Tag Archives for " Soccer Exercises "

4 FC Barcelona - Style and Domination

FC Barcelona has become the world’s top club and has set the standard for all other clubs to follow.  With more than a dozen major championships and counting over the past four years, the team has achieved remarkable success in La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League and also the FIFA World Club Championships.  Further, the bulk of the 2010 World Cup Champion Spanish National Team mainstays call Barcelona their home club.

What has prompted this run?  Certainly talented players including the likes of Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique and others are critical to the team’s stunning run.  However, the Barcelona model is much more complex, as the coaching, philosophy, tactics, team culture and more all contribute to the spectacular results and consistency that have been the hallmark of the club in recent years.

A new book that we've just released call, FC Barcelona: Style and Domination, A Tactical Analysis of FC Barcelona examines the special qualities and practices that have been critical to the club’s recent success.  From a profile of the manager and summary of the club’s overall

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

1 Integrating the Goalkeeper into Team Training

I don't think most coaches give a lot of thought to the needs of their goalkeepers when they sit down to plan their session. They're usually just another player in the team for most of the session and then go in goal when it comes time to shoot or play a game. While it's important for all goalkeepers, especially young goalkeepers, to work with the ball at their feet they also need to train with the team in functional exercises. This establishes a link between the goalkeeper rest of the team that will translate to game day.

A book that got me thinking about this subject is, "Team Training for the Goalkeeper" by John Murphy. In this book Murphy gives examples for training your goalkeepers with the team in all phases of training. Warm-up, Functional Training, Possession, Small-Sided Games, Phase of Play exercises and 11 v 11 setting are all discussed. He also includes full sessions that integrate the goalkeeper throughout the session.

Here are a few warm-up exercises

0 Running with the Ball

A topic I don't see coaches cover very often is running with the ball. We all spend a good bit of time on dribbling sessions but running with the ball is a different skill. When you're dribbling the idea is to have the ball close to your feet and under tight control. When you're running with the ball you're trying to take space quickly so you get the ball out of your feet and run after it.

A session from the Manchester United Soccer School is great for working on this skill. I came across the session in our book, 'Technical Practices of the Pros'.

I've used this session with teams as young as U10. It's been

0 Adding Creativity to Diamond Drills

As I've written in previous posts, I enjoy incorporating diamond drills into my sessions because they provide all of the principles of attacking in a dynamic format that keeps the players moving and engaged. In one post on 'Diamond Passing' I shared some progressions on the diamond passing drills that I've used in the past. Over the last two months I've introduce these to my players during a number of practices. They've done a great job with them and I can change the pattern on the fly just by saying, "Layoff-and-Go", "Overlap" or "Play the Forward". I've also seen the movements from these exercises occur in scrimmages and games so the players have made the transition between practice and practical application.

During the winter my club participates in Futsal since the Midwest winter makes it tough to stay outdoor year-round. For those not familiar with

0 Defending the Wide Areas in a 4-3-3

My primary concern about changing to a 4-3-3 system was how to deal with players attacking from wide areas. With only three midfielders, all of whom play centrally, I was worried that this would be an area that other teams could exploit. So making sure we had a plan to deal with this problem became a primary concern.

One of the strengths of the 4-4-2 system is it's ability to create 2 v 1 situations on the wings. So if we're going to play from a 4-3-3, how will

3 Defending Against the 3-5-2

Every systems has it's strengths and weaknesses. In previous posts I've described why I feel that the 4-3-3 is a great system to teach players the game. While I believe in playing our own best game regardless of what the opposition is trying to do, playing against other systems provides challenges that the players need to learn to deal with. In the next few weeks I'll show you how I've taught my teams to handle these differences.

Teams that know you are playing with three in the midfield might try to overwhelm these players by having five in the

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

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

1 Shooting - Three and Four Line Exercises

One of my favorite books is, 'Training Creative Goalscorers'. The book is by Chelsea FC Academy Coach, Michael Beale. The focus of this book is on training shooting and finishing in functional situations that also involve an activity after shooting like defending the next player or playing a give-and-go with another player. These are the

0 Shooting - Two Lines on the Posts

This is the second in the July series of posts on shooting progressions. The exercises I'll discuss are normally part of a complete session but are shown here on their own to focus on them. The exercises shown in the first post of of this series where mostly static so that the players would really

0 Shooting Exercises - Wall Ball

During the month of June I highlighted my four favorite 1 v 1 training methods. In July I'll thought I'd go through the progression I use for shooting. The exercises are normally part of a complete session but are shown here on their own to focus on them. The first time I work on shooting

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

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

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

2 Should Young Goalies Punt?

There was a recent discussion on our local soccer forum that talked a teams that were playing 'Kickball'. One poster suggested that goalkeepers should be encouraged to roll the ball out or drop it to their feet and pass their way out of the back rather than punting it up the field. I've never coached

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

0 Brazilian Transition Games

Brazilians learn the game by playing the game.  In many countries training sessions are focused around drills and exercises that isolate techniques and tactics.  Brazilian coaches spend most of their time creating playing environments with small-sided games that put an emphasis on the specific areas of the game but also train the player ‘globally’. One

0 2 v 1 Exercises

We all want our players to be able to recognize certain situations and then choose the correct option to take advantage of it. One very effective way of showing players these situations is to set the attacking team up with an advantage and condition the defenders to play in a certain way. This allows the

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