Training - Tuesday, Feb 27

6:00PM - 6:30PM Ball Masters - Individual Skills Development

I. Beating Players Approaching at Angles

We did about 25 minutes of technical work, focusing on skills used when going in and out of pressure at angles.  The girls LOVE learning new techniques and moves and some of the stuff we went through today was tough.  They worked hard and set a good tone for the rest of the training session.

Zig Zags

• Spin Offs
• Toe Caps
• Fake Shot Cap Unders
• Maradonas
• Inside Switchfoot Vs

6:00PM - 6:30PM Field Training

II. 5v5v5 Possession

I used this as a filler activity while I walked around and set up the 2v1 Wide Play grids.  This is a pretty standard, higher level possession game.  Three teams of 5 players (Orange, Yellow, and Green).  Orange in the middle first, so Yellow and Green play together, effectively making the game 10v5.  As soon as Green (defending) wins possession of the ball, the team that made the mistake (let's say Orange made the mistake) to give Green the ball now becomes the defending team, and Green joins Yellow to try and keep possession away from Orange.

I wanted the girls to work hard when they defended, so I would call "Freeze!" every few minutes and have the team that was currently defending do a fitness penalty (push ups, sit ups, etc).

I  added a few restrictions to keep the girls challenged and interested. 

• Unlimited touches
• Mandatory 2-touch
• Unlimited touches to 1-touch

Unlimited touches to 1-touch means that the teams in possession have unlimited touches until someone takes 1-touch.  Then, it's 1-touch until the defending team wins the ball and the game is "reset" to unlimited touches for the possessing teams.

III. 2v1 Wide Play

The idea here was to give the girls some thoughts and ideas about capitalizing on numbers up situations down the flanks, specifically 2v1s.  The object for the wide players was to combine and work together to produce a quality service (cross) into the box (penalty area).  Here's what I did.

Setup

• 2 teams of 6 players (Blue and Green), 2 finishers (Gold), and a GK (Purple)
• A 18x15 Crossing Area on each side of the field, with a 17x15 Build Up Area attached to each Crossing Area (see below)
• All the soccer balls split between the two defensive starting positions, marked by the pink cones in the illustration, 5 yards outside the midpoint of the Build Up Area

Procedure

• First Green defender plays a ball out to either of the two Blue attackers
• Blue plays 2v1 and tries to combine to enter the Crossing Area and provide a cross to the two Gold finishers waiting in the box
• As soon as Blue gets off a cross or the ball is won by the defender or goes out of bounds, the Blue defender on the other side of the field plays a ball to one of the two Green attackers to begin the next sequence
• Rotate players and positions at will

Make It Competitive

• +1 point for getting a cross off
• +3 points for the crossing team for a goal

Coaching Points

• In general, in a numbers up situation like this, the most effective passes are played into space rather than to a teammate's feet
• Visual awareness and communication, the run makes the pass so be active off the ball.  How can I attack the dangerous space behind the defender?
• Effective runs depend on the position of the ball on the field (which player gets the initial pass from the defender)

If the outside player has the ball:

(1) The inside attacker can make a through run for a pass in space.  Note that if possible, the pass should play the receiver in towards a dangerous space.  A through pass played wide down the line would take the receiver further away from the goal.  If possible, angle that pass in towards goal.

(2) The inside player can get forward early and show for a give and go

(3) The outside player with the ball can dribble inside and commit the defender, allowing the inside attacker to overlap

If the inside player has the ball:

(4) The outside player and make a cutting run (a diagonal run towards goal) for the ball to be played into the space behind the defender (again, play your player in)

(5) Depending on the position of the defender, the outside player can make a blind side diagonal run for the ball to be played to the left side of the defender, allowing the wide player to receive the pass closer to goal in a more dangerous area

Obviously, these are other options that can be used here.  My thought was to give the girls a few useful ideas to help spark their creativity.  I also talked about using the runs as decoys, allowing the attackers to dribble into the Crossing Area past defenders caught in two minds (covering the run or the ball). 

Comments
I played with an offsides line at the top of the Crossing Area.  Meaning, attacking players could only be offsides in the Crossing Area, not in the Build Up Area.  Also, next time I do this exercise, instead of having two Gold attackers in the box, I'll have one attack from each team.  Blue finisher would receive crosses from Blue, Green finisher would try and finish Green crosses.  This will not only allow me to keep competitive scores during the drill (without neutral finishers from each team), but also forces the crosser to deliver a cross to a specific target.  I realize that sometimes the girls just need to whip the ball over into the danger area.  However, having a sole finisher in the box forces the crosser to serve the ball based on the finisher's position/run.  In order to do this, the crosser must develop the ability to see the target prior to delivering the cross.  The wide player must then also determine what type of cross is needed to find the finisher (low driven, near post cross, high, lofted far post cross, slot ball to the top of the 18). 

IV. 7v7 With 2v1 Wide Play

To finish, I took the ideas we were working on into a 7v7 game.  The only restriction was that if the ball was played into a Crossing Channel, the attacking team could send two attackers into the channel while the defending team could only send one (making a 2v1 down the flank).