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Tikka Takka

Age range: U7s and upwards.

Set-up: Create an 18×12 yards playing area with two-yard-wide goals made with cones or flags at both ends.

Divide your players into two teams of five.

How to play: Three players from each team play inside the area. The fourth and fifth players on each team work as a support player on the sidelines.

The object of the game is to score by stopping the ball between the cones or flags on your opponent’s goal line.

Players are encouraged to include at least one pass to a supporting player in every move.

A supporting player on the sideline, who receives a pass, dribbles the ball onto the playing area (or passes to a team mate) and the player who passed to the supporting player swaps places with him.

Rules

Passes to supporting players must be successful (i.e., controlled). If not, the other team gains possession.
Supporting players cannot interfere with each other or try to intercept passes.

Coaching Points:

Pass and move, pass and move!

Look for and highlight: a good first touch, effective communication, speed of movement, playing a penetrating pass.

Note: The supporting players should be encouraged to move up and down the line, calling for the ball.

Progressions:

1) Have a third team ready to come on as soon as a goal is scored.

2) When a team scores, it retains possession but is now going in opposite direction.

3) Use two goals (each two paces wide) near the corners on each goal line.

Tips: If less than 10 players are available, use neutral supporting players. Inside players can hold bibs/pinnies that they pass to the supporting player as he comes into the game.

For more soccer coaching tips and products visit Soccer Coach Weekly.

End to end

This game encourages attacking play using dribbling, passing, forward runs off the ball plus teamwork and communication.

Age group: U8s to U14s.

Set-up: Create a 40×20 yards playing area with a goal at each end. Mark the pitch into horizontal thirds.

Divide your players into teams of five or six, including goalkeepers.

How to play:

Each team nominates one player (a striker) to go into their opponent’s end zone. The rest of the team plays in the central zone. Strikers have to stay in the end zones.

Players in the central zone try to make a pass to their striker. When they do so, a second player can run into the end zone to receive a pass back from the striker and shoot at goal.

The striker then changes places with the player who ran into the end zone.

Rules

The game is played for 15 minutes. The striker is changed every three minutes, regardless of whether a goal is scored or not.

No central zone player is allowed in the end zone until a pass has been made to the striker.

Only one central zone player can run into the end zone to receive a pass from the striker.

For more soccer coaching tips and products visit Soccer Coach Weekly.

1v1 shoot out

Objectives: To give goalkeepers practice in dealing with one-on-one situations.

Set up: create a 20 yards by 30 yards playing area with a goal on one of the narrow ends and a cone in the middle of the opposite end line.

One player goes in goal and the rest of the players are split into two teams. One team stands next to the left-hand post, the other by the right-hand post.

How to play: on your command, the first player in each team runs along the outside of the playing area to the turning cone. As they run, you roll a ball into the playing area.

The first player to get to the ball is the attacker and tries to score a goal as quickly as possible. The second player to the ball is the defender. He is awarded a “goal” if he can either hold the attacker up for 30 seconds or win the ball and kick it out of the playing area.

The first team to score X number of goals is the winner.

Coaching points: this game teaches your players that defending is not necessarily about winning the ball. It is about stopping attackers from shooting. So encourage the defending player to direct the attacker towards the side and keep them there.

Encourage the attacking player to take a shot as quickly as possible.

Progression: give your players numbers. Call two numbers at a time so they are playing 2v2 in the grid.

How to coach a youth soccer team

One of the delights of youth football coaching is taking on a team of youngsters and watching them develop during a number of years.

It’s great to see how children, who were as timid or didn’t know where to kick the ball, grow in confidence and learn new skills.

But staying with the same team for any length of time has its drawbacks too. You will get to know your players quite well and while we all try not to have favourite players there will always be some children who try harder than others and some who have a better attitude. As a result, it may become difficult to make objective decisions about these individuals.

Training routines can also become stale over time. It is easy for a coach to stick to the same format and even play the same games week in, week out. This rather lazy approach to coaching can be justified by saying: “My players like doing it this way and they like these games”, but beware – you might be boring the pants off them.

Boredom at coaching sessions manifests itself by misbehaviour and, eventually, absenteeism. If your players are getting harder to control and some are not turning up regularly without good reason, it’s time for a spring clean!

Very young children

Four to six year olds have relatively short attention spans at the best of times. If they find a task interesting and are enjoying some success at it, you can expect a young child to stay focused on it for up to 10 minutes.

On the other hand, a four year old who finds an activity uninteresting or difficult will stay “on task” for as little as 30 seconds before looking for something more satisfying to do. Picking daisies or playing with mud, for example.

So if you have team of four to six year olds you should plan to change activities every 10 minutes at most. This means having lots of different, fun and easy to explain coaching games in your “back pocket”.

