Early Cross: Training 4/21

Evan had the last three sessions with the girls as I was out of town with the 16 Blues for their MRL games in Cincinnati from last Thursday-Sunday.  The 16's went 3-0 over the weekend and are in a great position to battle for the league title and a place in Regionals.

Evan continued with our crossing and finishing work and he brought in some defensive work for the Sunday training.

For today's session I found another great session that Mark did 2 years ago with the current 15's.  

I. Off Foot Juggling

II. Driving The Ball

III. Battle In The Box - Early Cross

This exercise was perfect for what we are working on and it gave the girls another variation to keep their attention.  

Set Up

• 4 teams of 4 players in different color vests (We had 3 teams of 5 players so we had 1 team serving, 1 team attacking, 1 team defending with one of the defending players stepping in goal.  We had 4 minute rounds)
• 35x60 yard field set up as in the illustration below (with a penalty box, goal, GK, and starting disks for attackers/defenders and wide players)

Procedure

• Blue team attacks, green defends, gray team on deck, gold team serving
• Gold 1 passes to gold 2 who takes a short prep touch and serves in a cross from the right for blue to finish
• Green tries to clear the ball from the box
• When the ball is dead (in the goal, out of bounds, or out of the penalty box), defending team exits the area and is on deck waiting, attacking team (blue) becomes the defending team, and the team on deck (gray) attacks a cross that will be played in from the other (left) side
• Gold pairs alternate positions after each cross

Make It Competitive

• +2 points for the first team that makes contact with the ball in the box (looking for aggressive movement towards the ball by both the attacking and defending teams)
• +4 points if the defenders clear the box in the air directly from a cross (so +6 total if they get to the ball first and clear the box in the air)
• +2 point if the attackers get a shot off
• +4 points for a goal

Coaching Points for the Crossers

• Good first prep touch, under control but away from your feet to set up the early cross
• Find a target for your cross instead of just kicking the ball (far post, near post, or a player's feet)
• Look up as the ball is being passes to you to see what you are going to do when you get it

Coaching Points for the Attackers

• Initial movement should be away from the ball to force your defender to work hard to see both the attacker and the ball
• Be creative and careful on your runs (careful about offsides) - lose your defender with quick changes of direction, starts and stops, or bursts of acceleration
• Don't get all 4 runners flat in the box, someone has to stay at the top of the box in the event of a poorly cleared ball from the defenders or to offer a lay back pass option
• Work hard to keep the ball in the box if the defending team gets to it first
• Wanting the ball is about attitude

Coaching Points for the Defenders

• Transition quickly from attack to defense and organize
• Communicate with each other and sort out who is marking who
• Don't lose your mark!
• Attack the ball, don't let it drop in our box
• Clearances should be high and wide
• Kamikaze to block shots in our box

IV. 7v7 Scrimmage With Service Boxes

For our scrimmage I added service boxes in the corners to encourage the girls to get the ball wide and to the end line before attacking the goal.  This is going to be where the space will be for us in State Cup so the girls need to continue to work on getting the ball wide.

 Points

• +1 for a goal without going into the service area
• +3 if the ball goes into the service area and your team gets a shot on goal
• +5 if the ball goes into the service area and you score a goal
• +10 if you deliver an early cross from your half that results in a goal

I didn't want the girls to have to wide if it was on to go straight to goal, but the points were set up to encourage getting to the end line.