Playing Forward

Since undertaking the YM2 and YM3 courses I have found it very difficult to plan sessions, it's not that I struggle with ideas but I seem to critically review every idea I have to the extent that I re-run some practices used in the past. One area where my practices look a lot different now is possession based topics, I am far more reluctant to use just "keep away" based games (although they certainly have there use). One area that I have spent a lot of time on with my u8s side is "playing forward". I still see a lot of possession based practices that aren't directional and the possession team have the overload all the time, we all know these practices but how realistic are they? I try to make the majority of my practice directional now as it creates more game realistic problems for the players. ne thing I have taken from the youth modules is "what does it look like in a game".

The below practices have been used with my u8s team but some of the ideas may be useful for your teams.

Playing Forward (foundation ages)

Unopposed

The first area we worked on was receiving to play forward, "where should i first touch be if we want to play forward the quickest way?"

I used the term "First touch forward" with my players and its a phrase that has stuck with them for months now.

Put players into 3s with one player as the center player and the other 2 as serving players. Begin with players transferring the ball through the central player, i made mine a little competition which team can do the most in a minute? Simple but gets my players a bit more engaged.

Questions:

• How can we do it quickly? - Good passing to team mates, moving in line to receive,

• Where should our first touch be? - FORWARD?!

• Can the side players passes make it easy for the center player - where do they want the ball to play forward?

Challenges:

• Try to play your first touch forward (center player) - looking for side on stance to be able to see more of the game

•  Outside players - can you pass to help them play forward?

Emphasis on standing side on was important for our team to be able to see who's behind you, see if there's actually space to first touch forward.



The practice is unopposed and gives players a lot of attempts at the receiving techniques.

Opposed

 Now we have grasped the technique of first touch forward we can start to look and how, where and when we can use it by playing an opposed practice. Keeping it directional obviously very important.

Below we keep the two outside players who now become target players. And a 2v1 is played inside the area. The 2 look to transfer the ball from one target to the other to get a point. If the defender wins it they can do the same (if they can in a 1v2 then great!) this give the defender a motive as well instead of just winning and kicking it out! What we want the defender to do in a game?

Questions:

• When can we play first touch forward? What if we can't? - With my team first touch forward is what we try and do if we have the space to do it, or first touch away (from defender) if opponent are near.

•  If we can't play forward what can we do? play back to target, use second player if they can support us.

Challenges

• Try to get side on to play first touch forward quickly.

• Find good supporting positions for the target players.

• Play quickly - don't let defender get a chance to close down - accurate passes needed.

• For advancing players - can the 2 of you touch the ball before transferring?  

Obviously you can develop your own challenges depending on your players. This game really started to build the decision making skills.

GAME RELATED

To enable us to play forward we need one thing... support in front of us! In the opposed practice we have been given this by using fixed target players. The game related focuses slightly more on how we support each other to play forward.

Set out field as below. One team play as defending team and have a GK the other team are attacking and have a serving player (could us another GK though if you have the players)

I decided to lock my defending players into zones and allow the attacking team to play wherever, this was to to also encompass combing to play forward - something we looked at for a couple of weeks along side just playing forward.


Questions

• Strikers:  What do we need from you? Where do we need to support when the ball goes here? Can you move to pull defenders out the way?
• If we can't play forward, what can we do?
• What happens if we try and force it forward? When is it good to risk possession?

Challenges

• Try to have someone in the team up field so we can play forward.
• As a team look after the ball (give teams a certain amount of balls to use say 4/5 how many can you score?)
• Try to be in that "side on" position to play forward quicker.

look to break down the practice where needed. We worked a lot on support when doing this. And worked a lot around strikers movement.

Again these practices were done with my u8s team, although they may be able to be adapted to suit older players. Also we worked on this topic for about 6 weeks; its important to link sessions to help learning as there are a lot of points to cover for a young age group.

Feedback welcome! :)

@dwalsh_91

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