Running with the ball (foundation ages) Part 2

Running with the ball part 2

After ensuring the players have grasped the right techniques for running with the ball and at speed we need to try and push this speed by introducing pressure.

1v1 work

Set up as below. 2 teams line up on either side of a centre cone, with two scoring squares on either side.

Practice begins with a player running their ball into one of the scoring squares, as soon as they enter the square a player from the opposing team can play. The first player who scored immediately becomes a defending player and must prevent the second player from scoring in either square. Once the ball is dead the second player becomes the defending player and the first players gets a ball and returns to their line and so on..

 Player 1 scores then...

Becomes defending player against player 2.

Players have option of speed: attempting to beat defending player to free square or to fake and cut back scoring on the other square.

Adaptations:

• Use small goals instead of scoring areas (may need to introduce a scoring zone to prevent players from just shooting straight away) 
• Increase/decrease the distance of scoring squares (to make it easier/harder)   

RWTB into passing 

Set up as below. Two possession ends and a centre area. Play 3v1/3v2/4v1 whatever suits your group and numbers.

Players keep possession in their end square and attempt to run the ball over to the other possession end after making a number of required passes.

 Break out game - How could team mates help when running towards them?

Work with players on how to pass the ball whilst running and different types of passes that can be made. Maybe a reverse pass or outside pass. Also important to work around first touch if we want to make a driving run. Where/when is the right time for this?

Adaptations:

•  No pass limit, allow players to run the ball across whenever they feel they have an opportunity. 
• Introduce goals have players run through onto a 1v1 after completing passes?

RWTB Game Related

 Be conscious of the pitch size for your games. Tight pitches will limit the opportunities players have to run with the ball but be careful not to make it so big that its unrealistic to the space players will have on game day.

Avalanche.

An idea for getting players more running on the ball time along side playing a game. Simply set up a ball for each player positioned behind the goal (or on either side line). If the coach calls "avalanche" (or whatever you want to call it) during the game each player must get a ball from their designated side and move it into the opposing teams area (ready for another round). This can make a good little side competition.

 Avalanche! Players go the starting position!

First team to get all their footballs to the other side wins.

Could position the balls on the side lines to reduce running distance. This would also let players choose ball closest to them (just be careful that players don't stay on one side to try and get a head start)

Have any other ideas around running with the ball for foundation ages? Please let me know!!

Running with the ball (foundation ages) Part 1

Ball mastery is one of the most important areas in coaching young players. Whilst I see a lot of time spent dribbling, doing turns/moves one area that can be overlooked sometimes is teaching players how to travel with the ball at speed (running with the ball). The ability to travel with the ball at speed and knowing when to do it can make a massive difference for players in game, I'm sure we've all played the team where 1 or 2 kids seem to be powering through our team all game?

Running with the ball (RWTB)

LACES: Fundamental to running with the ball is the ability to use our laces to "push" the ball in front of us in a straight line, it is also the only part we can use whilst running at a good speed (try running the ball using only your side food - tricky!)

As part of a warm up/ball mastery exercise in a RWTB session try to get the players using their laces as much as possible. Challenge them to only use laces perhaps or try some specific foot skills, I usually use the roll push:

Roll-Push: Place your foot directly on top of the ball and drag the ball back, as your foot comes behind the ball quickly push the ball forward using your laces before dragging the ball back so it doesn't move away from you. 

Encourage this to be done as quick as possible (can do it as a race?), challenge players to not let their standing foot move at all and remember to get them using both feet!!


Can progress the roll-push to a moving roll-push, where players travel forward whilst doing the move. Have them travel across the grid to make it directional. Alternatively you can challenge the players to travel across the grid only using their laces but put a restriction in i.e. have to "push" the ball 20 times before getting to the end - just ensure they are getting loads of repetition using their laces.

Once our players have grasped the idea of using laces to push the ball we need to add arguably the most important aspect of RWTB - speed! We want to get as much game speed running with the ball as possible, with young players this can best be achieved by races. We are still getting unopposed practice but now starting to push the players in getting up to a game speed.

Colour Races.

Using a grid as shown below mark a series of gates along the half way line where players stand in facing away from the line. Players perform any move whilst waiting for coach to call a colour. (can do the roll-push, toe taps etc.) when called players race to that colour side and rejoin the line.

 Players move to the called colour as fast as they can.

Try to build a quick tempo - can also be done without a ball for a warm up etc.

Relay Races.

Set up as below (for 5 players) using one ball. Players run to square and leave ball inside for next player to run onto. Can be done as a race between two competing groups of 5. First team to do a full circuit wins? The shape can be adapted for players - triangle set up for groups of 4 etc. 

