Tag Archives for " conditioning "

1 Recovering After a Tournament Weekend

The end of the year includes the most important tournaments of the year. We played one over Memorial Day weekend and our State Cup competition begins on the following Friday. I usually plan to train for an hour one each of the days in between the tournament and State Cup.

The first session is purely for recovery. I want the players to get together get warmed up and go through a couple of easy, non contact exercises and fun games to get players loose and rejuvenated after having played four games over the long weekend. The tournament was an

0 Running with The Ball Practice to Improve Endurance

By Alex Trukan

From a conditioning perspective, this practice is focused on improving players’ capacity to sustain the quantity of actions throughout the match. Therefore, as an outcome, players will be less fatigued and able to cover bigger distances. In terms of the technical area, this exercise focuses on running with the ball technique and decision making whether to run with the ball or dribble.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise two cones on each side of the square as shown on the diagram below. Set a 4x4 yards square in the middle of the area. Divide the

4 The Exchange Game

By Alex Trukan

This practice is focused on helping the players to improve the ability to produce high quality sprints throughout the whole match. That is achieved in a high intensity and engaging game which also develops ball manipulation, dribbling and running with the ball skills from a technical point of view. As an outcome of this exercise, players will be able to produce more sprints and also sustain the number of sprints despite fatigue accumulation.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise two squares of 10x10 yards as shown on the diagram (squares can be also organised next to each other). Divide the team into two groups. Each group should consist of 3-5 attacking players with one ball each and 1 defending player. There should be one group in each of the two squares. Attacking players try to retain possession, while defending players try to win the ball. Player without the

0 ‘The Great Escape’ Game to Develop Starting Speed

By Alex Trukan

This exercise is a great way to develop ability to accelerate and sprint over short and medium distances. Its organisation ensures the players are engaged and not only develop physical aspects but also dribbling and running with the ball skills. The practice helps players in possession to get away from a defender, while defender works on sprinting in recovery runs. ‘The Great Escape’ game works with almost every age group and ability level!

Set-Up and Directions

Organise one bigger and one smaller area (smaller being inside the bigger one) as shown on the diagram. Set up four goals, one in each corner of the pitch, 5-10 yards from the bigger square. Every player will need one ball each. One player (defender) dribbles around the

0 #012 Training Possession Play with Increasing Pressure

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5 Multiple Ball Game

By Alex Trukan

The multiple ball game focuses on developing repeated sprint ability in a high intensity game related practice. The rules and organisation of the exercise create a number of overload and underload situations what then forces players to develop their transition phase skills. It is also highly motivating and engaging due to competitive nature of this practice.

Set-Up and Directions

Set up a pitch of approximately 30x40 yards. Divide the team into two groups of four competing against each other. Organise one goalkeeper in each goal. Place one ball on

1 Four Goal Game with Goalkeepers

By Alex Trukan

The 4 Goal Game is focused on improving aerobic power in combination with a technical content of shooting and finishing. In addition, players get a lot of opportunities to practice 1v1 situations and decision making when to shoot. Organisation of the exercise ensures it is engaging and enjoyable for almost every player!

Set-Up and Directions

Organise a square of approximately 25x25 yards. Set up a goal on each side of the

0 Opposed Passing Pattern and Speed

By Alex Trukan

This exercise is a modification of a passing pattern with additional pressure from a defender to create sprinting situations. The main focus from a physical point of view is to improve starting speed and sprinting over short distances in a football specific context. Apart from that, this practice demands good quality of passing and receiving skills.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise six cones as shown on the diagram. Set up two small gates on the half way between two side cones. Organise two players on the middle cone, one player on each side cone and rest of the players with one ball each on the bottom middle cone. Minimal amount of players for this

4 3v3+3 Possession Game to improve Strength

By Alex Trukan

The following practice is aimed at developing functional football strength. It is a modification of a classical 6v3 possession game which is designed to further develop core strength needed in shielding and protecting the ball situations. It is physically demanding practice which makes the players working using mainly anaerobic energy system. Apart from that, it also challenges their ball control and retention skills under the pressure from the opponent.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise an area of approximately 20x25 yards. Divide the

0 3 v 1 Possession with Speed and Power Endurance

By Alex Trukan

The presented practice focuses on speed and power endurance. These physical qualities are needed to be able to produce high quality actions throughout the game and especially towards the end of it. This modification of a classical 3v1 possession game is engaging for both attackers and defenders due to often rotations between the roles and high intensity physical work.

