We’ve had a lot of games rescheduled this season because of the crazy weather had. We even had snow the first weekend in May that caused the fields to be closed.

My U14 girls play in a local league as well as the Midwest Regional League (MRL) in addition to the occasional tournament. But all of that leads up to the most important tournament of the year, State Cup. The winner of State Cup goes to Regionals to play the 21 State Cup Champions from our Region. The winners of each of the four Regions in the U.S. progress to the USYS National Championship which will be held at the Overland Park Soccer Complex this summer.

I originally arranged our schedule so that the games were spaced nicely with sufficient time for training, rest and recovery but the rained out games have piled up and now we’re looking at about 15 games in 27 days. Warm-ups, cool-downs and Continue reading ‘Recovery Session’ »

One of the benefits of coaching within a large club is the opportunity for continued coaching education from the Technical Director. The club I coach with is Sporting Blue Valley, an affiliate club of Sporting Kansas City of the MLS. Peter Vermes is the Technical Director and Head Coach for Sporting Kansas City but also oversees Sporting Blue Valley as it’s Technical Director.

At least one each season Vermes will conduct a session with all of the coaches in the club that covers a specific topic. This not only serves to emphasize the technical or tactical areas that he and the Technical Staff feel are important but also gives the coaches examples of exercises that can be used if future training sessions.

An example of one of these sessions will appear in the February edition of WORLD CLASS COACHING Magazine that will be added to the Member Drills Database. Here is a part of that session on passing and receiving.

Warm-Up

Two players stand 5 yards apart and pass the ball back and forth with two touches from one player’s right foot to the other player’s right foot and left foot to left foot.

Coaching Points

• Be on your toes and ready to move
• Move to meet the ball, pass and return to your starting position
• Focus on proper technique with each settle and pass

Progressions

• Receive with one foot and pass with the other
• One-touch

Passing and Receiving Technique #1

Player 2 starts between two cones while Player 1 stands with the ball 5 yards away at a single cone.  As Player 1 passes to the right, Player 2 moves to settle the ball and pass it back to Player 1.  After passing, Player 2 shuffles across to the left and receives another pass, settles it and passes back.  Switch Player 1 and 2 after 20 seconds to a minute depending on the age and fitness level of your players.

Coaching Points

• Settle and pass the ball with your “outside” foot
• Both players much focus on the technique of each settle and pass
• Don’t Kill the Cones!

**To adjust this exercises for younger players, have the server roll the ball with his hands until they are able to control and pass accurately enough for Player 2 to receive good passes.

Passing and Receiving Technique #2

Next, the server uses his hands to throw the ball for Player 2 to volley back with the inside of the foot

Have the players count how many balls are not played back to the servers hands and have them complete some type of penalty (ie pushups) for each mistake.  This will focus the players and motive them focus on their technique.

Progressions

• Control with the thigh and volley back with the inside of the foot
• Control with the chest and volley back with the inside of the foot

Look for the rest of this session in the February Edition of WORLD CLASS COACHING in the Member Drills Database.

Have a great day!

Tom

One of the perks of being apart of WORLD CLASS COACHING is that I have access to a large library of training sessions from some of the top professional, collegiate, and youth coaches. We have published books and DVDs on every aspect and topic of coaching.

I often refer to our DVD especially for new ways to approach topics to keep my coaching fresh and interesting to the players I work with. I think we’re all probably guilty of using the same few drills or exercises for a specific technique over and over. This can be a good thing because it allows us to focus on teaching the game rather than having to spend a lot of time teaching the drill. But changing things up on occasion can breath new life into a stale session and motivate players to perform at a higher level with the addition of new challenges.

In the past if I was looking for a new warm-up for a shooting practice I would have to scan through three or four DVDs to find what I’m looking for. This changed recently with the addition of our new Video Library. It contains more than 400 clips from many of our most popular DVD titles covering a wide range of techniques and tactics. Now I can search this library and find a clip instantly. I can even log in and view the videos on my Android phone (it also works with the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad).

Here’s the warm-up I found from former US Woman’s National Team Assistant, Lauren Gregg.

Warm-up
Balls traveling into stride, balls traveling away from stride, movements with back to goal, balls coming out of the air.

Procedure
Groups of four (2 players in the middle – one is a defender, one is an attacker) check away, receive pass, set, hit the target

Coaching Points

• Check back at an angle
• Receiving player – don’t check square, check at an angle where you can see goal, teammate, and defender at the same time
• Player receiving form the setter get on a 45 degree angle to strike into the target
• Look over your shoulder
• Not square – got to be at a 45 degree angle
• If you need to take a touch to clean it up then do that.

