Tag Archives for " Severn "

0 Effective Attacking as an Inverted Winger

By Dan Severn An inverted winger if the use of a player on the opposite wing to their dominant foot (a left footed player, playing on the right wing, or vice versa). The obvious benefit to playing with an inverted winger is that it will allow for better opportunities to shoot when cutting inside; but

0 Finding Half-Spaces as an Attacking-Midfielder

By Dan Severn Being successful in an attacking midfield role requires the player to be intelligent off-the-ball. They need to have great awareness and timing of movement in order to find spaces at good times to receive the ball. If they manage to combine the timing with the movement, it can lead to opportunities to

0 How to Protect Your Center Defenders With a Holding Midfielder

By Dan Severn The role of the defensive midfielder keeps evolving, but one key job that remains a major part of the role is to protect the central defenders. Defined in two major ways, the defensive midfielder can be a player that seeks out the danger and presses centrally to win the ball (think Claude

0 When and How to Attack as a Fullback

By Dan Severn Attacking full backs (#2 & #3) can be crucial to creating overloads in wide areas and thus creating more chances and scoring more goals! Here we take a look at how and when full backs can look to exploit the attacking areas of the field to have a positive impact on their

1 1v1 Recovery Runs

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise can be used as a technical warm-up or as the main technical focus of the session. Ideally you will use 4-6 players for this exercise but could add more to a group if necessary. The exercise will be performed at a high tempo and help to develop dribbling, first touch, and sharp changes of direction.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below, showing one player with a ball, one waiting behind him and two players at the opposite end.

The player with the ball begins the play by dribbling the ball across towards

1 Explosive Agility into 2v1

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise focuses on explosive agility before attacking in a 2v1 situation. Explosive agility, speed and power are key aspects of the top soccer players games. This exercise will help you to develop explosiveness in a high tempo situation.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below, showing the coach with a ball. There are two attackers in black and one defender in yellow.

Play begins on the coach’s call and all players perform agility before they can receive the ball. The defender must

1 Conditioning With a Finishing Circuit

By Daniel Severn

This week we have an easy to set up, fun, but hard working exercise. This exercise works well using 7+ players. This game involves tons of shooting so it is always easy to get the player motivated and on your side straight away for this one. It is a very rich exercise as we see shots from different angles in situations. One v Ones, Long Range Shooting and Crossing and Finishing are all included in this exercise.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. Three lines of players are set up as shown in the diagram below. As we see in the picture, left to right, we have the One v One line, the Long Range Shooting line and the Crossing and Finishing line.

Play begins with our first player running in a one versus one with the goalkeeper. While player one attempts the one v one, player two is

0 Pass Combination with Sprints

By Daniel Severn

This week we have an easy to set up, fun, but hard working exercise. This exercise works well with groups of either five or six players.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. The exercise runs with a simple passing combination running around the outside of the marked square (around 10-15 yards each side). Ensure to have 2 or more players at the starting cone and only 1 player per spare cone, as shown.

The ball will be passed around the area in an anti-clockwise rotation. The players must sprint to the

5 Technical Team Relay with Finishing

By Daniel Severn

Team competitions are always fun. They demand each player to work to their maximum effort as they represent their team. This technical relay race will focus on techniques of dribbling the ball and ends with the player shooting.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. We have 3 players representing each team, Yellow and Black. Player one begins at the end line of the field, with a ball at his feet. Player one has a line of small cones in front of him. Player two waits behind the tall cones, which are placed in a zig-zag formation, diagonal from each other. Player three waits behind a ladder; this is the player that will finish the relay by taking a shot.

Player one will complete his station before passing the ball to the player at station two, who in turn completes his station and passes to player three; who completes his station beats the flag and takes a shot to finish.

Station one – Dribble through the cones using the

1 High Tempo 4v1 Conditioning Game

By Daniel Severn

Today we have a simple variation of a popular and efficient exercise. By putting in this one twist, we add in movement, timing, speed of play and lots of conditioning. Again, there are many variations and ways to change or adapt this depending on the age and ability of your players – I’ll show you some of my favorite variations at the end of this article.

Set Up and Directions

The exercise is set up as shown below. We have four small cones marking out a 15x15 yard area. We also have four tall cones positioned centrally outside each side of the area, approximately 5 yards away.

The players will play a ‘regular’ 4v1 keep-away within the area marked by the small cones. The twist is this simple, after making a pass, the player must

0 The Order Game - An Effective Way to Start Any Session

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise can be used as a multi-purpose exercise. It is a very fun game that will get your players pushing themselves to the limit. It is also a very effective way to start a session as a warm up as it has very positive effects on team communication as well as getting them thinking and using their ‘soccer brains’ from the start of the session.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below.

Above, we have 3 teams of 2 players ready to compete against one another. Each team has 4 objects in front of them (in this case, a small cone, a ball, a tall cone and a flag) spaced approximately 5 yards from each other. This is a speed and agility exercise which involves quick thinking from the active player as well as

0 Technical Station - Including Through Pass and Shooting

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise is again a two player exercise. It helps to develop agility, first touch, the timing of runs and through passes, dribbling techniques, passing and shooting. It is a great all-round exercise with a high intensity.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. Our player in yellow will be our ‘attacker’ and the player in black will be the ‘feeder’ in this situation. Our attacker begins positioned behind a line of five cones. Two cones are positioned at opposite diagonals, approximately five yards from the last cone from the attacker. The feeder starts centrally between these cones.

