Thank you for sharing this blog, I really appreciate the visualisations of the systems and drills! Cheers Greg!


What do you think about the FourFourTwo blog Training Session for U8/9 Year Olds?
Stage two of the National Curriculum (NC) is the 8 and 9 age group. The field size increases to ¼ field and extra players are added including a goal keeper (7v7). Adults who play 7v7 summer com...

Have your say.

Great article to post, GA. Well done.

Thanks mate.

I have some comments, but they may be more appropriate to add to the original blog.

Greg, thanks for sharing/writing this article.

One suggestion I have is in figures 6 and 7.

When the 1v1 or 2v2 games are occurring, have the players on the side not involved, performing stationary dribbling techniques with a ball allocated to each player. We are currently doing this on the training ground. It enhances the sessions.

Why?
1. It keeps players fully occupied and diminishes inappropriate behaviour.
2. It increases their touches of the ball, which KNVB is keen to see occur to develop technique.
3. If they can do the stationary techniques and watch the others at the same time, they are succeeding to dribble/control ball with their head up.

It is great to see the graphics.

Often I've made a mess of trying to explain techniques/exercises through words. Videos/graphics are so much easier.




Edited by Decentric: 9/5/2011 10:45:29 AM

Excellent blog Gregory really informative. I especially like your description of the player roles.

A couple of areas I'd like to see included with the FFA community coaching courses is the coaching points within the small games training. In other words the technical part. As well as more coaching/training material on formations and shape.

In terms of technique, there doesn't appear to be a lot of information in the curriculum on coaching proper technique (coaching points). For instance how should a young player receive the ball properly, how should they cushion the ball and bring it across their body, which part of the foot should they use. How should they pass and strike the ball properly, which part of the ball, which part of the foot, where does the plant foot go. How should they shield the ball etc etc.

I ended up searching the Internet to find more information on how to teach correct technique and discovered a couple of great sites "Blast the ball" and "Soccer U" along with an excellent training program called Coerver coaching. My challenge though as a volunteer community coach is to distill all this great material along with the FFA curriculum and create appropriate, 60 min, training sessions, twice a week, for my U11s.

The other area I'm interested in is formations and shape, I.e. How does one teach shape and formations to U11s? What games/drills etc are available to teach this to younger players.

Check out http://soccerisfootball.com for info and links to articles related to Soccer/Football in Australia, NSW and the Central Coast.

Check out http://soccerisfootball.com.au for info and links to articles related to Soccer/Football in Australia, NSW and the Central Coast.

Fig 2, the Dutch passing square is a good activity.

Krones, there are variations of this in Dutch Soccer Drills 1, 2 and 3, books we both have.

A US college coach I know varies it with receiving with the outside of the foot too. He also has players practise a dribbling technique before they move to the next corner.

I think this is one of his best drills!!! He is pretty pleased with it. ':d

One can do it with only four players. It is on the FFA website. I'm assuming Han Berger put it there.

I don't really like any of the Alfred Galustian ones on the FFA website. They might be okay for professional players, but too much time with no involvement for younger players, as well as complex instructions/spatial awareness.

I've had more time to look at this article and its content. Greg has put some good stuff in there.

Edited by Decentric: 11/5/2011 07:36:14 PM

Brilliant. I coach under 8's and Under 10's. Looking forward to the next one.

Technical Points on Passing and Recieving
* If possible recieve the ball with the furthest foot. Often referred to as back foot recieving. This opens the body and allows the first pass option to be available (forward)
* First touch can be explained by softening the body to reduce the impact of the pass. To do this I teach a small hop to recieve the ball, with the first touch within 0.5m. Don't "kill the ball" or stop it dead.
* To pass look up and arrange the plant foot and shoulders to face the target. Again a small hop and hit through the middle of the ball.

I have taught some U6s, shape, by marking out different coloured cones on the ground for attack and defence. On a whistle I got them to move to the right colours and we played a fun game. I got the parents to experience this as well and made them do the exercise.

The results on the field are amazing. I have seen passing and shape change with these coaching points. They won their last game 16-1 because they could run with the ball and strike it andmake small adjustments in shape. Not perfect but encouraging.

The advanced "drills" on the FFA web site by Alf Galustian are difficult to follow for many coaches and players. They are probably left to highly advanced players. Use your own methods to get your points acorss and be creative!

even at adults struggled with them when he demonstrated them and they were a mix of ex pros.

Alf Galustian is an excellent coach from all reports. If your players cannot do the "drill" then move on and or simplify it.

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that training (community and reps/adults) should resemble the game in some form. Extra technique and agility training is ok, as an adjunct to regular training. Play games with opposition if possible then simplify it if your players are not getting success. Even conditioning should be game related. Read Dr. Robert Verhejen's books.

I have been using formation training of late with great results for older age groups to adults. This is a step further on from SSGs. Everything is done in context, training positions, technique, tactics, and conditioning all at once. I will discuss this method in future blogs.

In U8’s.
I made zones out of posts and police tape.
I ran them long ways up the field allowing one players from each team in 1 zone at a time.
At both ends all players could spread across the pitch to score or defend.
Worked very well.


Edited by krones3: 5/6/2011 04:00:36 PM

Gregory , is there any way you can expand on the hop to receive the ball?

I also wonder why you don't 'kill' the ball? I'm receiving feedback from a relative playing US college football, that the player's first touch is often too close (killing the ball) which has been taught in Australia.

Is it possible to produce a basic diagram, Krones?

My spatial awareness isn't the best.

The first touch is taken hopefully in the direction the player wants to pass or dribble to. The ball is not stopped dead as a result. It is rolling slightly, but under control. In theory this helps the speed of play. The player is already facing where he wants the ball to go. The basic hop or skip is used to pivot the body to open out.

