Tag Archives for " Carroll "

0 Corner Kick Set Play - The Swords

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

0 Playing With Two Target Players Up Front

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

2 Taking Goalkicks to a Zone

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 

0 Box Breakout Game For Defending

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

0 Corner Kick Set Play - The Wave

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

0 Utilizing Attacking Backs in a Back Three System

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

0 Training a Functional First Touch

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 

0 Transitions with Overlaps

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

1 Using the Defensive Midfielder to Attack

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

0 Combination Play to Switch the Field

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 

0 Attacking the Corners with a 3-5-2

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

0 5v5 Transition Game

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

0 Interchange Relationships in a 4-2-3-1

By Matthew Carroll The 4231 Formation is a commonly used system because of the flexibility for tweaking it provides. The key for teaching this to players is to discuss the key relationships on the field they should have with their teammates. Although the team is made up of 11 players, having the players focus on

0 Attacking From Wide Areas

0 Using Hunting Triangles

By Matt Carroll A quick Youtube search of the 1978 Dutch National Team reveals what pressing can look like when taken to its most extreme measures. Packs of roving players, up to 8 at a time, running full sprint at the opposition player on the ball leading to blind passes forward or out of bounds

0 Side by Side Transition Game

By Matthew Carroll - Description: This small sided game is used to improve game and spatial awareness with a focus on utilizing the 6 to switch play. It can also be used to teach defensive positioning and 1v1s Setup: Create two grids that are connected in the middle. The size of the grid should be

2 How Pep Guardiola's Teams Score Goals

By Matthew Carroll Pep Guardiola’s teams have been hailed as, to his annoyance, “tiki-taka” based teams. Teams that string together a million passes until they wear down the opposition into making a catastrophic mistake and then use that possession to exploit it. While Manchester City can play games where they can keep their possession stats

0 Playing the False Nine in 7v7

By Matt Carroll Made famous by Lionel Messi, the false 9 tactic allows a single forward the freedom to occupy spaces between the defensive backline and midfield, with runners playing off them creating the depth and width in the attack. To utilize this in a 7v7 model the formation should be either a 2-2-1 or

0 Diagonal Transition Game

By Matthew Carroll - Description: The Purpose of the Diagonal Transition Game is to develop, in a game like setting, player’s recognition of opportunities to play long diagonal balls on the counter to open up space on the opposite field for 1v1 situations of a striker against a outside back. Setup: Play on either full

0 The Backwards Diagonal Killer Pass

By Matthew Carroll If you watch Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City you will see an abundance of this type of assist: It often comes from some type of patterned play that leads to a winger getting isolated with a fullback on the edge of the box, takes the ball to the end line, and plays a

0 Swiss Flag Four Corners Game

By Matthew Carroll - Description: The Swiss Four Corners drill is similar to the normal four corners game except that instead of being a large grid it has four channels, similar to the shape of the Swiss flag. The purpose of these channels is to create opportunities for players to possess through the middle in

3 Defining the Danger Areas in the Attack

By Matthew Carroll This article is less to tell you how to use common terminology to explain the areas of attack to your players, but to give you an idea how this can be structured so you can create your own that fits your team and style of play. The use of common terminology is

0 1v1 End Zone Game

By Matthew Carroll - Description: The 1v1 End Zone Game is meant to create a situation where players are competing in 1v1 situations, both offensive and defensive, but are forced to be spatially aware of three different areas they can score in, as well as adjusting to the traffic of the other players in the

0 Analyzing the Movement of a World Class Striker

By Matthew Carroll Analyzing Movement of Dortmund’s Erling Haaland Against Schalke As a fan of the English Premier League and Major League Soccer I only have taken a cursory glance at the Bundesliga. The pandemic changed that when it became the first league to return from the shut down. I had heard about how incredible