Filed under: Dave Clarke | Tags: better soccer coaching, Leeds Ltd, Sky Sports, soccer drills, soccer friendlies, soccer player, Soccer Skills
What do you do when you’re faced with a weekend and no touchline to pace? “Fantastic – a free weekend,” my wife
exclaimed when I told her next weekend was soccer-free. But I’m beginning to get edgy just thinking about it.
“Arrange a friendly,” my colleagues at Better Soccer Coaching suggest. But I’ve been there before trying to arrange friendlies when only half the team want to play – or, in reality, only half the parents want to get out of bed early on a Saturday morning.
So I guess I’ll just hang around the kitchen drumming my fingers on the worktops, and end up taking my sons to the park to play a game between the three of us. Try out the latest drills I’ve been writing for Better Soccer Coaching, run around the pitch checking the lines have been drawn straight and the goalposts are in good condition.
In fact I’ve just found out, I’m on duty taking my five-year-old daughter to drama – “It’s about time you found out where I was”, much to my boys’ dismay. “What will we do?” Looks like it’s the park in the afternoon, get the Leeds Utd score then a bit of Sky Sports in the evening… Now where did I put my daughter’s pink soccer kit?
Dave Clarke, Better Soccer Coaching editor
Filed under: Dave Clarke, Soccer Coaching, Soccer Fitness, Soccer News, Soccer Refereeing, Soccer Skills, Soccer Team Management, Soccer Training | Tags: better soccer coaching, exercise, soccer drills, soccer player, Soccer Skills
I’m sitting in the Better Soccer Coaching offices thinking about the ten things you most like to see in a young soccer player during a match. It’s one way of finding out whether your training sessions are achieving what you hope.
When I think up coaching drills to be published in Better Soccer Coaching I’m constantly making sure they can relate to match days. If you cannot see a benefit during a match from using exercises in training, either in the individual or in the team, then they are not much use.
So here are my top ten things I look for during a match in each individual player:
1. Making forward passes through the opposition defence
2. Taking chances in the attacking third – try a backheel
3. Passing the ball and moving in support
4. Working hard to win the ball back
5. Communication – calling out names; asking for the ball
6. Making runs off the ball
7. Forgetting mistakes and getting on with the game – keeping their heads up
8. Enjoying the game; having fun
9. Playing until the final whistle – winning or losing
10. Knowing their position on the field (especially for defenders) so they can recover quickly if the team lose the ball
Do you agree or disagree? Or do you have a better top ten? Let us know at Better Soccer Coaching by commenting below…
Dave Clarke, Better Soccer Coaching editor
Filed under: Dwyer Scullion, Soccer Coaching, Soccer Fitness, Soccer News, Soccer Refereeing, Soccer Skills, Soccer Team Management, Soccer Training | Tags: better soccer coaching, exercise, Soccer, Soccer Coach Weekly, Soccer Coaching, soccer control, soccer passing, soccer players, soccer receiving, Soccer Skills, Soccer Training
What we’re all about?
You’ll have noticed a great many references to Better Soccer Coaching in the posts on this blog site. Better Soccer Coaching is the name of the free weekly coaching guide published by the company we all work for.
If you’ve been wondering what Better Soccer Coaching is all about, I’ve included a recent article below. This one is about the core skills of passing and receiving. We also cover areas such as tactics, fitness, communication, running a good session and lots more.
We like to think we’re good at taking these tips from our panel of expert coaches and presenting them in a way which makes it easy to take on to the training pitch.
Head on over to Better Soccer Coaching and have a look at our archive of over 100 tips and maybe sign up to receive a new issue each week. Either way, I’d love to hear what you think of how we do things.
Dwyer Scullion, publisher and youth team coach
A Great Way to Coach Passing and Receiving
Constant passing using match-like situations and a bit of competition to give it an edge is the best way to coach your players to be ready for soccer matches. And it should be fun too, says David Clarke.
Great for passing, agility and building fitness.
We’ve covered passing and first touch a lot in Soccer Coach Weekly, and it is indeed one of the most important things you can teach a young soccer player. I came across a little exercise recently that I just had to share with you. It is great for passing and agility but it also has a little bit of fitness in there too.
Run, pass, receive, control, pass
Use two players and four cones. In the diagram the player at the bottom runs left to right and gives a square pass to the player on the opposite side. The top player does the same thing from right to left. Both players must keep up with play to receive, then pass. So it is a constantly moving exercise with first touch and good passing vital to its effectiveness.
It has proper soccer-like situations
If your player makes a bad touch, he will have to work a little bit harder to get it back which is exactly what he would have to do in a game.
Making the exercise competitive
You can move this exercise on by bringing a bit of competition into it by combining skills with fitness and whenever you can do that in an exercise it adds to its value.
After 10 touches get your players to sprint to the 18 yard line and see who can get back to their positions first.
You will see that by adding a little bit of competitiveness to it, the pace picks up and the skill level goes up a notch because they are doing it in competition with each other, so you’ve created a skill building exercise.
Key coaching tip: First touch is vital coupled with a good inside foot pass.