Progression

• Checking player now has the option to turn, dummy, or set
• Coaching Points
• Check to the ball with some urgency
• Look over shoulder for defender
• Targets adjust
• Defender’s defend like you mean it
• You only need a half step to shoot
• Receive with foot furthest from the defender

Check out the new Video Library have access to hundreds of drills, exercises and small-sided games on every technical and tactical topic.

Have a great day!

Tom

One of the perks of being apart of WORLD CLASS COACHING is that I have access to a large library of training sessions from some of the top professional, collegiate, and youth coaches. We have published books and DVDs on every aspect and topic of coaching.

I often refer to our DVD especially for new ways to approach topics to keep my coaching fresh and interesting to the players I work with. I think we’re all probably guilty of using the same few drills or exercises for a specific technique over and over. This can be a good thing because it allows us to focus on teaching the game rather than having to spend a lot of time teaching the drill. But changing things up on occasion can breath new life into a stale session and motivate players to perform at a higher level with the addition of new challenges.

In the past if I was looking for a new warm-up for a shooting practice I would have to scan through three or four DVDs to find what I’m looking for. This changed Continue reading ‘Warm-Up for Shooting’ »

For me, the beginning of the season revolves around getting a group of players to work together within a framework of a system. Lately that system has been the 4-3-3. This involves teaching each player the role and responsibility of their position: How the defenders work together to stop attacks and win the ball. How the midfielders connect the team together. How the attackers create goalscoring opportunities. All of this gives the players a starting point but the most important learning comes next.

Helping the players to think and act creatively within the framework of the system is what will Continue reading ‘Encouraging Combination Play’ »

As I’ve discussed in earlier posts, I think that most coaches agree that our players don’t watch the game being played at the highest level enough. Kids in countries where soccer is part of their culture grow watching professional player every week so when it comes time for them play they have a rich source of creative ways to break down defenses. They’ve watched Messi and Iniesta rip apart a back four with quick passing combinations and then tried the same thing with their friends at the park. Our players need to be given examples of ways to create goal scoring opportunities so they can look for those situations Continue reading ‘Forward Passes and Runs’ »

With only two practices per week with my teams I’ve found that it works best to focus on a technical topic (Running with the Ball, Dribbling, Control, Shooting) during our first practice of the week and then Passing and Possession progressing to a small-sided game during the second session. We also do one shooting exercise toward the end of practice just to keep a focus on that before the weekend.

I’m always looking for variations on possessions games to focus on different aspects of possession and to keep the practice fresh. I was reminded of one recently when I was looking through one of our best selling books, ‘Players’ Roles and Responsibilities in Systems of Play‘. By creating target areas in each corner Continue reading ‘Possession Games’ »

Teaching players the technical skills of the game is the most important job of a coach who is working with young players. Finding new and creative ways to help the players groove passing technique is one of the more challenging things to do. The players need hundreds of repetitions of the correct technique before their muscles can repeat the motion accurately. There’s only so long that two players can stand across from each other and pass the ball back and forth before they’ll grow bored and loose focus. But if you move too quickly into competitive passing and possession games, which are fun and engaging, then the players won’t use the correct technique and they’ll end up repeating poor passes. Remember, practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent.

So new ways to present the same technical challenge becomes the objective. One of the variations I’ve used is from a session that I found in our, ‘Training Sessions of Europe’s Top Teams‘. It’s a session that Jan Prujin of Ajax F.C. Continue reading ‘Keeping Technical Passing Exercises Fresh’ »

One of the perks of my job is that I get to see the sessions of some of the top coaches from around the world and then I can do that session with my youth teams. Sometimes I adjust the size of the areas or add neutral players to make the session work for my players but they are able to benefit from the basic ideas and the kids enjoy hearing that they’re doing the same practice as professional or youth players from prominent clubs around the world.

I was looking through, ‘Training Sessions of English Professional League Team‘, and came across a session from Sheffield United’s U15 team. I’ve done a number of different diamond drills with my team and the variations in this Continue reading ‘Diamond Drills’ »

This is my favorite possession game because it includes so many aspects of the game as well as a great fitness component. It’s also very scalable to the number of players you have as well as the ability level of the players.

Two teams of players are assigned one half of the field. They’re also numbered Continue reading ‘Transitional Possession Game’ »