Tag Archives for " Possession "

0 How To Maintain Possession From a Throw-In

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter.  Today’s featured activity works on throw ins and maintaining possession. The ball goes out of play and your team takes a throw in.  The idea here is your team should either be trying to get behind the defense with a quick throw in (if available) or, they should try

3 Passing and Possession With Creativity

Watch Chelsea Academy Coach, Ben Mitchell in action and gain a blueprint for creating your own progressive passing drills   Get your players passing like champions! Creative Passing Drills is a five-part video series that shows you how to run progressive passing and receiving sessions that give your players more touches than conventional sessions. Led by Chelsea Academy

2 Possession in a Compact Space with a Surrounding Circuit

By Daniel Severn

This weeks’ focus is on keeping possession of the ball when working with limited space. To make this even more challenging, I have added a conditioning circuit around the outside of the ‘possession area’. This practice will help develop concentration in possession when tiring, whilst developing a better endurance.

We will have three teams, each with four players, working here. Two teams will compete in a 4v4 possession game with conditions. The third team will perform techniques around the circuit.

Set Up and Directions

Possession:
The possession game takes place within the 20x20yd area.

Two teams compete to keep possession of the ball. Depending on the

0 The Art of Bringing the Ball Out of the Back

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible. Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter.  Today’s featured activity works on bringing the ball out of the back. Start with a keeper in goal, four backs and four midfielders (alter for the formation your team plays).  There is a server at midfield with balls and two opposing

0 Increasing Confidence in Possession

Teaching players how to protect the ball until the option to shoot or pass is available is extremely important if you want your team to keep possession and learn to build an attack. There will be times when there isn't an open team mate and they need to buy some time and create some space before support arrives.

The first thing I do when working on this topic is to have the players focus on the quality of their first touch. A player's first touch can put them into a tackle

0 Finding Players in the Attacking Fourth of the Field

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s game works on possession while looking to find a player in the attacking fourth of the field.

Start with a 40 x 30 grid with two 10 yard end zones. The attacking team has all of their players in the grid and the defending team has 4 players in the grid and the other 3 in the end zone.

The attacking team must make 3 passes in the grid and then

0 Possession to Penetrate

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter.  Today’s featured activity works on possession while looking to penetrate the defense.

Start with a circle with a 20 yard diameter and then have a circle inside with a 10 yard diameter.

This is a 5 v 2 possession game where no players are allowed

0 3v1 Possession Small-Sided Game

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter.  Todays featured activity is a 3v1 possession game with rotating defenders.

Start with a 10 x 10 grid and 3 players on offense inside the grid.  Three defenders are just outside of one corner with balls.

The first player in the corner passes the ball out to an

0 Encouraging Combination Play

For me, the beginning of the season revolves around getting a group of players to work together within a framework of a system. Lately that system has been the 4-3-3. This involves teaching each player the role and responsibility of their position: How the defenders work together to stop attacks and win the ball. How the midfielders connect the team together. How the attackers create goalscoring opportunities. All of this gives the players a starting point but the most important learning comes next.

Helping the players to think and act creatively within the framework of the system is what will

0 Attacking With Longer Passes

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter.  Today’s featured activity works on possession, attacking and longer passes.

This is a 4 v 4 game with a third team resting.  The field is 40 x 30 and there is an extra 10 yards on each end line.  Two small goals are set up 10 yard beyond each endline with a player from the resting team in each goal.

The two teams must stay inside the field but to score a goal they must

0 Playing the Ball Out Of the Back

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on playing the ball out of the back.

We are going to play with two teams playing 4 - 4 - 2 but you can use any formations you choose.  There is a keeper in one goal and the other end line (70 yards away) has two 8 yard wide goals on the ends.

The ball starts with the keeper and the team defending the goal (in this case the black team) gets a

4 Switching Flanks and Quick Attacks

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter.  Today’s featured activity works on possession, changing fields and quick attacks.

Start with a 5 v 4 situation in a 35 x 35 area in the corner of half the field. Two other attacking players are on the other half of the field out wide.  There should also be a keeper in goal.