 Players leave ball in square for next player to take over

There are loads of other ways to create these races just remember some of the key messages we need to across to our players.

• Use our laces to "push" the ball in front of us. Are we quick if we only use our side foot?
• Ensure we are pushing the ball in front enough so we can travel fast. Do lots of touches or few touches help us travel fast?
• Strong first touch out of our feet. Get going fast!

Part 2 with opposed and game related ideas to follow soon...

Arsenal Dev Center - u7 Turning

Another session carried out at the Arsenal Development Center with the impressive u7 group. This weeks session was on turning and whilst I did think about incorporating receiving turns into the session I decided to keep it as individual turns - to continue to work on ball mastery as our over-riding topic.


What? Turning; we will look at a number of turns during the session. Giving players the opportunity to practice unopposed then in a 1v1 situation.

How? By focusing the early part of our session working individually with a ball, and then moving into a situation 1v1.

Why? To look into how/why we might use turns.

Warm Up/Arrival 

Bases: Set out a number of bases within practice area. 3/4 players start as "taggers" the others are the "runners" runners get a point if they go from one base to another without being tagged. If tagged they must hop to nearest base to start using both legs again.

Adaptations: 2 points for going to different colour e.g. orange - blue.
                     Tagged players must freeze for 5 seconds.
                     Time limit in bases.

Ball Mastery: Moved onto a ball each working on some of the moves we have already covered.And then began to introduce or turns one at a time (inside cut, outside cut, Cruyff turn, step over cut)
Next challenged the players to perform turns in each base, turning through the side they entered. 


1v1 Game

Set up: A serving cone and receiving cone are set up between two goals. The receiving player faces the serving player, the server rolls the ball in and overlaps to become the defender. The attacker must dribble through one of the coned goals to score.

Server players to attacker and overlaps to become defender

Attacker can go either side to beat defender

 Encourage creative ways attackers can be defenders

Challenges:

• Try to change direction to trick opponent, how can we do this? Turns, moves, fakes?
• Try to protect the ball from defender. How? 
• Be fast when space opens up for goals. How? Why?

Questions??

• How do we protect the ball? Why?
• How can we beat the defender?
• Do we need to be speedy when we can get to a goal?

Following this we moved onto an unconditioned game. The players had worked quite a lot on turns so didn't want to put restricting conditions on.

Was able to set challenges to individuals during the game.

Overall a good session, although it was difficult to manage 6 1v1s at times!!  

Arsenal Dev Centre Session - u7 Dribbling

This week I was lucky enough to get a chance to coach at the Arsenal development centre in Plymouth which is run by Arsenal Soccer School SW. I was really impressed by the standard of the centre and I'm hoping I'll be invited back for more sessions.

Anyway, I'm going to try and post all my sessions from this season on here (ambitious I know!) along with my reflections on what I would differently etc.

U7 - Dribbling (80 Mins)

I always find it difficult to plan anything with a group I don't know, a big part of planning comes from knowing your team/players. So I planned quite a generic session around dribbling. But wanted to specifically work on moves that could be used in 1v1 situations.

What? : Dribbling: More specifically around ideas of beating opponents. Encouraging players to brave in taking on opponents

How? : Through tech-skill-game approach where players will get a lot of opportunities to practice unopposed and in 1v1 before moving onto game related practice.

Why? : To build confidence in winning 1v1 battles, how beating opponent in game can help team mates.

We began the session with a typical ball mastery warm where the players could get loads of touches (important for early season sessions). Then introduced specific moves for the players to work on: The "side step" and "scissors" and let them work on this on their own and then try to use it against a reference point (cone) "fake to go one way, take other"

After a good amount of time to let the players practice the moves unopposed we moved onto our 1v1s. But first I wanted the players to move through the areas, challenging them to really fake one gate with a move and quickly drive through the other gate. (this would also give the players a chance to see the 1v1 areas as it may have been a bit unclear) starting on pitch 1, moving through to 4.

unopposed: players moving through 1v1 pitches

 1v1 games: must have control of ball after going through gate

I let the players decide when they wanted to swap, after 1 go, 5 goes etc. Giving them ownership of their own games.

Challenges:

• Try to use the moves we had worked on (scissors, side step)
• Try to beat them quick (without stopping ball) why? 

Questions?

• what makes it harder for the defender? Fast/slow?
• Do we even need a change of direction sometimes? 

To finish off we moved onto the game related activity. Set up of 2 small pitches (3v3/2v2 size) with a 1v1 "arena" in between.

If you score you go to the 1v1 arena and pick a player on the opposite field to play 1v1 (has to be on the other team!) If ball goes out no score and both players back to fields.