Older children

As I mentioned above, the first sign that your coaching sessions are getting stale and uninteresting is an ever increasing amount of “undesirable” behaviour among your players.

Squabbles, continual chatting and players “not trying” are clear indicators that you need to take a close look at your coaching sessions. Are they designed to be child friendly? Do you spend too much time on technical training and not enough time playing the game?

The quickest way to find out what you need to do to get your sessions back on track is to ask your customers – the players.

Simply sit them down, explain that you are concerned about their lack of focus and ask them if they are bored. If they are, ask them which activities they find boring (and why) and which activities they enjoy (and why).

I can almost guarantee that they will tell you that they want to spend more time on scrimmages and less time practising techniques. If so, you need to consider your priorities and decide if the interests of your players would be best served by doing what they want to do. Or do you know best? Only you can answer that one.

Regardless of what your players tell you, there are a couple of simple ways to blow the cobwebs from your coaching sessions.

1. Invite other coaches to take some of your sessions.

Asking a colleague to take one or more of your sessions is a great way to see how your players react to a different approach.

You may be surprised to see how compliant your most “difficult” players become when they’re in front of a coach who doesn’t know them and you’ll probably pick up some useful tips and tricks, especially if the guest coach is more experienced than you.

2. Hand over the reins.

It’s good to let your players plan and run their own practice session at least once or twice every season.

The week before you want them to do the hard work for you, ask your players what you think they need to be better at and seek one or two volunteers to plan a session to address their shortcomings. This could be a good job for your captain and vice-captain.

If nothing else, the experience will show your players that coaching football is not simply a case of turning up at the field with a bag of balls, some cones and an empty mind.

While you’re in the mood for spring cleaning, make sure that your sessions tick all the right boxes:

3. Make sure your coaching sessions are progressive and challenging.

Boredom will soon set in if you don’t challenge your players to improve so don’t spend lots of time practicing skills that were first introduced weeks or months ago.

You also need to be realistic in your expectations. For example, most seven year olds lack the physical ability to lock their ankle so don’t expect them to be able to be able to kick a ball from one end of the pitch to the other.

To get an understanding of what children between the ages of five and 10 should be able to do on a football field, click here. And to find out where your players are in terms of their mental development, click here.

4. Use games, not drills.

Children come to coaching sessions to play football, not to stand around waiting. It’s a youth football golden rule that you shouldn’t use drills that involve children standing in lines. However, many coaches still think that static drills are the best way to practise basic techniques. They’re not.

Children can and should practise passing, receiving, shooting, shielding the ball, tackling etc. within the context of a small-sided football match and not just in a drill.

5. Competition is the key.

Your coaching sessions should reflect the fact that football, whether we like it or not, is about winning and losing.

Coaching games for children over the age of five or six should have clear winners and (can I say this word without offending someone?) losers.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t reward effort too. Make a fuss of players who strive to succeed but don’t quite cross the line first.

Mix up teams regularly so that everyone gets a chance to be on the winning team. Stress the importance of winning and losing gracefully. But always try to satisfy the natural competitive instinct of your players. If you don’t, they will compete among themselves in ways that you might find inappropriate.

Finally, don’t be afraid to be unconventional in your approach. A good spring clean might simply involve a change to the way you order your coaching activities. Try having the traditional end-of-session scrimmage at the beginning of the session instead. Or try a “sandwich” session: scrimmage, technical, scrimmage.

Freshening up your coaching once a year is like spring cleaning your home – the thought of having to do it is a bit depressing but when it’s done… boy, do you feel good!

How many goals??

Objective: to improve short passing, communication and “vision”.

Experience: U10 upwards.

Set-up: play 4v4 in a playing area 30 yards long by 25 yards wide. Place five small cone or pole goals randomly within the area.

How to play: Teams score a point by passing through a goal to a team mate. First team to score 10 points wins the game.

Soccer coaching points:

The ball carrier should lift their head up to see where the open goals and their team mates are.
When the ball is passed, the receiver should take a quick “picture” of the playing area so they know who they are going to pass to before the ball arrives.
The ball should be struck firmly and halfway up so that it stays on the ground.
The non-kicking foot should be pointing to where you want the pass to go.
A player’s head and shoulders should be over the ball when it is struck.

Three games that improve defending skills

Improving your players’ defensive skills is probably the quickest and most “cost effective” way to boost their confidence and improve the performance of the team as a whole.

And it doesn’t have to be boring! The games I’ve described below are simple, effective and fun ways to help your players stop opponents from scoring.

What to say to your players about defending

“You are all defenders”

Older players often have an “I’m an attacker so I don’t have to defend” mentality. You need to counter that by emphasising that every one of your players is a defender when the other team has the ball and encourage your attackers to try to win the ball quickly if they lose possession near to the opponent’s goal.

