By Mike Smith Pele famously stated, “ There are no tactics without technique”. And while a skillful debater could argue the advantage of tactical awareness and application, Pele’s words still prevail. From a developmental stand point, I boil down the idea of technique into one aspect, first touch. “It”, i.e. success, all comes down to that
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By Sean Reed - Objective These sessions focus on a players working on their 1st touch and range passing within a competitive situations. These can be used within small groups or on a recovery day or as additional extra work. Players will receive the ball in many different ways and play a range of different passes
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible. Todays featured activity works on receiving balls, turning and quick touches. A player starts in between 2 cones that are 6 yards apart. There is a server, with a ball, 10 yards away. The server plays a ball on the ground, directly to the player. The receiving
Continue readingThe most important touch is a player's first touch. If that touch is a positive touch away from pressure and in the direction that they want to play there is a much greater chance of keeping possession. When the first touch is poor, into pressure and away from support, the chances of losing the ball are much greater. If your player's first touch is putting them into a tackle, it was a poor first touch.
The key to having a good first touch is giving that touch a purpose. Too often players are only concerned with
Continue readingBy Keith Scarlett This activity works on technique, first-touch, passing, receiving, turning and fitness. Set-up: The players break into groups of three. Two players start 40 metres apart with the third player in the middle. Each player on the outside has a ball while the player in the middle does not. How it Works: The
Continue readingWhen I'm constructing an activity for a training session I try to make sure there is an opportunity for the players to work on their first touch. After all, every individual action begins with a first touch. A one touch pass is really just a controlled first touch to another player. I also like use
Continue readingBy Jebreel Bubtana
This exercise will work on your player’s 1st touch at different heights, progressing from being easy to control the ball at the start to being more challenging and working more on anaerobic fitness as well as 1st touch.
Set up the field as shown below in figure 1, with a 4x4 yard square and three players per group.
The player in the middle receives the ball from either of the players on the outside of the square. They receive the ball from the feeder and have
Continue readingBy Jebreel Bubtana
This exercise will work on your player’s first touch into space and give and goes, which along with short sprints will work on your player’s aerobic endurance.
Set up and directions:
Set up the field as shown in figure 1 with a 15x15 yard square, 3 players and 1 ball.
The player with the ball passes to their teammate in front of them and follow their pass. The player receiving the ball now takes
Continue readingBy Jebreel Bubtana
This exercise works on your player’s first touch, speed dribbling and endurance. This is another exercise that can work very well with your team for preseason training.
There are 4 stations as shown below (figure 1), with your players spending 5 minutes at each station before moving onto the next.
Station 1:
The player must shuffle in and out of the cones before receiving a pass from the feeder. The ball must be controlled with the
By Jebreel Bubtana
This exercise works on first touch with different parts of the body as well as agility, coordination and conditioning, which is great way to start your pre-season training.
There are 3 different stations as shown below (figure 1), with players spending 4 minutes working before switching with the feeder and then moving on to the next station.
Station 1:
The player must run through the ladder placing both feet in the gaps of the ladder, after this is done they must sprint to the feeder who will be holding the ball out in
By Jebreel Bubtana
This exercise is a great way to work on your player’s first touch at different heights and making sure that technique does not suffer as they get tired.
This exercise starts with a 4x4 yard box and one ball between two players as shown below (figure 1). One player will start with the ball in their hands and the other player will do all of the work for 1 minute.
The player without the ball shuffles to
Continue readingWelcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a warm up activity working on changing direction with the first touch.
Start with a 30 x 30 grid (the size isn’t all that important and can be changed depending upon number of players. Half the group is in there with balls and the other half are without (in the diagram below the yellow players have balls and the black don’t)
The yellow players dribble around and then will make a pass to a
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity involves supporting the backs on their first touch.
To start, have a server with balls around midfield and a back near the top of the 18. A midfielder is 10 yards in front of the back.
The server plays a ball into the back and the midfielder has to position himself to receive a