a passing pattern I worked on with my teams to develop passing rhythm to create a 1v1 or 2v1 to the goal. I really enjoyed how the overlaps
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In episode 9 of the WCC Podcast, Matt and Fed interviewed USL 1/2 Veteran Travis Ward and discussed drills he enjoyed as both a player and now as a coach as he begins his training career. One drill in particular stuck out as a drill he loved to work on while playing for the Greenville
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In Episode 8 of the WCC Podcast, Matt and Fedd had Bryan Fisher, Head Coach of Notre Dame High School Boys Soccer Team, discuss player and coach mental health. In the episode, Bryan talked about using the 5v5+2 and the 5v5+3 as a modable tool that can be used every day to focus on either
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In Episode 6 of the WCC Podcast, Coach Matt and Coach Carrezola discussed increasing stimulus in strength and conditioning to better prepare athletes in a more game-like fashion. They discussed challenging players not just to run one direction or another, but adding some type of stressor or decision-making. This can be used to test the
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On Episode 5, Matt and Fedd met with Jake Aferiat, Boys Soccer Writer for NJ.com, to discuss the upcoming NJSIAA Boys Soccer Playoff picture and what it takes for teams to show up in the big games. In the episode, Coach Matt discussed the Goalkeeper Box Drill that he has been using to get his
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By Matt Carroll The name Cinco came about from the difficulty of repeatedly telling the players we are doing our 5v5 as a 5v3, when I asked the players to come up with something simpler, they looked around sheepishly until one player said, “There are a lot of fives in the name, we can call
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The Constantine Drill is a valuable exercise for teams focusing on defensive organization, particularly when dealing with crosses or playing in a low block. It helps players practice first-time clearances under pressure. It is one of the favorite drills of Freehold Boro Boys Freshman Coach (and co-host of the World Class Coaching Podcast). Another great
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The 4v4 (+3) possession warm-up is designed to prepare players physically, technically, and mentally for the demands of the training session. By creating a numerical advantage with three neutral players, the exercise encourages sustained possession while challenging players to constantly scan, create passing angles, and make quick decisions under pressure. Figure 1 shows the basic
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By Matt Carroll The infinity shooting circuit is a drill designed to create repetition in a game like setting for a longer period than you find in a normal shooting drill. Players receive from a variety of angles, in a variety of situations, and are forced to make quick decisions. The setup begins with three
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By Matt Carroll Sideways transitions is an excellent drill for working on those hectic in game moments, whether it’s a scramble off a throw in or a bouncing opportunity in the box, this drill will help players identify the nuance of the chaos im these short high high-intensity moments. The drill starts with a 20x20
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