Category: Attacking

Objective: Find the target is a small-sided game (SSG) which requires your players to make quick, forward passes.

Find the target is also good for practising shooting, defending, making forward runs and encouraging good movement off the ball.

Age group: U10s and upwards.

Set-up: create an area 40 yards long by 30 yards wide that is split horizontally into thirds.

Place a small goal at both ends.

Divide your players into three teams plus two goalkeepers. Teams of four are ideal but you can play with teams of three or five.

Two teams play “normal” football.

The players in the third team are split into two groups of target players. One group stands next to one goal, the other group stand next to the other goal.

How to play

Players can only score following a pass to a target player.

The target players move along the end line, trying to make themselves available for a pass.

Target players cannot be tackled and have four seconds to pass the ball back to the team that passed to them. Or you can impose a two/three-touch limit.

Corners are taken by target players.

Goalkeepers throw the ball out – no kicking.

Play five-minute games.

Rotate the teams on the pitch with the target players in every new game.

What you’re looking for

Attacking players passing to a target player at the first opportunity then moving quickly into space to get the return pass.

Find the target is adapted from Target Man, one of Michael Beale’s 64 More Small-Sided Soccer Games.

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

Objective: This game called Breakout helps to improve your team’s ability to get the ball back from their opponents and launch a counter attack.

Age range: U6s and upwards

Set-up: Divide your players into two teams of four, five or six plus two goalkeepers.

The game is played on a mini soccer pitch or a 50 yards long by 30 yards wide playing area with a centre line and a goal at each end.

How to play:

• Both teams play in one half of the pitch.
• One team attacks the goal in that half and other team tries to win possession of the ball.
• If the defending team wins the ball, it tries to start a counter attack by passing or dribbling the ball into the opponent’s half (the empty half of the pitch).
• If the defenders succeed in getting the ball out of their half, only one counter-attacking defender can enter the attacking team’s half and no attackers are allowed to go back to defend.
• It’s now a 1v1 between the defending team’s counter attacker and the attacking team’s goalkeeper.

Progress by allowing an attacker to run back and try to defend.

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Objective: To improve dribbling, passing, defending and shooting skills.

Players’ objective: To score a goal in less than 20 seconds.

Age range: U8s and upwards.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Set-up: Use an area 25 yards long by 20 yard wide with two small goals at both ends.

Divide your players into teams of three.

How to play:

• One team attacks. The other team has two goalkeepers (who cannot leave goal areas) and one outfield player whose job is to try to stop the attacking team from shooting.
• The attacking team has 20 seconds to score.
• At the end of that time (or earlier if the sole defender can win the ball) the teams switch roles: Two of the attacking team retreat to their goals, and the two goalkeepers on the defending team come out and their team goes on the attack.

The teams score points in two ways: For every goal they score when they are attacking and by stopping the attackers from shooting for 20 seconds when they are defending.

Progression: The attacking team must make at least two passes before shooting.

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Objective: To improve players’ peripheral vision, fitness and speed of transition.

Age group: U8s to U14s.

Set-up: Mark out a 30×20 yards playing area with a goal at each end and a centre line.

Divide your players into two teams, wearing bibs.

How to play: Play normal rules with the condition that for a goal to count, all the attacking team’s players must be over the halfway line.

If they are not, the goal does not count and a goal kick is awarded.

First team to five goals wins.

Progression: When your players are comfortable add a second condition: When a goal is scored, the defending team must have all their players in their own half. If not, the goal counts double.

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

Scoring goals requires technical skills – the ability to dribble, run with the ball, receive a pass, find space and strike the ball correctly with the appropriate part of the foot or body.

But goalscoring also requires a certain mental attitude.

Top class players such as Lionel Messi play with the certain knowledge that they are going to score goals. It’s just a question of when and how many. This “goalscoring mentality” is what separates Messi (and players like Rooney, Ronaldo, Drogba, David Villa, and Ronaldinho) from players who have similar technical skills and has made him into one of the most valuable players in the world.

But even if your players are as young as eight or nine they can be helped to develop the self confidence that will allow them to perform to their potential in every match and for a striker, that means converting scoring opportunities into goals.

Hans Westerhof – a respected Dutch soccer coach – says:

“If you want to improve an individual player, you will have to work on his self-confidence. Self-confidence is really nothing more than knowing what it is you have to do (your basic tasks) and knowing that you can do it. The coach must send his players on to the pitch with the right basic tasks. Players must not be given orders they are unable to carry out.”

This is true for players of all ages but especially true for young players.

Children have to be taught the mechanics of football but they also have to be given the self-belief to use their skills on match days.

That means allowing players to take chances and express themselves without fear. To do that you have to manage the pressure that children inevitably feel on match days.

The message from you to your players before they take to the pitch should be simple: If you are within range and you can see the goal – shoot! It’s OK to miss. If you don’t shoot, you’ll never score.

The confidence to act on this instruction to “shoot on sight” can be given in training sessions by playing small-sided games (SSGs), involving 4v4 or 5v5 matches on a short, wide pitch that has really big goals at each end. Award two points for a goal scored from within your own half and one for a goal scored in the opponent’s half of the pitch.

You can also encourage a shooting mentality by only playing possession games such as keepaway if they include an element of goalscoring.

Teaching your players how to keep the ball is essential but possession without an end result – a goal – is pointless. So play 4v2 or 6v3 games by all means but always allow players to shoot at a goal when they have completed a set number of passes.

If you teach your players the skills they need to need to score goals then lower their anxiety level in matches by making it clear that you value attempts at goal as much, if not more, than actual goals you will soon have a team that thinks “this isn’t so hard!”.

Once that degree of self confidence is reached, goals will follow.

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

Objective: To build attacks out of defence back using quick, accurate passes.

Age group: U8s to U14s.

Set up: Create a playing area about 60×40 yards or use a seven-a-side pitch.

Place two small goals at one end. These can be marked with poles or cones. Put a full-sized goal at the other end of the playing area.

Divide your players into two teams, distinguished by training vests.

One team has an extra player.

How to play:

The team with the extra player defends the large goal and has a goalkeeper.

All restarts begin with the goalkeeper who has to pass or roll the ball out.

Coaching points: Encourage possession, (“if you can’t shoot, pass… if you can’t pass forward, pass back”) quick, accurate passing, good communication and supporting play (movement off the ball).

Variations: Give one team two extra players and restrict them to two or three touches before they must pass or shoot.

The team with fewer players gets two points for every goal it scores.

Play five-minute games. Teams can only win by one goal – see The 1-0 Game.