I found out at about 2pm today that our normal 5pm training session was actually at 6:30 tonight. Crap! Shot out an email to everyone and hoped that everyone would get the message.
I. Off Foot Juggling and Driving The Ball
I decided to have the girls show up at 6pm and we started outside since it is finally nice out in Minnesota. We began with our off foot juggling. With the goal being to have every girl able to get at least 30 juggles in a row with their weaker foot.
LK reached the 100 mark today and we are up to 9 of the girls being able to do at least 30. I am hoping that by next week all of the girls will be able to get 30.
After 15 minutes of everyone working on their off foot juggling I had the girls who had reached the 30 mark work on driving the ball to a teammate.
II. Cross to 3v1 Finishing
Set Up:
- 3 teams of 4 players
- 1 crosser from each group goes out to the service area with all the balls
- Remaining players are finishers
Procedure:
- *Blue crosser completes a give and go with the Red crosser and serves the ball into the box
- The Red defender chooses one Blue attacker to mark and sticks with her until the ball is served. This works on the server getting her head up and seeing which 2 finishers are open and attempts to serve the ball to one of them.
- 3 Blue finishers go 3v1 against the Red defender and try to score off the cross
- Green sets up to be the crosser and finisher with the Red team defending again
Variations To Start The Exercise
- Black Arrow: Play the ball to the crosser and if the Red player stays where she is complete a Give and Go. If she comes out to close down the server either play in a early cross or beat her down the line.
- Yellow Arrow: Play the ball to the Red player. If the Blue player stays support play her the ball for an early cross. If the Blue player makes a run down the line for an overlap player the ball to the corner.
- Red Arrow: By pass the Red player with a ball to the corner for a 1st time cross by the Blue server.
III. 5v5 Cut Throat Scrimmage
The final goal in this scrimmage was fun to watch. With 15 seconds left in training AJ punted the ball to the far corner with Brownie racing after it. Just before it went out of bounds Brownie jumped up and hit it back over her head into the mixer. Jordy got a head on the ball and flicked it on a little further to Kari. Kari was facing away from goal and she hit it first time out of the air with the outside of her foot into the far corner of the goal. A nice way to end training.