Soccer Drills – Page 8

Finishing school

We all spend time teaching our players how to shoot but most of us don’t spend much time teaching them how to finish.

This is a shame because young goalkeepers quite often spill the ball and a quick-thinking player who follows his team’s shots will often reap rewards.

Tip: following up on shots is a basic skill that all players need to learn, not just your forwards.

The Finishing School soccer drill will help reinforce this behaviour.

How to play: Play a small-sided game and put a coach or parent in goal who is instructed to parry or drop the ball whenever a shot comes in.

Key coaching note: Don’t use your regular goalkeepers for this: you don’t want them to get into bad habits!

This soccer drill encourages players to follow up on their shots and defenders to run back with them.

Variation: Play soccer with regular goalkeepers but goals only count if the player who shoots enters the goal and touches the back of the net in less than three seconds after the ball has crossed the line. If he doesn’t, the goal is disallowed.

Three big goals

As any top striker will tell you, scoring goals successfully requires a bit more than just good kicking technique.

Many young football players lack confidence in their own ability and need to be actively encouraged to ‘pull the trigger’ when they are within range of the goal.

They also need to be reassured that it doesn’t matter if they miss the target, and that a miss is better than no shot at all.

You can do this by playing the Three BIG Goals soccer coaching game. It is a fast paced and exciting game that football (soccer) players of all ages will enjoy!

Objective:

To encourage shots on goal.

Age group:

U7 upwards.

Set up:

Create a circular playing area about 40 yards across. Position three big goals (15 yards wide) at equal intervals around the circumference of the circle. Divide your football squad into three teams.

How to play:

The three teams play football in the circle. Teams do not have a goal to defend and can score in any goal. Play the first team to score five goals wins the game – this encourages quick, positive shooting.

If you want to reward efforts on goal, play first to 10 and award a point for a shot and two for a goal.

Killer ball

Objective: To improve passing accuracy, spatial awareness and fitness.

Age group: U6 upwards.

Number of players: Whole team.

Equipment: One ball per player

Set up: Use the penalty area of a normal sized pitch or mark out a 30×20 yard area with cones. All players are in the playing area. One has a ball. The rest of the balls are lined up just outside the playing area.

How to play: All players jog around inside the area.

The player with the ball is a ‘hunter’ and he attempts to hit one of the other players below the waist with a killer ball.

(Note: do not allow the hunter to aim above the other players’ waists. A firm side-foot pass is what you are looking for.)

If a player is hit, he collects a ball from the side of the playing area and becomes a hunter. The winner is the last player to get hit by a ball.

Key football coaching points:

“Hunted” players are not allowed out of the penalty area.
A player who is a hunter must retrieve his own ball if it goes out of the playing area.
Hunters can pass to each other.
Encourage accuracy not power.
Encourage hunters to work as a team, to hunt in packs.
Encourage thought processes and tactics.

Four corner shooting game

Objective:

To improve shooting, goalkeeping and aggressiveness.

Age group:

U6s upwards.

Number of players:

Whole squad divided into two teams of four or five (if you have more than ten players, make four teams and play two games).

Set up:

Create a playing area about 25 yards long by 20 yards wide with a goal at each end.

Divide your squad into two teams (red and blue).

One player from each team becomes the goalkeeper. The rest of the red team wait at their end of the playing area, half at one corner and half at the other.

Arrange the blue team in the same way at the other end.

You stand on the half-way line with a supply of footballs.

How to play:

When you kick a ball into the playing area, the first person at each corner of the field runs in, tries to win the ball and score.

This creates a 2v2 situation.

Play continues until the ball goes out of play or a goal is scored.

When this happens the players on the field quickly get back into their original lines, keepers stay on, and the coach kicks the next ball in for the next four players.

Make it competitive: play until all the balls have been served or a team gets a certain number of goals.

Key soccer coaching tip:

Don’t keep players waiting in lines for too long. If you have more than eight or ten players, consider setting up two games and asking an assistant to run one of the games.