The attacking team must make 5 passes inside the corner grid and once they do, they can pass the ball wide to the

0 Forward Passes and Runs

As I've discussed in earlier posts, I think that most coaches agree that our players don't watch the game being played at the highest level enough. Kids in countries where soccer is part of their culture grow watching professional player every week so when it comes time for them play they have a rich source of creative ways to break down defenses. They've watched Messi and Iniesta rip apart a back four with quick passing combinations and then tried the same thing with their friends at the park. Our players need to be given examples of ways to create goal scoring opportunities so they can look for those situations

7 Possession Games

With only two practices per week with my teams I've found that it works best to focus on a technical topic (Running with the Ball, Dribbling, Control, Shooting) during our first practice of the week and then Passing and Possession progressing to a small-sided game during the second session. We also do one shooting exercise toward the end of practice just to keep a focus on that before the weekend.

I'm always looking for variations on possessions games to focus on different aspects of possession and to keep the practice fresh. I was reminded of one recently when I was looking through one of our best selling books, 'Players' Roles and Responsibilities in Systems of Play'. By creating target areas in each corner

1 Working the Ball Out Of the Back

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter.  Today’s featured activity works on working the ball out of the back.  This type of activity is an excellent way to work on specific parts of the game of soccer while incorporating all aspects of the game.  There are numerous examples like this in the book Brazilian Soccer Academy Volume 2.

This activity uses half a field.  The team with the ball has a keeper in goal, 4 backs, 3 midfielders and one target player.  The opposing team has 2 forwards and 3 midfielders.

The keeper starts with the ball and the objective is to get the ball to the

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

5 Switching the Point of Attack

Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter.  Today’s featured activity works on possession, spacing and switching the point of attack.  There are many other activities such as this one in the book Improving Your Team’s Possession Play.

This game can be played with various numbers and on with different size fields.  You would use the numbers you have available and the size of the field would depend both upon the numbers of players as well as what you want to emphasize.

In the example below, we are using 6 v 6 with 1 neutral player.  The field is 40 x 40 and there is a 5 yard square in each corner.

The neutral player is on whichever

0 Preparing Player To Deal With Contact

Soccer is a contact sport.  Unfortunately we frequently forget about this in training so when the players do come up against contact in a game they aren’t prepared. Here is the beginning of a nice progression to prepare players to deal with contact, receive balls and react accordingly.  There is an excellent series on this

5 Difference Between the Good Player and Great Player

How quick a player recognizes a situation and reacts accordingly is frequently the difference between the good player and the great player. One way to work on a players vision, decision making and reactions is a simple dribbling exercise.  If you have 14 players in your training session have them start around a 30 yard

2 Possession Warm-Up

It’s easy to get in the habit of doing the same activities over and over again.  As an example, we want to do a possession warm up with 3 groups of 5. In the DVD Tactics and Drills for Training Forwards, Bob Warming, shows an interesting way to do this a bit differently. The first

0 Technical Passing and Dribbling Session

The Technical Director for the club I coach with, Blue Valley Soccer Club, is Peter Vermes, who is also the Coach and Technical Director for Sporting Kansas City. Peter and the other directors of the club run sessions for the coaches two or three times a year. The sessions cover a variety of topics and

3 Triangles - Support and Possession

When teaching about support and possession of the ball we frequently talk about triangles.  When a player has the ball we want him to have options on angles as well as the opportunity to make a penetrating pass to split the defense. While coaches understand the how the triangle support works, many players tend to

0 Coaching Everything At Once

Many activities work on attacking and defending.  Many activities work on possession.  Not many work on both.  This activity, and many like it can be seen in the book Full Season Training Program - Elite Team by Terry Michler This activity is a 6 v 5 plus a keeper in the penalty area.  5 attacking

2 Passing Practice

This is a passing practice session that I have run with various age groups. I like it because you can coach just the basic technique or you can go into great detail depending on the age and ability of the players in the group your working with. Each phase can also be made competitive which