This game is chaos at times and you'll need plenty of footballs. 

On reflection I felt that the session went pretty well, especially as it was my first time coaching this group. Only the second session I've done in the past couple of months so was a bit rusty in areas.

Any questions? Feel free to tweet @dwalsh_91

Coerver Coaching Diploma 1

This time last weekend I was undertaking the third and final Coerver Youth Diploma 1 being held in England. With courses already ran in Birmingham and London (Millwall FC) Scott Wright and his team hosted the final weekend course and Manchester Cities state of the art Etihad Campus. The 8 hours of travel via train were completely worth it as the course certainly exceeded my expectations, giving me a load of content that I will add to my coaching armory.

Prior to my attendance on the course my knowledge of Coerver and what its about was pretty limited. My impression was that this was a coaching method used mainly on the continent with young players with a high focus on working on technical skills. Course leader Scott Wright stated that people think that Coerver is solely about working on individual technical ability and 1v1 and to be honest this was probably what I had in mind prior to the first day, but I found out that it goes a lot deeper than that. The whole concept revolves around creating players who are masters of the ball and instilling these skills especially in the "golden ages" of learning (7-12 years) and coaching individuals opposed to just coaching the team aspects of the game (although small groups play and games are certainly a big part of the Coerver approach). A strong argument is that you can coach the team (positions, tactics) but this still relies on players individual ability to control the ball etc.

Lecture: Taken from Coerver UK Twitter account

On arrival we were given a course handbook which featured the key points from the 4 lectures and the games used in the practicals. For me, looking at the games (in the book) they came across as being static line drill type practices something that I have been looking to avoid in my training. But when these drills were bought to life in the practical, the benefits of the practices really stood out giving players focused, high speed and competitive practices with rest periods (although the intensity of drills can be adapted) from attending the youth module courses the idea of "line drills" comes under some criticism which is probably why I have lent away from them but I will certainly be using the Coerver style practices in the coming season. On actually watching the practices I was constantly thinking of ways these practices could be adapted in line with any given learning outcome, the course leader Scott also showed some simple adaptions than can be used. As coaches it is important that we don't just print a session off from the web or a book and use it exactly with our players. All drills/games need to be adapted to suit your players and what your looking to achieve within your session. I could see things that would work great with the groups I coach and some things that maybe wouldn't.

Yes, a blue 3G field!

I won't go in to any details on the content of the course, it's something you need to see and buy into. Do I think that the Coerver method will be beneficial to players? Absolutely! I think there is content you could take whether you coach u7 or senior level. It certainly has to be the way to build game changing 1v1 players though, and building these skills into young players will be massive in their development. Its rare to see a coach encouraging players to take on 1v1s, we've become fixed on trying to create perfect passing teams, I will be looking to make some changes in my coaching approach on the back of this course.


Despite being a fairly pricey 2 day course I would say it was completely worth it. Its unlike any of the other courses I have been on and will give you a totally different view point of coaching. If you can, I'd highly recommend dropping in on this course!

Keeping Possession (Foundation Ages)

A long time since my last post, let's just say it's been a bit hectic on the work side! Thought I'd post some of my session content from the past few sessions with my U8 team. The theme of our past 3 sessions has been to keep possession (both as a team and individually) encouraging players to be confident on the ball and building decision making skills - which falls in line with the FA DNA of "love the ball" which sounds pretty cheesy but puts across a strong message; we need to build players ability on the ball, the amount of times I've heard "clear it!" "get rid of it!" at U8 games is ridiculous. These are the years where we need to be building players ability to keep the ball as much as possible. Very rare is "clear it!" the right choice..

Keeping Possession (under 8's) "Try to keep the ball"

For me, keeping possession can be broken down in two parts: individually and as a team, although overall we are looking to keep the ball as team. To be able to this it's important that your players are happy to keep the ball on their own - there won't always be passing options and getting the players to be braver in possession of the ball has made up a big part of last few sessions.

Some session notes on individual possession can be found here.

The arrival games that we have used over the past couple of sessions have linked into our overriding challenge of "try to keep the ball"

Arrival 1: Passing pairs - simply getting the players passing in pairs.

Emphasis on how good passing and control can help us keep the ball, have we kept the ball well if our partner is chasing the ball off the field? Opportunity for players to get plenty of touches at the beginning of the session.

Arrival 2: 2v1 - again very simply group of 3, one starts as defender and other 2 "try and keep the ball" all groups working in half field.

Now going into some details that will help us in our session. Ways we can keep the ball from the defender? Do we have to pass it every time we get it? What if we can't pass it? Close to each other helpful or not (use space to make it easy!)

