Developing Creativity Sessions (2014 LCC event)

Using my old laptop for the first time in months and came across loads of my notes from courses and other events. This is one of my favourites from a LCC event focused around developing creativity around 18 months ago.. Enjoy!

Developing Creative Games 

 SSG - Bib challenge game

The first session was taken by two of the local Tesco skills coaches, set up was as below; a standard SSG played with one team taking on the "challenges" and the other team just playing as normal.

The team who were undetaking the challenges were given 3 bibs each (3 different colours: Blue, Red and Yellow) and could put these on in any order.

The idea being that each bib corresponds to an individual challenge. For example:

Red = Play a 1 - 2 with a team mate to get forward.

Blue = Take on an opponent.

Yellow = Run the ball from one third to another.

Once you had completed the task you could take that colour bib off. However you could only take off the one on the top i.e. if blue was your top colour and you ran the ball from the mid to the end third you couldnt take off your yellow. The team which could take of the most bibs wins, makes sense right?

Some ideas on how this can be adapted...

• Let the players come up with their own tasks.
• Give bibs to players instead of getting them to take them off, this can be a sort of "reward"
• Use a white board or other scoring system if you don't have the bibs. 
• Ensure its game related! Scoring goals needs to remain the key objective. 
• Be creative with the tasks!! Adapt them depending on your team. For 6 year olds you may earn a bib for playing a pass forward, or doing a turn. For older ages it may be playing a ball from the defensive third to the end third etc...

More, less or the same

This was a game delivered by FA tutor Martin Dighton, who has delivered both my YM2 and YM3

 

The set up was as below with 3 different areas going on at once. 2 areas are 3v2 and the smaller one is a 1v1. With a diamond marked out in the middle of the 3 areas.

The yellow team (attackers) attempt to score in the goals on the edge of the area, the red team (defending) score by running a ball into the blue diamond. Attacking team cannot enter the diamond.

Add scores from the 3 pitches and then swap roles.

Progressions/adaptions:

• If odd number of players, introduce a floating player who can be used to help either attackers or defending team. 
• If a player scores a goal they then must move to one of the other areas (to create more of an overload etc) this can also be applied for defending team.
• Replace diamond with goals, or replace small goals to some sort of end zone.

Again adapt the game to suit your players, can be changed to suit more of less numbers. 

2 Man Target Game 

Set as below, with 2 neutral target players in each end zones and 3v3 in the middle. The neutral team plays to the team that passed into them. A team scores a point when successfully transferring ball from one end zone to the other. 

When ball is played into the red (neutral) players in the end zone, they immediately switch to the other player in their zone and then continue play.

A simple game that can be used to coach many different aspects such as; turning, support, movement off the ball, exploiting space, passing etc.

Progressions/adaptations:

• Cannot play back into reds once they have passed out to you. Must look to play positive (forward) every time.
• target players can only play with 1 or 2 touches, to increase tempo of game. 
• Target players switch with centre players after receiving. 

With this i came up with a slight variation of my own which i think could work well with the majority of age groups. Where each team has a target player in both end zones they look to play into as set up below.

 This gives some objective to the players in the end zone who must now try to use their movement to loose the marking player.

Again, can progress this to players switching roles once pass is played into target man. 

As stated these drills are not my own, but ones taken from an FA conference. If you have a chance to attend one of these conferences then i encourage you to book yourself onto one. Its a great day and can give you some fresh ideas to take back to your teams. 

Its important to bare in mind that these drills were done with adult players, you should look to adapt them to the players you coach! Ensure you know what your trying to get out of each game, defending or attacking work, passing or dribbling etc.

If you have any queries on any of the above drills please feel free to drop a comment or message me via twitter: @dwalsh_91 

These drills were made using the FA Coaches App, which is available to download via the app store.