Bumper cars

Objective: This game improves dribbling skills, passing technique and encourages players to keep their heads up.

Age group: U5s to U9s (you also need a few willing adults)

Number of players: Whole team.

Set up: Create a 20×30 yard playing area with flat cones and a smaller rectangle just outside the playing area.

How to play: The players and the adults dribble a ball around the playing area. The children try to bump (pass) their “car” (the soccer ball) into an adult’s “car.”

If an adult’s car is “bumped,” the adult must take their car to the repair shop (an adjacent, small area designated by cones), and cannot leave until they count to 10.

Adults (coaches and parents) should encourage the children (“you can’t catch me” etc.) so that the kids try very hard to bump their car.

As many parents as possible can play – kids LOVE to send their parents to the repair shop. Older siblings also are great targets.

Quick fire

This game encourages link up play and finishing. It is also a simple exercise for improving your goalkeeper’s technique.

Objective: To improve shooting technique and to practise goalkeeping.

Age group: U7 upwards.

Number of players: Whole squad.

Set up:

Divide your players into groups of five. Set up a a small goal with flat cones for each group of players. Have three or four balls per group positioned next to the goal.

How to play:

Put one player in each goal with the remaining four players in two pairs (pair A and pair B). Have each pair about 20 yards away on either side of the goal.

The goalkeeper passes a ball to a player in pair A, who lays off a pass for his partner to run onto. This player shoots. If he scores, the ball is retrieved by a player from pair B on the other side of the goal. He then provides a pass for his partner to run onto and shoot.

If a player misses the goal, he retrieves the ball and puts it with the spare balls you put next to each goal. The goalkeeper uses one of these balls to pass to a player in the other pair and the game continues. If the goalkeeper saves the shot, he turns and passes it to one of the other pair of players.

Make the game competitive by challenging each pair to score as many goals as possible in a set time.

Soccer coaching note: You can play this game with groups of four by having the soccer coach and/or assistants make up the numbers.

You can also play in groups of three by having the goalkeeper provide a pass for the shooters to run onto.

The box game

Objective: To improve passing, vision, movement off the ball, communication and transition from defence to attack.

Age group: U9s upwards.

Number of players: Whole squad divided into two teams of four or five (if you have more than ten players, make four teams and play two games).

Set up: Create a 40×30 playing area with flat cones. Mark out a five square yard box at each end.

How to play: One player from each team (the target player) goes into an end box. The rest of the players try to get a pass to their target player. To score a point, the target player must one-touch the ball back to one of their team mates.

Progression: When a point is scored, both target players sprint to the other box and their team attacks that end.

Quick! Shoot!

Objective: To improve shooting skills and fitness.

Age group: U8 upwards.

Number of players: Whole team.

Equipment: Flat cones to mark the playing area, a normal sized goal (or poles), a dozen balls.

Set up: Mark out a playing area about 40 yards long x 20 yards wide. Place a goal on one end line. A marker cone is placed about 15 yards from the centre of the goal for seven year olds, further out for older players. I suggest you put it about 25 yards away from the goal for eleven year olds.

How to play: Divide your players into two teams. Team A stands on the end line about 5 yards away from the left goalpost. Team B stands 5 yards away from the right goalpost.

You stand on the edge of the playing area with about a dozen footballs.

On your signal, the first player in team A runs to the marker cone. At the same time, the first player in team B runs round the left goalpost and becomes the ‘keeper. As the A team player rounds the marker cone, you play a ball into the playing area.

You decide if the player in team A has one touch or more to control the ball and shoot. This will depend on the age of your players and whereabouts in the playing area you serve the ball.

As soon as the first player in team A shoots, the second players in both teams start their runs.

If the shot goes in or is saved, the goalie returns the ball to the coach. If the shot misses the goal the player who missed has to get the ball back to the coach.

Team A has to score as many goals as possible in a given time or until you run out of balls to serve

Team B becomes the shooters when time is up or you run out of balls to serve.

This is a very competitive and popular way to improve your players’ shooting skills!