I let players manage their own 2v1s to begin with, it was basically chaos but that's sometimes OK. Let them be a bit social, mess around etc before building in the content to work on.

Practice 1: 2v1 + 1 - Set up a square (roughly 8x8 depending on age etc.) Play 2v1 in the center area with an extra player who is positioned outside the square and can move around to offer support.

 

• When do we need to pass it? 
• What if we can't make a pass? 
• Support player - how does your movement change?
• First touch - away from defender if we can! 

Practice 2: 2 x 4v2 within half a field, the 4 try to keep possession from the 2 defending players longer than the other side. The round is over when a ball from either side leaves play or the defending team get the ball and score in the goal. The team who managed to keep the ball longer get a point (3 points if their defenders scored), rotate defending players every 2-3 rounds.

The game that we actually used was slightly different to this, but I think this version would work a bit better. It may work as simply playing 4v2s or 3v1s in areas but my group enjoy games with scoring a lot more. 
  

• Positions off the ball - how can we make it difficult for the defending players?
• Keep the ball, do we need to try risky/difficult passes? Is it ok to sometimes keep the ball until a good option is available?
• First touch - into space away from defending player - why?
• Passes - how can our passing help us keep the ball? Quality of pass. 

The key to our sessions around keeping possession has been to to challenge players to think about when they need to pass it, or keep it themselves to help us keep the ball. It's common to see coaches almost forcing players to pass as soon as they are in possession, or to play 2 touch or something similar, which probably leads to losing the ball more. Keeping possession doesn't mean we need to string 8 or 9 passes together all the time.

Playing from the back (Foundation Ages)

A few years ago the FA introduced a new rule to mini soccer; "the retreat line". A rule that is now used by every grassroots league in the country for its 5 and 7 a side format games. The rule is simple, on an opponents goal kick you must retreat to the half way line and when they take it you can press as normal. An initiative taken from other countries to encourage our young players to play from the back. Speaking to other coaches it seems to have divided opinions on whether it is a good step from the FA or not, some argue that it's just not realistic. Personally I feel that it has it strengths, the majority of games that I've seen teams are looking to pay short from goal kicks and attempt to play through the thirds, great! On the flip side, this attempting to play from the back leads to mistakes (going to happen with young players) and results in conceding goals through a misplaced pass or bad touch - goals that are not really down to poor defending or good attacking play. Either way it's something we now have to deal with and when planning practices it's something we need to consider to ensure that our practice is relating to our game.

Teams that I coach have been caught out a number of times trying to play out from the back, which often leads to a straight 1v1 with the player who has won possession in our third. This has prompted me to think about practices we can do to build or confidence and success at playing out from the back.

Playing out from the back

Good passing (from the GK) and good receiving skills are essential for successfully playing out from the back. With younger players we still need to spend time working in technical, high returns practice.

Set up

Use marker cones to give players starting points shown below. GK has a number of footballs.
Players need to transfer their footballs to their target player, who looks to make runs into central channel to receive.

After going through a few rounds/rotations to give players a chance to understand the practice play it as a race against the other practice (ran on the opposite side of the field).

Coaching points

• First touch forward: can we take our first touch forward? Why might this help? Is it better to be close to the half way line? 
• Quality of passing: why will this be really important in our games? 
• Speed: what happens if we are slow on the ball in a game? 
• Cover: if our defending partner gets the ball where is a good place for us to go? (use of orange marker for covering position)
• How are the above linked?

The main issues of playing out from the back comes from being put under pressure as soon as the goal kick is taken. So the real work is going to be done in our opposed practices that give us more realism.

Set up

Using the same field as above, take the starting markers out (start to let players learn good starting positions). Practice is the same as the unopposed practice but with opposition now put in. Start with one defending player and increase the challenge if needed - or when doing this practice we had 3 defenders, 1 could choose which area to press varying the challenge for players.

Defenders start from central channel (retreat line) and look to win ball back and score.

Coaching points

• First touch: Where? What do we have to think about now? 
• Quality of passing: What happens if our passes aren't so good?
• Speed: How long do we have before we are in trouble?
• Cover: does covering our partner help? 

Taking this opposed practice on another step to become more game related.

Set up

Again same field set up as the previous practices. This time working from one goal, with one team playing and one team pressing.  Begin the practice with the central channel being a "safe zone".

We can now look at more game realistic scenarios, presenting the players with problems and decision making situations that they will come across in games.

Of course these points can be covered within an unconditioned game, just remember to put the retreat line into you practice games!

Have any other ideas on how we can develop playing from the back?