Tag Archives for " drills "

0 4 v 4 Game Environments

During the winter season my older teams continue to practice outdoor one day per week. As I've mentioned before, we're fortunate to have one of the best turf field complexes in the nation with 12 lighted fields. So with the only weather that will stop us from practicing is ice or snow.

Since many of our training sessions will be in pretty cold conditions, I tend to play a lot more small sided game tournaments during the winter. The players enjoy this practice format and it keeps them moving so the cold is less of an issue.

We have three different books that I look to for new ideas when it comes to small-sided games. One of them is 'Coaching Soccer Champions'. The author, Terry Michler, is the winningest high school coach in the country. He's been the Head Coach

4 Keeping Technical Passing Exercises Fresh

Teaching players the technical skills of the game is the most important job of a coach who is working with young players. Finding new and creative ways to help the players groove passing technique is one of the more challenging things to do. The players need hundreds of repetitions of the correct technique before their muscles can repeat the motion accurately. There's only so long that two players can stand across from each other and pass the ball back and forth before they'll grow bored and loose focus. But if you move too quickly into competitive passing and possession games, which are fun and engaging, then the players won't use the correct technique and they'll end up repeating poor passes. Remember, practice doesn't make perfect; practice makes permanent.

So new ways to present the same technical challenge becomes the objective. One of the variations I've used is from a session that I found in our, 'Training Sessions of Europe's Top Teams'. It's a session that Jan Prujin of Ajax F.C.

2 Diamond Drills

One of the perks of my job is that I get to see the sessions of some of the top coaches from around the world and then I can do that session with my youth teams. Sometimes I adjust the size of the areas or add neutral players to make the session work for my players but they are able to benefit from the basic ideas and the kids enjoy hearing that they're doing the same practice as professional or youth players from prominent clubs around the world.

I was looking through, 'Training Sessions of English Professional League Team', and came across a session from Sheffield United's U15 team. I've done a number of different diamond drills with my team and the variations in this

6 Transitional Possession Game

This is my favorite possession game because it includes so many aspects of the game as well as a great fitness component. It's also very scalable to the number of players you have as well as the ability level of the players.

Two teams of players are assigned one half of the field. They're also numbered

0 Receiving Balls Out of the Air

I was reviewing the sessions I've run in the first two months of the season and noticed that I hadn't run a session on dealing with balls in the air.

This is a topic that I usually do once or twice a month with my girls teams because they seem to have more difficulty in this area than my boys teams do. I'm not sure why this is the case. In talking to other coaches, some have suggested that girls don't play as many throwing and catching games as boys do. Whatever the reason, I've used this session with a number of teams over the years.

Juggling
I begin with a juggling warm-up. It begins with free juggling and progresses to include some form of limitation depending on the level of the players.

Progressions

• One juggle and catch - for players having trouble with the technique of juggling
• Progressive Juggling - One and catch, two and catch, three and catch, etc.
• Right Foot, Left Foot continuous pattern

Throw, Receive and Dribble Away
The players each have a ball in their hands. They jog around the area, throw the ball slightly

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

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 Teaching Turning

Teaching players to turn with the ball is an area that I don't see covered very often by coaches working with players from eight to 12. I'm not sure if it is because the coaches think the topic is difficult to teach young players or because they don't want to take time away from areas

1 When In Doubt, Kick It Out?

I was reading the book, Coaching Soccer Tactics recently and it got me thinking about the long time rule of thumb for soccer in the defensive part of the field has been “If in doubt, kick it out”. The logic for this rule of thumb is when the ball is in the defensive part of

0 "I Need a Good Drill"

* “I need a good drill” * “Do you know a good practice to work on shooting?” * “I saw a professional team training and was wondering if it would be good for my U14 team” These are some of the most frequent things I see in emails from subscribers.  While I appreciate them wanting

2 Why a Dynamic Warm-Up Is Vital

A dynamic warm up is vital to a successful training session.    There are many different versions and mixed feelings regarding whether there needs to be a ball involved or not.  Many feel any time in training that doesn’t utilize a ball is wasted time.  I, and others, feel it’s more important to get a good

0 Five Goal Game

This is a game that I've used as a warm-up and in the main part of the session. I like it because of how many different things you can coach depending on your focus. As with most small-sided games, the kids really enjoy playing it so they get a lot out of it. Here is

0 Adding Movement and Awareness to Basic Passing

Basic passing exercises like the one below are great for focusing on the technical aspects of passing the ball but it's easy to get stuck in a rut of doing the same progressions over and over. I was playing with different ways to add movement as well as force the players to think about where

1 Multi-Theme Practice

During this time of year I like to run a few sessions that incorporate competitive games that test the player’s dribbling, passing and shooting. Making the exercises into competitive games increases the motivation of the players and challenges them to perform the skills under pressure. You can use almost any drill or exercises in this

2 'Dots' Warm-Up

I think it’s important to start practices with an activity that will engage the players and get their attention. When players arrive at the practice field they have usually come from a busy day of school. They may have spent some time playing with friends around the neighborhood. Depending on their practice time, they may

0 Developing Vision and Awareness

We received an excellent DVD recently and I’ve found the information very useful with my team so I thought others might as well. In my opinion, one of the most under-coached aspects of youth soccer is awareness. We do a good job teaching the techniques of the game as well as the basic tactics of

4 University of North Carolina Skills Testing

I've always liked the way that Anson Dorrance attempts to quantify everything that his teams do in practice. Keeping score creates motivation and encourages a competitive attitude better than anything else. This also creates a benchmark that you can test against later in the season to gauge how effective your training sessions have been in

5 Possession Games

Most coaches I know use some variation of a 5 v 2 keep away game in a limited area. I've never liked 5 v 2 as a teaching tool because I have always felt that it was too static. Anson Dorrance did a great demonstration at our International Seminar a few years ago where he

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

12 How Can You Tell A Good Coach From a Bad One?

In the current issue of the NSCAA Soccer Journal, Editor, Dr. Jay Martin discusses what he sees as the difference between a "Coach" and a "Trainer".  His thought is that a trainer can possibly set up a drill/exercise or even plan a training session, but can't really coach that session.  Whereas the coach can set

1 One Goal Games

While I was planning my sessions for this week I thought about how lucky I am to have access to a wide variety of goals. My club trains at the Overland Park Soccer Complex which will host the 2010 US Youth Soccer National Championship. There are 12 lighted Tiger Turf fields that each have as

7 Coaching Philosophy

I feel that one of the most important responsibilities of a coach is to constantly evaluate WHAT they choose to teach their players, HOW they go about teaching it and most importantly, WHY they are choosing to focus on those topics. Without this kind of evaluation there is a real danger that we can fall

4 From Shooting to Finishing

When I work on shooting with my teams I like to create realistic situations that transfer easily into the real game. My favorite resource for these kind of exercises is a book by Chelsea Academy Coach, Michael Beale, called Training Creative Goalscorers. This is the best book or dvd I've seen for exercises that engage