Tag Archives for " Competitive "

0 Shooting - Small-Sided Games

Actual game situations provide the best training for shooting and finishing once a technical foundation has been established. I highlighted by favorite shooting game, Halfline, in a previous post. Here's a link to that post.

There are many ways to organize small-sided games so that the emphasis is on shooting. Here are a few from our book, 'Coaching Soccer Through Small-Sided Games.'

This game was from a session observed during pre-season training in Ft. Lauderdale, February 2000.

1 1 v 1 - Round Robin Evaluation

During the month of June I have been highlighting my four favorite 1 v 1 training methods. This final week focuses on 1 v 1 Round Robin Evaluation. The ultimate test of a player's 1 v 1 ability is to play a competitive game against a motivated defender. A number of coaches I know use

3 Ways that Sports Nutrition Should be Different for Youth Athletes

In addition to being a youth soccer coach I'm also an avid runner. I listen to a lot podcasts and review blogs from a number of sources in a search for the latest training information. A recent post by Ben Greenfield of BenGreenfieldFitness.com focuseds on the different nutritional needs of young athletes as opposed to

2 Moves and Fakes

We had a discussion in the office the other day about the difference between fakes and moves. The discussion revolved around how you can use a move that doesn't fake the defender and whether we should be teaching young players moves or how to fake. This is an interesting subject because there's no shortage of

1 Shooting Under Pressure

I'm always looking for ways to transfer shooting technique into goal scoring in games. I've used multiple games and competitive situations. Some have been more effective than others. I saw a new one last week while doing a combined training session with another coach. Many of you may be familiar with it but I had

0 Brazilian Transition Games

Brazilians learn the game by playing the game.  In many countries training sessions are focused around drills and exercises that isolate techniques and tactics.  Brazilian coaches spend most of their time creating playing environments with small-sided games that put an emphasis on the specific areas of the game but also train the player ‘globally’. One

0 2 v 1 Exercises

We all want our players to be able to recognize certain situations and then choose the correct option to take advantage of it. One very effective way of showing players these situations is to set the attacking team up with an advantage and condition the defenders to play in a certain way. This allows the

3 Player Evaluations

The winter is a natural time for coaches to evaluate the progress of their players during the first half of the year. We are always 'evaluating' our players but most of the time this is information we use to make decisions about where to play one kid or another and what we need to work

0 Playing Under Pressure

This is a post from the Soccer Fit Academy. It is from Missy Geha, SoccerFIT Academy trainer. Her post reflects her thoughts on a recent article from goal.com. Most young soccer players react in the same way as the professionals do in tight games. One would think after playing for so many years that keeping

0 Motivational Quotes to Inspire Performance

“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.” Marlene Dietrich This is a great explanation of why I use quotes with my teams. I use them in different ways. Sometimes right before a game or at half time.

3 Rotating Positions

Do you continue to rotate player through the different positions as they get older? What is 'older'? I have always made sure to give my players experiences in a number of different positions during the season. Sometimes in positions that they weren't well suited to but I wanted them to have a chance to play

2 Tournaments or Friendlies?

Over the first few weeks of the season my team has played in two events. The first was a tournament put on by our club and the second was billed as a ‘Friendlies’. In both cases we played two games a day on Saturday and Sunday. I could, and probably will, do a post that

1 Win at All Costs - Going Away?

Today is an article by guest blogger, Andy Barney.  Barney is the president of Legends Soccer Club and Happy feet and is the coach behind the two best-selling DVDs, Legendary 1v1 Moves and TRAINING Legendary 1v1 Moves. In the next few decades I believe that competitive youth sports will ditch its “win at all costs”

3 Warm-Up Game

The start of a session sets the tone for the day, focuses the players on soccer and gets their body ready for physical activity. With younger teams (U12 and below) I like to start with a game that relates to the topic I'll be teaching. One of my favorites for days that we are working

1 End of the Season

In the last week of May many teams enter their final week of practice before the end of the league season and end of the year tournaments. At least this is the case for our teams in the Midwest. If a team is not participating in State Cup and are one week away from the

5 Encouraging a Competitive Attitude

Coming out of a long winter of indoor practices and Futsal games, I'm always anxious to play our first outdoor league game of the spring. I was looking forward to it even more than usual this year because it had been more than a month since my U12 girls team had played their last Futsal