The hop/skip is a coaching tool that I use to help correct first touch to soften the body to reduce the force of the ball as it comes to the player. The hop/skip to pass is actually a walk through the ball to produce a backswing (where the force is generated).

These techniques are used to correct and teach. The are times when you may want to kill the ball dead. But we must teach players to not let the ball "get underneath their feet" where it is impossible to control or generate passing power or direction, just as much as too far in front. We must also teach players to shield the ball as well.

Brilliant!!!

Thanks Gregory.

Would like to mention some success I am having with the kids. I have been sending them home with juggling strips.
Day time and highest number.
I asked the kids to fill them out each day. Many of the kids have doubled, tripled their first efforts and you should see their confidence and ability on the field after only 6weeks.
                                          

It sounds good, Krones.

So you ask them to fill in a piece of paper with the day, time and highest number of juggles?

With Gregory talking about first touch it has been interesting. Stopping the ball dead, was what Craig Johnston found he couldn't do compared to all the young English players when he went to England. He spent hours and hours practising against a wall to bring his skills/first touch closer in standard to his English teammates. This was covered in his auto-biography, Walk Alone.

This has inadvertently influenced me with coaching and first touch. It wasn't until a prominent coach anointed Xavi as having the best first touch in the world, because of his ability to take the ball away from opposition players with his first touch, that I started to reappraise it.

A player now in the US college system, I worked a lot with on first touch, has been criticised for always stopping the ball dead. The inference has been the footballer sometimes needs a second touch to move the ball into the right place on occasions. Conversely, many of that US college player's team-mates cannot stop the ball dead - killing it.

First touch has never been covered in any FFA coaching course/session I've done. It wasn't covered in the KNVB course

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faSqc5va4Ls

Once again I can't praise this exercise highly enough from the Barca Academy for first touch, then pass. It needs to be done on both sides. A mate of mine used an embryonic form of this, but the Barca exercise really puts some good structure into the drill.

Edited by Decentric: 16/6/2011 05:34:08 PM

Edited by Decentric: 16/6/2011 05:35:45 PM

Great points and a good drill, i use it a lot.
This is why over the years i have always got mad at coaches screaming at 10year olds 1 touch 1 touch.






Edited by krones3: 16/6/2011 07:51:26 PM

Yes after training each week.

Loving these articles Greg. Are you posting up a 10/11's one?

I coach under 8's and 10's and have found the 10's a lot of fun now that they are playing "positions" and "strategy" albeit on a small scale.

I tend to set my under 10's up (only 9 on the field) as a 1-3-3-2 against opposition that are equal to us (or our skill level) and 1-1-3-2-1 against some of the better teams. The one at the back being a sweeper and not marking which means they play a lone striker. I've only adopted this formation twice this season after copping a 9-nil shellacking off one of the better sides in Brisbane. I've told my boys I don't mind them losing as long as we're competitive. That game wasn't competitive.

The week after we adopted the sweeper formation and only went down 2-nil to another good side. The advantage I've found with playing the 2 formations is that if you want to revert to only 3 at the back with no sweeper you simply move the "spine" forward one position. So your central midfielder goes forward to make up 2 at the front and your sweeper moves into centre defence. Alternatively you can just throw your sweeper up front and it reverts to 1-3-3-2 because, lets face it, every 9 year old wants to score goals and thinks they're Lionel Messi.

I may or may not be on the right track but I tell my lads to compress (move up the park) when they have the ball to give them less space and to spread out when we've got it for the converse reasons. (This is simplified of course but remember they are only 9 years old.)

Edited by munrubenmuz: 24/6/2011 09:31:05 AM

This is a demonstration of that exact question. http://au.fourfourtwo.com/videos/224,milan-academy-australia.aspx

I can't get the bloody thing to work though. Can you click on the link and let me know if it works. I've shot an email off to 442 admin to try and find out whether it's just my browser or a site problem.

It's working now care of the good work of the 442 people. Here is the actual link. http://au.fourfourtwo.com/videos/222,ac-milan-coaching.aspx

Edited by munrubenmuz: 27/6/2011 02:21:45 PM

KNVB doctrine is to make the field as big as possible when the team has the ball. They push width to make it big.

When the other team has the ball, KNVB suggest making the pitch as small as possible.

Sounds like I'm more or less doing the right thing then. (As much as you can with half-human monkeys that 9 year old boys can be.) Good to hear.

Edited by munrubenmuz: 27/6/2011 04:03:08 PM

Yes the U10 and U11 article is just about complete and should be published this week sometime. I will include some tactical ideas and information.

Yes width, depth and penetration in attack and squeezing in defence should be coached. The players must start to understand the idea of space and time.

These clips are of drills. They are oK for sharpening skills, but note how the players stand in line and there is no opposition or pressure. Game sense training is different.

Good to hear.

Yep, got that with regards the queuing of the players. The clip was just to highlight that particular technique (the hop to receive the ball) that was all.

Generally speaking I try and keep all my drills as game related as possible. Very few static or standing-in-line (queuing) drills.

Where is the subscribe button for these threads?

Nevermind. Found it.

Edited by munrubenmuz: 27/6/2011 04:08:58 PM

Anyone else find resubscribing for 442 mag a nightmare?

I agree with a lot of what you fellas are saying in regards to first touch and taking the ball into the direction you wish to pass or move, however,the player should also have the ability to stop the ball dead as once the player advances through the system at times if the player can stop the ball dead they are able to draw a defender allowing you to introduce a player que. That player que may be that "as the defender moves toward our 2 following a throw in, can you 6 move into a position to receive the ball and look to play into 7"

If we consider that in most circumstances our two, receiving the ball from a throw in has limited options, if they take the first touch inside they draw the defender with them and crowd the space occupied by our 6......

Does that make sense?