Since the England DNA has come to my attention I have decided to try and spend 4-5 sessions working on one of the 9 strands outlined in the DNA. We spent January working primarily on individual ball mastery DNA link: Stay on the ball, master the ball I wanted to increase the players confidence to beat opponents, travel effectively with the ball and retain possession of the ball when under pressure.
The following sessions are a mix of what I have used recently in my sessions and some that I have used in the past. The sessions are aimed out the foundation ages (5-11) where it is vital that we spend time developing players abilities to be comfortable in possession and control the ball.
Individual Possession
Some may associate the term possession with the tiki-taka football played by Barcelona, where they are able to keep the ball away from opponent with slick passing and moving football. For me as a foundation coach its simply keeping the ball, whether this be through dribbling or passing. So many times I see young players panic when in possession - is this due to not knowing what to do with the ball? Do we sometimes encourage passing too much? Maybe its a fear of making a mistake in possession?
I want my players to be confident when on the ball and to be able to keep it when under pressure, when there are little passing options, if we want to create better players we need to start by helping them be comfortable with the ball.
Some arrival activities that can be used to introduce the ideas of shielding the ball from opponent.
A simple and good arrival can be to get the players to take some cones with a partner, make an area and play a 1v1 keep ball game. Swap the pairings around every couple of minutes to vary the challenge and keep it competitive! Another useful idea is to give players a choice of shapes. How might a triangle or circle vary the challenge?
Another is to set up your area where players can spend a few minutes with a ball each doing various moves/turns etc and then progress it to being an opposed practice; simply by taking half the balls out (so half the group have a ball, half don't) simply challenge players who don't have a ball to get one after 30 seconds players with a ball earn a point and give their ball to a player who doesn't have one (give more opportunities for weaker players to get touches)
With these activities it is important to discuss ideas on how we can keep the ball away from opponent, how do we make it hard for players to take our ball?
- Shielding: using body to protect the ball, moving it as opponent moves.
- Fakes/turns to try and lose opponents.
- Dribbling into areas away from opponent, trying to keep ball on far side of opponents.
A nice progression of the 1v1 practice is to include an element of support to a player who is holding possession - whilst we are working on individual possession its still important to touch upon how we can support players who have the ball.
Still a 1v1 practice but the player in possession now has a support player who can maneuver around the area (taking up good support positions). Challenge the player in possession to keep the ball for a set time before using the support player, or perhaps see who can keep it the longest (risk or retain).
You can also make it directional if you want to build a bit more realism into the practice. Set up a series of small fields as shown below. 3 players to a grid (1 defender, 1 server, 1 "shielder" ) Serving player plays into team mate who look to keep possession until support arrives (can have a time limit for supporting player to join, 2 goals if shielding player keeps it for 5 seconds?) Start from opposite side after play in finished, defending player looks to score in opposite goal.
Although there is more of an emphasis on supporting and looking to use the support player; encourage players in possession to be creative in how they solve the problem. Perhaps we can use the support player as a decoy and turn the defender? A 1 touch turn around the defender?
You'll notice that these games are primarily 1v1 based, for me its about maximizing the players time on the ball and trying to create as many opportunities for the players as possible to practice the skills we're working on, especially when working with younger players.
Any other ideas? I'd love to hear them!
No comments:
Post a Comment