More Soccer Drills that Teach Important Skills - Part 3 from Coach Corey about How he Improved a Weak U-12 Soccer Team So they Went from Losing Most Games to Winning a Multi-City Tournament and Not Giving Up Any Goals. Part 1 on Oct. 14 discussed how he taught his players to Shift and Sag so they were in good defensive positions and in Part 2 on Oct. 16 Corey described the soccer drills he used as warm-ups. Corey wrote I hope this letter might be beneficial to other coaches. It describes my U-12 team and the Practice Games and tactics I found most beneficial. We went from losing most of our games to winning the end-of-season Multi-City Tournament, giving up no goals. It was a huge turnaround. We started the season with a very unique set of girls. Only a few had meaningful experience. Below, Corey describes the Soccer Drills (SoccerHelp Practice Games) he used to improve his players skills for attacking and 1v1 Attacking and Defending and Winning the Ball. Some of the drills are free and some are Premium Games - there are links to all - This is copied and pasted from Coreys email - I added the links for convenience… Dribble Around Cone & Pass Relay Race practice game - This was the girls second favorite game. They loved this one almost as much as the Win the 50/50 Ball game. We mixed this up a bit. We would play this once with right foot only, then with left foot only. Then we would play with right foot once, left foot once, right foot once, etc. We would play this game maybe four or five consecutive times during practice. After each time, I would give them a hint or two on how to win. For example, I would tell them to make their last touch after the cone a good one so that the ball was headed the other way and out in front of them so they could make a good, long pass to their teammate. I would show them how hooking the ball would get it turned the other way more quickly. I found it better to have teams of two or three rather than teams of four or five. I ran the girls as much as I could on this one. soccerhelp/soccer_drills/Dribble_Around_Cone_Pass.shtml (Tip from David - Use this drill to teach Aggressive Receiving, to pass ASAP, to pass while running, one-touch play and how to play faster - this teaches a lot of very important skills). Win the 50/50 Ball or be the First Defender; 1v1 Attacking and Defending practice game - The girls loved this game. This was one of their two favorites and I found this game brought out their competitive side more than any other. Nobody wanted to lose 1 on 1 against another, so they were driven to be successful. We found the way points were scored and the need to actually control the ball to be critical to this games success. Before I required the girls to control the ball to get a point and so forth, there was a lot of running hard at the ball and kicking as hard as possible. While this teaches aggressive play, it wasnt exactly what I was looking for. So getting control of the ball and getting across the opposing line with control were important. The girls begged to play this game more than I let them (after all, we had to practice other things). Also, it was surprising to see some girls who I mistakenly thought werent aggressive being some of the best at this game. I think this game would be a good one to play in the first practice or two to evaluate who should play in what positions on the field (although some girls may start out not being very aggressive and end the season as some of the most aggressive, so adjustments might need to be made to positions depending on how this plays out). (This is a Premium drill at soccerhelp/premium/practice_games/Win_The_Ball.shtml - Coach Troys U8 girls also loved this game.) Pass to Space Run with the Ball and Shoot practice game - The girls enjoyed this game and it was a good game to teach passing to space. I tried hard to emphasize passing to space rather than to feet. The girls werent good enough at passing and trapping to pass to feet. But they were aggressive and could push the other team off the ball (because they had learned this playing the shoulder tackle game every single practice as a warm-up). But also I felt this taught them to anticipate a pass to space and take a shot quick after getting a pass into space from a teammate. I wanted to reduce the amount of time before taking a shot because the defense tended to close in quick if shots werent quick. (This is a Premium drill at soccerhelp/premium/practice_games/Pass_Run_Shoot.shtml ) Passing Race practice game - The girls were paired, so each pair was a team. The girls would start 15 feet apart at a starting line and the finish line would be 40 feet away, and they would need to run and pass back and forth to the finish line, then turn around and come back. No dribbling, just passing ahead of the receiver so the receiver had to run onto the ball and one-time pass it back. The girls enjoyed this game. We rotated pairs quite a bit. It was a struggle at first because the girls werent very skilled at passing but they caught on quickly. (This is a Premium drill at soccerhelp/premium/practice_games/Passing_Race.shtml ) You can read all Coreys tips and what he did to turn his team around at soccerhelp/soccer-articles/120413-start-winning-soccer-games.shtml
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 16:02:35 +0000
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