Tip: Practise “high pressure defending” by playing a small-sided game in which goals count double if they are scored immediately after winning the ball in the attacking half of the pitch.

Your main job is to stop attackers shooting – you don’t have to win the ball.
If you’re not the closest defender to the ball, make sure you back up the defender who is closest.
Stay alert, try to guess what is going to happen next.
Direct attackers towards places where they can’t shoot – the touchline is your friend.
When you are closing down an attacker, keep your eyes on the ball. Wait for him or her to lose control before you tackle.
Be brave! If you have to put your body in the way of a shot, do it.
When you have the ball, get your head up and look for a quick pass to a midfield player or forward.
Stay on your feet – sliding tackles are a last resort.
Don’t hoof the ball upfield all the time, hoping that one of your players will get on the end of it. That’s another last resort!

How to practise defending

1v1 battles

Age range: U6s and upwards.

Set-up: Divide your players into pairs, one ball per pair.

Each pair plays in a seven-yard square playing area with a cone goal in the centre.

How to play: Players start by standing at opposite ends of the playing area.

One player is the defender, the other is an attacker.
The defender passes the ball to the attacker through the cone goal.
As soon as the attacker touches the ball, the defender closes her down as quickly as possible and tries to stop her from scoring a goal.
If she can succeed for 20 seconds, she earns a point.

After three rounds, players switch roles.

After three more rounds, players face a new opponent.

Coaching points for the defender: Try to steer attacker away from the goal, only tackle when you are sure to win it, stay between the attacker and the goal.

Hit the Target

Age range: U9s and upwards.

Set-up: Create a circle 50 yards in diameter. Inside this circle there is another circle of cones 10 yards across.

Split your players into a team of six attackers, a team of three defenders plus one target player.
The target player goes into the centre circle and the two teams play 6v3 in the outer circle.
Attackers earn a point if they can get a pass to the target player.
Defenders earn a point if they win the ball or for every 30 seconds the attackers fail to score.

Note: The defending team can run across the inner circle but can only intercept passes in the outer circle. The attacking team must stay in the outer circle.

To play this game with younger players: Instead of having one target player in a centre circle, you, or an assistant, is the target and moves freely among the players.

Snatch

Age range: U7s and upwards.

Set-up: Create two adjacent 20-yard square playing areas.

Divide your players into two teams of four or five.

All players are allocated a number (1-4 or 1-5).

One team per playing area.

One ball per team.

How to play

Each team moves around its playing area, passing and dribbling the ball.
You shout a number and players with that number run into the other team’s playing area and try to win the ball.
If either player can win the ball and knock it out of the playing area within 20 seconds, they win a point for their team.
If they can win the ball and dribble it back to their own playing area, their team gets three points.

For more soccer coaching tips and products visit Soccer Coaching Club.

Weight and direction of passes

Objective: to improve weight and direction of passes.

Age group: U7s and upwards.

Set-up:

Divide your players into teams of four or five.
Create two open-ended “bags” for each team with semi-circles of cones that are six yards wide and about 10 yards apart.
One of each team’s bags is empty. The other contains six balls.
The teams stand behind their empty bag.

How to play: on your command, the first player in each team runs to their bag of six balls, collects one and tries to pass it into their empty bag.

If the ball misses the bag it is out of the game.

Once the first player has tried to pass all six balls into the bag, the second player in the team repeats the exercise in the opposite direction, but only using the balls that the first player managed to get into the bag.

When every player has had a turn, the team with the most balls in their bag wins.

Progression:

1. If a player misses, they must collect the ball, bring it back and try again.

2. Pass with alternate feet: left/right.

Tip: make the game easier for younger players by making the bags bigger and deeper.

For more soccer coaching tips and products visit Soccer Coaching Club.

Short passing

Objectives: to improve short passing, team shape, support play and communication.

Experience: intermediate.

Warm-up: players in groups of five or six in a 15-yard square playing area are numbered one to five/six. They pass a ball to each other in numerical order and follow their pass. The receivers need to control and move the ball on before the player who passed to them arrives to take over their spot in the playing area.

Coaching points:

Check that your players:

Place their non-kicking foot next to the ball, pointing in the direction they want the ball to go.
Strike through the middle of the ball.
Keep their head over the ball.
Open up to receive the pass and that their first touch is in the direction they intend to pass the ball.

Game set-up:

Create an area 50 yards long by 20 yards wide with a centre line.

Place two teams of five or six in each playing area, one team in each half.

How to play:

One team starts with the ball. The other team sends two players into the opposite half to try and steal the ball and pass it back to their team mates.

If they succeed, the two “stealers” rejoin their team.

The team that lost the ball now sends two of its best “stealers” into the other half of the playing area to try to win the ball back.

Each team gets a point for every five consecutive passes they can make before they lose possession of the ball or it goes out of bounds.