Play begins with the attacker performing agility (e.g. shuffling / quick feet / jumping) through the cones. When the attacker gets to

0 Combination with Through Ball

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise is a two player combination play which includes give & go’s, agility, a through ball (in which the weight and timing of the pass are key) and also crossing and finishing. It is a continuous exercise that focus’ on many aspects involved in the game. Short, fast-paced repetitions with longer breaks between each rep’ will help develop excellent anaerobic cardio.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below.

Our central midfielder starts with the ball at his feet, dead center, around 30-40 yards from goal (dependent on age/ability). Our wide player starts behind a

1 Technical Conditioning

By Daniel Severn This week’s exercise can be used as a technical warm-up or as the main technical focus of the session. There are endless variables with this exercise; I will share some of my favorite ones at the end. This works best if the players can be paired up, but there is also a

3 Continuous 1v1 Under Tight Pressure

By Daniel Severn

This week we have an exercise which will work close control, changes of pace, protecting the ball and plenty of skills and trickery. The exercise can be used as a fun game after a warm up or as the technical part of your session as you can focus on many different aspects of the game in this situation.

Set Up and Directions
Players will work in pairs, with one ball between two. The exercise is set up in a 20x20 yard area with small, 1 yard gates scattered around the area.

Through the diagrams, I will show the exercise running with just one pair of players but I would often use around four or five pairs working at any one time.

When play begins, the two players will compete one versus one to score as many points as possible within the time limit. The players score points by

1 Continuous 1v1 Battles

By Daniel Severn

This week we have a very high tempo, quick-fire 1v1 exercise that is worked in groups of three. It is always good to practice 1v1s they happen all over the field in every single game. 1v1s also get players thinking from both the attacking and defensive side of the game. A good warm up should be performed before this exercise as it is played at a very high tempo.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below. The feeder ( player in blue on the outside of the field) must have a number of soccer balls available in order to keep a high tempo for this game. The two active players wait centrally in the 20x15 yard field marked out with two goals, one at either end.

Play begins with the feeder playing a pass directly between the two competing players. The two players then compete for

0 Racing to Finish the Cross

By Daniel Severn

This week we focus on speed and agility combined with crossing and finishing under pressure. The exercise works best when run as a competition as this adds extra motivation for the players. Speed and Agility are obvious essentials in any game of soccer as players in any role or position on the field will benefit from having good speed and being more agile. The crossing and finishing aspects are more honed towards specific positions, so depending on the situation of your team, (whether you rotate players in positions or if your players have set positions) you can work a little bit of positional specific training into this exercise, especially for your outside defenders and midfielders. A good warm up should be performed before this exercise as it is played at a very high tempo.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below with the coach positioned centrally around 30 yards from goal. The coach must have a supply of soccer balls to keep the exercise fluid. We also have two wide players, positioned on each wing. Each will have three cones laid out in front of them which they will use to perform agility. The wide players will act as neutrals and should try to play crosses into general areas, trying not to favor a team, but giving the players a good chance to score from the cross. Two teams will line up on opposite sides of the goal (minimum two players per team) with a goalkeeper in the goal.

Play begins with the coach playing a pass out to either wing (left wing in the example below), the winger then shuffles through the cones as quickly as possible and then

0 Dribbling with Quick Changes of Direction

By Daniel Severn

This week we will focus on quick changes of direction within a fast paced, competitive exercise. I will use the ‘drag-back’ turn as the example throughout the exercise, but any other turn involving a full change of direction can be used (e.g. Cruyff turn, step-over, inside/outside cuts etc).

Set Up and Directions

For this exercise you only need a few cones. The example in the diagram is set up for just two players, but you can add in more ‘lanes’ of cones to involve as many players as you need to accommodate.

Here we have five cones laid out approximately 5 yards apart from each other. Two players begin each with a ball a few yards either side of Cone number 1. On the coaches signal the players

0 Crossing and Finishing with Agility

By Daniel Severn

This week the focus is on scoring goals from crosses. I have added in some ladders and need for short sprints to help improve the players’ agility and explosiveness. During this exercise the players will be in pairs as attackers and are required to work explosively in order to get on the end of the crosses and score goals. This is a continuous exercise that you will need a minimum of 10 players plus a goalkeeper to run. The short sprints, agility and sharp changes of direction in this exercise will all help develop your players’ anaerobic capacity.

Set up and Directions:

Firstly, set out ladders in front of your wide players (LW and RW) around 25yds from the end of the field. Add cones centrally, around 30yds from the goal – this is where your pair

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 Defending the Counter Attack – Continuous

By Daniel Severn

This exercise will help your players to develop an understanding of key defensive positioning, delaying an opponent and help to develop their decision making. It can be broken down into a more tactical practice, but I like to play this game with a continuous aspect to increase the intensity. It is also a great way to teach players how to keep focus when tiring in the game.

Set Up
You will need a minimum of 9 players to run this exercise as continuous (you can play this with just 6, but for the best intensity, 12 players is ideal). You begin with 1 Goalkeeper and 2 Defenders placed just inside the penalty area. You now have 3 lines of attackers set up as if they are playing the roles of a striker and the two wingers/wide midfielders. The Striker starts with the ball.

Set up is shown below in Fig 1.

Rules
- 2 minutes on the clock
- The defenders begin with 10 points
- Each goal they concede, they lost 1 point
- Winning pair are the ones with the most points remaining at the end

Directions
The striker begins with the ball centrally. As soon as the striker takes