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