By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity is a quick passing and receiving activity to be used as a warm up.
Start with two lines of cones with each cone 3 yards from the next. The two lines are 5 yards apart. There are two players in this activity and one ball.
The players are playing two touch and it starts with
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on passing, receiving and awareness.
Start with a 30 x 30 grid with 3 groups of 4’s. The size of the grid and the number of people in the groups can vary based on availability, ability and need. Three players start with a ball.
In this example, the black team passes to the yellow team. The yellow team passes to the blue team and the blue team passes
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible. Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on receiving and quick shots. Start with a player in the D and a server 30 yards away with balls. As a warm up the server plays balls into the D. The player must receive the ball
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 readingI've written before about our club's philosophy that encourages teams of all ages to play out of the back as often as possible. The key to implementing this with your team is to teach the players what visual cues to look for so that they can see patterns in the options that are available. These
Continue readingTurning is an important skill to develop because players often receive the ball with their back to pressure and need to have the ability to control the ball around that pressure and move the ball forward.
As with all soccer skills, they developed over time through a number of training sessions but below is one example of a practice that will lead your players through the learning process.
When 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 Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on making a long pass, receiving a long pass and then timing runs for balls served from the side.
With the big emphasis on small sided soccer (which usually means small fields) a lot of players have lost the ability to pass a ball 35-40 yards accurately and also to receive these type of balls. This is a progression which works on that, and a lot more.
Start with a player in the middle of the field 45 yards out or so. Another player is out wide and then there are two players on the other side. There is also a keeper in goal.
The player in the middle starts with a ball and drives a ball out
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activities work on receiving the ball with the outside of the foot.
There is a tendency to “kill” the ball when receiving it with the inside of the foot (to kill the ball simply means to stop the ball completely as opposed to receiving the ball and keeping it moving). While it’s certainly possible to keep the ball moving with the inside of the foot, it’s even easier to do with the outside of the foot so these two activities work on receiving the ball with the outside of the foot.
Start with two players 15 yards apart. One of them should have a ball.
The player passes to the other player who must
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on receiving balls under pressure and passing away from pressure.
Start with 3 players in a 20 x 20 grid with a ball.
The black player starts with the ball and passes to
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Todays’ featured activity works on receiving balls outside the 18 with confidence
Start with a keeper just outside the top of the 18. There are 5 gates spread out around the field.
A server starts at the midfield line and plays balls into the keeper. The server then calls a
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on passing, receiving and taking players on.
Start with 3 groups in a confined space. In this example, we have 3 groups of 4’s in a 40 x 40 area. One of the groups starts with a ball.
The yellow group starts with a ball and they are looking to
Continue readingWelcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on long passes, receiving long passes and short combinations.
Start with players in groups of 2’s in a 50 x 50 area.
One player has a ball and they make a long pass (preferably between 30-45 yards) to another
One of the benefits of coaching within a large club is the opportunity for continued coaching education from the Technical Director. The club I coach with is Sporting Blue Valley, an affiliate club of Sporting Kansas City of the MLS. Peter Vermes is the Technical Director and Head Coach for Sporting Kansas City but also
Continue readingBy Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Todays featured activity works on playing a long ball, receiving long balls, attacking from width and defensive shape
Start with a player with a ball near the center circle. There are 2 attacking players out wide on each side between 18-25 yards out. There are three defenders inside the 18 a keeper in goal.
The player with the ball starts by playing a long ball to either of the most
Welcome to the FineSoccer Drills Newsletter. Today’s featured activity works on playing a long ball, receiving a long ball, dribbling toward goal, shooting, goalkeeping and fitness
Start with two small line of players on one sideline (one line with balls), 30-40 yards from goal.
Opposite them is another line of players. A keeper is in goal.
The first player with a ball drives a ball cross field to the
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
Throw, Receive and Dribble Away
The players each have a ball in their hands. They jog around the area, throw the ball slightly