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coaching drills 73 finesoccer coaching drills free email newsletter at worldclasscoaching.com

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complete soccer coaching guide 73 soccer drills exercises and tips for better coaching © copyright 2011 world class coaching all rights reserved for information email wccmail@worldclasscoaching.com or visit our website at www.worldclasscoaching.com © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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welcome as coaches we know that there are many things that contribute to a young soccer player s success our job becomes one of identifying where individual players as well as our team are at in terms of their developmental abilities and then choosing the right activities to help them improve their skills when i say good activities i mean ones that are fundamentally sound keep the kids moving develop good habits and make them think about the game as a whole this book provides you with 180 activities designed to work on warmingup dribbling passing receiving communicating spacing supporting possessing passing conditioning heading goal keeping finishing defending offending and many other techniques and tactics i feel these activities are suitable because they ve been tried and tested by many soccer coaches and teams you ll notice that this is a collection of material gathered from my experience as a coach my summer soccer camp experiences talking with other coaches and from coaches who subscribe to my soccer newsletter available at finesoccer.com in addition to specific drills there are many activities designed to be used as scrimmages at the end of practice i highly recommend spending some time during or towards the end of your practice to play games that include the skills your players were working on the kids will have more fun and you will be surprised at how the carry over from practicing these skills in a small or adapted version of the game improves the players overall real soccer game performance i hope you find these activities helpful fun and effective in achieving your desire to have the best team you can have as you begin to try them i would enjoy hearing your feedback regarding which ones you found most helpful as well as the ones the kids liked to do the most have a great season lawrence fine © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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getting practice started quickly while building team unity to make the most of practice time getting organized quickly for drills is essential one thing i ve noticed is that when players are asked to get into small groups for a particular activity friends will always look for friends to practice with while some of the kids are left out or left to be assigned to groups by the coach because i strongly believe that all players should feel a part of the team here is a trick i use to get going quickly and to build team unity at the same time i call this method the numbers game i use it as a season long game whenever i call out a number the players must get into groups of that number as soon as possible whoever isn t in a group loses for example if there are 16 players at the training session and i call out 4 the players will quickly get into 4 groups of 4 however if i call out 3 they will get into 3 groups of 5 and one person loses when i first introduce the game i give the kids some examples of consequences for the loser for example she might have to do 5 push-ups or 5 donkey kicks players learn very quickly that whenever they hear me call out a number that they need to grab whomever is closest to them without regard for whether they are an old friend or a new friend this is also a great way to get players to work together with different teammates throughout a training session or season it even works in large numbers if you want to split 16 players into groups of 11 and 5 just yell 11 and those 11 become the first group right away if a player wants to be in the group of 11 they will do so and if they don t that is her decision this is a great way to find out who wants to do things because the players will frequently figure out what you are thinking with the numbers and will get into the bigger group to participate sometimes i will assign players into groups but most often i will yell out the number and let the players do it which saves time and avoids potential conflicts next time you need to break your players into teams play the numbers game and see how many potential problems are avoided © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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finesoccer drill 1 start with a warm up before this drill set a number of gates up throughout half of the field like below each gate should be 2 yards wide have half the players wear white and the other half blue have a white and a blue player match up with each other with one ball per pair this is simply a 1v1 game where the players try to score points by dribbling through as many gates as they can the white player starts with the ball and tries to score as often as possible in the first 1 minute half if the blue player wins the ball then she tries to score goals the only restriction is that the players can not dribble through the same goal two times in a row after 1 minute half they rest and stretch for a minute then play the second half with the blue player starting with the ball with © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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a team of 16 players there will be 8 games of 1v1 going on at the same time this will encourage the players to dribble with their heads up or run into each other at the end of the second half you might let the winner rest for a minute while the loser suffers some type of consequence such as burpees the key is to turn this into a very competitive match the next game should feature a white winner matching up with a blue winner and also have the losers match up with each other you can do this three times and get a very strenuous work out going which will continue into the next drill the next progression of this series which will begin to work with spacing and switching fields is set up exactly the same way with the gates remaining the same it s essentially the same game with the major change being that there is only one ball for the whole team now it s all of the whites against all of the blues in order to score a goal the ball must be passed through a gate and received by a teammate those are the only rules that need to be explained start them off playing a 6 minute game with a 1 minute break at halftime this break is very important because typically the first 3 minutes of this drill are dreadful it has been my experience that players will try to dribble to a gate and then pass the ball through to a teammate who inevitably is marked up during this one minute break explain to the players that it actually takes 3 players to score a goal and not just the two they are trying to use the player with the ball and the target through the gate the three players are the player with the ball and then two other players who are working together to find an open gate once they find an open gate the player with the ball can drive or chip the ball to one of these open players who then play it through the gate to the other one once they start to think in terms of needing three players to score a goal and that two of them must find an open or unmarked gate then they will start to experience success in this game as the players get accustomed to this game they will get more comfortable with playing with their heads up and looking to players who have proper support and spacing this drill is a great way to prepare for the next drill that will continue to work on getting better spacing and the switching of fields in the attack finesoccer drill 2 © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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the second part of this progression is to set a field up as shown in the following diagram the dimensions will depend upon the numbers playing but with 16 or so players you would use half of a full-sized field the corners have a small area designated by cones the two sides of the triangle that make up the right angle should be 3 yards long the 16 players are broken up to two teams team a and team b team a would place one player in the upper right corner and also one in the lower left corner team b would place one player in the upper left corner and the lower right corner team a scores a goal by passing the ball into either of the players in their corners and then that player must one touch the ball to a third player for the