Set-Up and Directions

Set up a square of 10 x 10 yards. Divide the team into two groups of three. Attacking three starts outside the square, one player on one side. The second group starts in line next to one of the outside cones. Supply of balls should be organised and ready to use.

The game starts by coach playing the ball in to

2 Ball Challenge 1 v 1 Game

By Alex Trukan

This practice involves high intensity, power and strength work in a ball challenge situation. The demands placed on the players help in developing body capacity to deal with a pressure of a defender when challenging for the ball and receiving it. It also focuses on dealing with man to man marking and movements to receive.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise a square of approximately 10 x 10 yards. Four players should be positioned outside the area, one on each side. Two players start inside the square, one being an attacker and the second one, defender. One of the players outside the square starts with the ball.

On a coach’s signal, inside attacking player attempts to receive the

3 Continuous 2 v 2 Counter-Attacking Game

By Alex Trukan

The main physical aim of this practice is to develop anaerobic power. That will help in producing more powerful and quicker actions during the game. Organisation of this practice ensures the flow and continuity of play, what makes it engaging and enjoyable way to develop football specific fitness. From a technical and tactical perspectives, this practice has also many returns such as dribbling, RWTB, shooting as well as counter attacking.

Set-Up and Directions
Organise a pitch of approximately 25 x 35 yards with one goal on each end. Divide the team into groups of two players. Each group starts next to the goal with one ball per pair. Also, two goalkeepers are needed, one in each goal. The size of a pitch should be large enough to allow counter attack to take place.

On a coach’s signal, one pair starts attacking towards the

3 Individual Possession Square

By Alex Trukan

From the conditioning point of view, this exercise is aimed at developing physical strength and power. Individual challenging for the ball included in this practice forces an attacker to shield and protect the ball what develops his physical abilities. In addition to that, technical side is developed through ball manipulation and control in tight areas under pressure.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise a square of approximately 15 x 15 yards (area should be adapted to the group characteristics). Five players with one ball each start inside the square. Four defenders, without the ball start outside the square, one on each side. Number of players is flexible, however, there should be one defender less than attackers.

On the coach’s signal, defenders come inside the

0 Possession game 4 v 4 + 4

By Alex Trukan

The presented exercise is focused on improving Aerobic Power, a physical quality essential for quicker recovery between high intensity efforts, which is possible due to the better oxygen supply to the working muscles. In addition to that, this practice also develops passing, creating space and movement in order to maintain possession.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise a square of approximately 30 x30. Divide the team into three groups of four. One neutral group stays outside the square, while two groups compete against each other inside the area.

The aim of the black team in possession is to

0 Passing Combinations in Threes

By Alex Trukan

This continuous passing pattern exercise is an engaging way to develop anaerobic endurance along with technical skills of passing. It is especially suitable for medium and advanced level players as in order to achieve physical objectives, it requires constant concentration and high intensity technical work. Once the players learned the rhythm of the practice, it is highly effective method of achieving specific fitness goals.

Set-Up and Directions

Set up four cones 10-15 yards apart and one in the middle. Organise three players as shown on the diagram below. One player on a bottom left cone has a ball. For a larger groups of players, organise separate squares to work in.

