Soccer Practice - How To Design Best Games Possible

Just run through the article once and you’ll be assured of the fact that in soccer practice, more than soccer drills, it is the games that play a key role in developing skills. Games are more energizing than drills and they require an equal amount of stamina as in the actual game.

In relation to soccer training, games command passion, is a source of great fun, and in the process of learning it, kids benefit from various phases of the game. There are a few guidelines that you need to keep in mind before introducing games in training sessions.

1. Ensure that each player has the ball and gets to play with it frequently.

2. Make sure each player participates equally in the game. It shouldn’t be that the weak players are deprived of playing with the ball.

3. Abstain from adopting the policy of reward or penalty. They are not required in relation to the games.

4. The focus of the games should always be soccer skill building.

5. Ideally, you should not enforce any rules or limits in a game.

6. Games should be such that are easy to recognize and take part in. Complex games take time to be understood and therefore waste time.

7. Last of all, it’s a good idea to keep increasing the amount of challenge in the game once they have cleared a certain level.

Each session should include minimum 200-300 touches of the ball for every player in soccer practice. This will ensure that they are making progress in improving their skills. Some exciting, well-liked and successful soccer coaching games have been given below that aid in building player’s skills.

1. Shoot the coach: This game requires the kids to travel in a crowd while maintaining their head up and attempt to strike the ball into the goal. It helps improve dribbling and also concentration ability of the player. It always helps to make the kids play the game by starting with 3 kids and regularly introducing more players.

2. Freeze Tag: This game is great for warm ups as well as teaching the kids to keep the ball away from the defender. The game calls for each player to have a ball with the exception of one who must touch and not kick the ball. When it comes about, the player having the ball becomes still and acts like a goal post. The player can be de-frozen only when the other player has hit the ball between his legs. Continue to play till all the players are frozen.

3. Red light, green light: In this game, the kids make a queue. The coach shouts green light and turns his back to the players who must then move forward with their balls before the coach again shouts red light and face the kids. If any kid has not moved forward, he is sent back to the starting line. This is a game that develops dexterity and attentiveness in kids.

So there you have it! If you would like insight on more such soccer practice games, join our youth soccer coaching community that has tons of similar resources on youth soccer.

Andre Botelho is an expert in Soccer practice. He influences over 35,000 youth coaches each year with his coaching philosophy, and makes it easy to explode your players' skills and make training fun in record time. Download your free Soccer Training guide at: Soccer Training Drills.

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Training For Soccer - Teach Defensive Drills By Age

When training for soccer, one important thing that many coaches overlook is teaching the same soccer skills to the players irrespective of their ages. Here're some tips on defensive plans by age:

1. Defensive Training Plan For U11

The coaches should focus on individual defending skills. It means, at this stage, it is not wise to teaching the players about get, turn, move, or shoot. The coach should rather give emphasis on basic defending at restarts. However, you can give the players an introduction to team shape in defense. You can also include introduction to transition in your training plan.

2. Defensive Training Plan For U12-U13

At this stage, you can introduce teaching about second and third defender play. You can also teach them about shapes, such as how to get it, what soccer techniques they need to follow to keep it, and 2what soccer techniques and strategies they should adopt to change it quickly.

Transition basic counterattack and working with keeper can also be included in the training plan for U12-U13. Sweeper play can also be introduced at this stage, such as angles, communication, and basic visual cues.

3. Defensive Training Plan For U14-U15

This is the right stage when the coaches can introduce the players about the low -pressure defense with high-pressure attack and high-pressure defense with low-pressure attack. You can also teach them about how to read opponent's shape to decide when and where to go forward.

Counterattack and reading visual cues can also be included in the teaching soccer plan at this stage. The coaches can also teach them about how to mark out dangerous player and how to recognize and adjust defending tactics to match conditions.

Likewise, there should be a different approach in training for soccer while you are teaching the players of different age groups.

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Soccer Training Drills: How To Make The Ball Do What Players Want

Teach how to make the ball do what the players want. Yes, that is possible, but through extensive and effective soccer training drills, and only a good coach can help the team achieve this impressive skill.

Step 1: Make Them Go In A Cycle

The players should go in a cycle. This means left and then right foot, then right thigh and then left thigh, and then hitting the ball up to their head and back down to their right foot and then left and so on. You can teach them how to make various cycles.

They can do so by choosing where the ball goes, and not just keeping the ball up in the air, but manipulating the ball on their terms. It does not really matter much that how many times the players can juggle. What really matters is whether the players are capable enough to make the ball go where you want it.

Step 2: Now Manipulate The Ball Even More

Once the players are well versed with the above step, the players are supposed to aim for kicking the ball away from them to the right.

After that, they should kick the ball away from them to the left. They should be able to do so at a slight angle in the air, almost as they are faking going to the right and then the left but all in the air. Here, the support of the coaches will be on test because the players need to lean their body to the side in which they are kicking the ball.

Finally, teach the soccer players how to try walking and juggling with the ball.

Come up with your own soccer training drills and send me your ideas.

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Soccer Training Tips - Quick Shooting Drills

One important thing to teach in soccer training is how to improve the finishing skills of the players by implementing effective soccer training tips. Let's talk about some "quick" ways of achieving that.

Quick Shooting Drills

You can start with having the players line up along the side of the goal. Now, you should form another line and this time, it should be at the top of the box.

Instruct the players along the side of the goal to play the ball with pace to the players at the top of the box. This way, before the charging player closes them down, they will have three touches to get a shot off. Another method is to play combinations at the top of the box.

These combinations may include overlaps, give and goes, and crosses that all lead to shots. Train the players about how to hit a moving ball and make the soccer drills game-like. You can have the team proactive by setting up a few short combinations that lead to shots.

These are important soccer training tips to follow.

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Soccer Coaches Training - The Worst Mistake They Make

Yes, there is a long list of mistakes that many soccer coaches not only make, but also they even overlook the same. These mistakes can do disaster and make your team a loser. That is the reason why I rated this mistake as WORST.

• Most of the coaches do not get all their tools and set up ready before the team arrives for the training. This really puts a very bad impact on the players’ psychology. The coaches fail to prepare everything needed, such as facility and soccer training equipments and set up, ahead of time. When the players arrive, they start making the arrangements and they even do not hesitate to have the players assist them in doing in that.

Always remember that the players do not come there to arrange, but they come to improve their soccer ball skills through the training session. This does not only delay the soccer training session, but sometimes, the sessions even run overtime. What could be worse than that for a player’s psychology?

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