goal © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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to count if the goal is scored the player who originally passed the ball into the triangle then goes in the corner and the player who originally was in the corner joins the others on the field just like in the previous drill players will originally try to dribble toward the goal and then pass it to their teammate also just like the previous drill this will not be effective building on the last drill explain how to score a goal there must be three players involved however now it s almost four players instead of trying to dribble the length of the field the player with the ball should look for two players working together and play the early first pass to them then those two players will play the ball into the corner and make the proper runs in order to get open pretty cool progression as the players get more accustomed to this game they will automatically start to get better spacing as they realize that instead of forcing the ball into one corner they can change directions and go the other way if they have proper balance any balls that go out of play are kick ins and even a kick in can be played into the corner to initiate a goal of all of the drills that i have ever used this might be the most enjoyable for me because of how quickly i tend to see improvement when combined with the next drill i can watch how well they are able to take this improvement and actually apply it in a game situation the next step in this progression is to change the field slightly to look like the one in diagram below © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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this field has the same dimensions but now instead of triangles in the corners there are small 2 yard wide goals just place a goal in each corner and then another one 2 yards in on the end line also there is a square in the middle again there are 2 teams but now to score the ball must be played through the goals team a would be scoring into either the top left goal or the bottom left goal and team b would be scoring into either the top right goal or the bottom right goal this part is set up like a standard 4 goal game the rectangle in the middle represents a one touch zone for younger players this can be a two touch zone by having the goals in the corners it encourages the players get wide early and by putting in the one touch zone it discourages the players from trying to dribble from one side of the field to the other you will start to see players doing a much better job of spacing with players running through the center to receive the ball and play one touch soccer © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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the other thing this central zone does is encourage both width and depth instead of playing all balls either square or forward they will realize the advantages of playing balls back and around the zone just like you want them to switch balls around the back of the field in a real game one of the reasons i like this game so much is that the spacing comes almost naturally i believe the more a player can realize on their own without it having to be explained in great detail the more she will really progress to make this game even more difficult you can also put in a one touch finish restriction this simply means that to score a goal it must be played one touch into the goal this will help them to get back to thinking about working in 2 s and 3 s instead of just playing by themselves finesoccer drill 3 this is last in the progression on switching fields and providing proper balance the next step is to take the field as laid out in the following diagram © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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the dimensions will depend upon the numbers involved in the drill but can be the same in the previous drill the center rectangle from the previous drill still is there and has the same restrictions of one touch or two touches for younger players instead of the 4 small goals we now add two full-sized goals centered on the end lines now the rules are quite simple one touch in the middle and before you can go to goal the ball must go into the offensive third of the field in most cases the field will be set up so that it is reasonable to be able to shoot from the middle third of the field those are the only restrictions the dotted lines in the diagram above are ways to represent the middle third and the other thirds by using these two restrictions it will force players to use width since it s one touch in the middle third because the box will encourage the use of width the restriction of having to get into the offensive third will force the use of depth in the attack to start with you can allow players to be offside in the attack since you the depth but gradually force the players to stay onsides the last step in this progression is to pick up the center cones and let them play unrestricted but encourage them to maintain width and depth proper balance and shape this series of drills has been very successful when i used them together finesoccer drill 4 as a warm up to this team defense series you can have the team start in groups of two with one ball per group have the player with the ball start on one sideline and dribble all of the way to the other sideline working on various moves as they go along the second player would be working on a proper defensive stance with their feet constantly moving and feinting as if they are going to go in for a tackle at no point should the defender actually try to win the ball when the player with the ball gets to the far sideline they switch and now she works on her defensive footwork and the other player works on moves next the player with the ball dribbles at the defender just like before but now when the coach yells switch the player with the ball steps back into a defensive position and the other player becomes the attacker this does a good job of © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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working on quick transition from offense to defense and is a great way to warm up for the team defense series the first progression in this series requires 6 players split in teams of two the field is 15 yards wide and 25 yards long and 3 players are on offense as set up like the x s in the diagram below and three like the o s on defense in the beginning the x s are stationary and pass the ball back and forth taking three touches when the ball is in the center the defense needs to adjust as shown in the diagram below © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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this allows the first defender to pressure the ball and the two outside defenders to take on the role of the second defender and offer support the x s are not permitted to go forward but they want to take their touches as quickly as possible to make the defense move quickly when the ball goes to the outside players the defenders adjust accordingly as shown in the diagrams below © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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© world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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after the defenders work hard for 2 minutes they should places switch with the offensive players once the players are confident in their movements the next step is say that after 5 passes the offensive players may leave their positions and try to get the ball from one side of the field to the other the defense is still not allowed to try to win the ball and the only thing they can do is maintain proper positioning to prevent the attackers from getting to their intended point next the players can go live with the offense doing anything they want to get across the end line and the defenders allowed to win the ball there are a lot of other variations that can be built into this drill such as putting a keeper on the far end line and having them work on communication by telling the defenders what to do also while working on communication you can have the keepers be the intended target of the offensive players in order to get a point they must chip the ball into the keepers hands besides working on communication and chipping this also forces the defense to get the players heads down so they can t find the keeper be creative and this drill can be an entire training session or you can use the rest of the drills in this progression © world class coaching thousands of training sessions at www.worldclasscoaching.com

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