The exercise starts with a bottom left player passing the

0 Anaerobic Power Circuit with 1 v 1's

By Alex Trukan

This circuit exercise is focused on improving quality of football actions as well as technical and tactical aspects of 1v1 situations. From a physical perspective, it helps to develop speed and strength in order to make players more explosive and sharper. That can be especially used in short sprinting duels which happen all over the pitch.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise three hurdles and a coordination ladder as shown on the diagram below, place one cone in front of the hurdles, one in between hurdles and a ladder, and a third one next to the ladder. Distance between the cones should allow 10 second break between the work on the ‘stations’. Set one group of players with one ball each behind the first cone. Organise goalkeeper in goal and one

0 4 v 4 + 3 Transition Game

By Alex Trukan

The 4 v 4 + 3 transition game can be used as a tool to develop not only technical aspects but also tactical and physical ones. From the fitness perspective, it focuses on improving Anaerobic Endurance which is responsible for maintaining high quantity of actions throughout the whole match due to quicker recovery between high intensity efforts. In addition to that, from a tactical point of view, this exercise places high demands on players to make quick transitions from attack to defence and vice versa.

Set-Up and Directions
Organise an area of approximately 20x30 yards. Divide the team into two groups of 4 players and additional group of 3 neutrals. One team of 4 players stays outside the square, second group of 4 is defending inside the

0 Overload Switching Play Game

By Alex Trukan

This exercise is focused on improving aerobic power as well as tactical content of switching play. From conditioning perspective, the practice will help players to recover quicker and sustain the quantity of actions throughout the whole game. Apart from that, players will learn how and when to switch the point of attack (team in possession) as well as how to defend as a compact block when overloaded by the opponent (defending team).

Set-Up and directions

Organise a pitch of approximately 50x25 yards with two goals on each end in the corners. Divide the team into two groups, one of which should have one player more than the other. There are no goalkeepers but the goal can only be scored from one-touch finish on the attacking half. The team that has more players starts every time from the own half. After set period of time, the roles can be rotated.

Having less players then the opposition and defending goals in wide areas will force the

0 2 v 2 Game with Extras

By Alex Trukan

The 2v2+2 practice on two goals focuses on developing Anaerobic Endurance in a game scenario. From a physical point of view it helps to sustain high intensity actions throughout the whole match what can be crucial element especially in the last minutes of the game. As all the players are active and involved in the game, it is very engaging practice for almost every age group.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise a pitch of 25x35 yards with a goal on each end. Divide the pitch into two halves. One goalkeeper should be starting in each goal. Divide the group into two teams of four. Two players from each team should be inside the area and two of them outside on the opposite sides as shown on the diagram below. The game starts from the goalkeeper.

The aim of two players in the middle is to score in the

0 Dynamic and Active Warm Up Variations

A good pregame warm-up should get a team physically and mentally prepared to play from the first whistle. You can look for some patterns that may point to a need to change how your team warms up before matches.

Does your team often have a slow start or go down a goal early?

Does your team always play better in the second half?

If you answer yes to these question then the issue may

0 Possession Conditioning Drill

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Newsletter. Today’s featured activity shows you how to work on passing a receiving while building in a lot of fitness.

Start with groups of threes. Two players are 20 yards from each other and the third player is in the middle with a ball.

The player in the middle (1) starts by passing to

0 Situational Agility: Face or Turn Back to Player

This post from our Soccer Conditioning Experts at SoccerFIT highlights an area that I'm always working on with my players: Facing up or Back to Pressure.

This post is taken from Sub Chapter 5.11- of our SoccerFIT Yearly Program, where we are talking about body position as it relates to soccer speed/agility, specifically regarding the ability to anticipate a situation and make subtle changes to the hard wired agility patterns based on desired tactical outcomes…

Body Position in Relation to Other Players: The third developmental coaching point is

0 Full Sided Game For Conditioning and Corner Kicks

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured is a full sided game emphasizing conditioning and corner kicks.

Start with a full sized field with keepers and each goal. Ideally you would play 11 v 11 but if you have less players use what you have. The only unusual thing is you want to have a few balls in each of the 4 corners.

This is a normal scrimmage with one major exception. Any time a ball goes out of play, the opposing team

1 Checking and First Touch Exercise

Jebreel Bubtana

This technical warm up works on movement to create space away from a defender (checking) and first touch at various heights.

Set up the field as shown below in figure 1.

The player without the ball will sprint to the disc on the right (check to the disc) to start the exercise. As soon as they as they