If you visit the Academy Sessions, started by Dirk Van Adidas, at the top of the Performance page, go to 6th down the page, Chelsea Academy. It is the first Chelsea Academy, not the second.

When you open it, look at these 5 training ground drills.

1. Dribbling And Running With The Ball
2. ABC Finishing Drill ( Make players dribble back after recovering their ball).
5. Cores
16. Turning Into Space
31. Lose The Defender

These are all great for accumulating a lot of touches. They should be done in the Warm Up.


In a session you should take it in three or four stages.

1. Warm Up, also known as Technique Practice or Passing Practice.

2. Positioning Games - often 3v1, 4v2, 5v3.
KNVB also have 4v4 in this.

3. Game Training - often 7v7 or 8v8 with keepers. Great for working on shape.


Last time our assistant coach counted, the player focused on had 635 touches at the end of Stage 1, Warm Up. There were 490 after 10 minutes.

This is the part of the session where it is important to accrue maximum touches. Stages 2 and 3 only accrued another 170 more - 805 in total in 90 minutes.

Any exercise where you have a player with a ball by himself, or herself, is great for accruing touches. Juggling is really good. If you have players who are already proficient jugglers, add the inside of the foot and outside of the foot with both feet. You can also have two to a ball, one and two touching it before they pass back to each other, which is harder.

Also, have two players facing each other about 2 metres apart, one touching the ball to each other. As they become more proficient, add the outside of the foot and the instep of the foot to augment the inside of the foot passing.

Then get them moving backwards and forwards, one going back, one going forwards, then changing roles.

I have extensions to this, but they require a lot of words! If you are ever in Hobart, PM me and you can attend a training session where I can show you a lot more.:)

Edited by Decentric: 30/4/2013 07:16:01 PM

There are some high level coaches here, who work for FFT. One is on the Matildas staff, another is on the Socceroo staff and one is a SAP curriculum writer.

They seem to have Warm Ups, with more resistances, game related, but sometimes don't accrue as many touches.

However, Norm Boardman, one of the top guys in the FFA hierarchy, is really keen on massive numbers of touches too, certainly for developing players.

Cheers for the elaborate reply mate.

I already use the "Cores" drill, (probably my favourite warm up) and I like the look of the "Lose the defender" and "turn into space, so I reckon i'll add them in"

At the moment (Under 14s) I start with the "Cores" move onto groups of 2 where one throws to the other and go through a series of volleys back and controlling the ball with various parts of the body then we finish the warmup with some long passing (Chiping and driving (also good for first touch.))

I doubt we get anywhere near as many touches as your lads are achieving but to be honest I've never had the time to count, might get the manager to next training, though I can imagine her reaction.

I've always had a problem with shooting drills though, as there always tends to be a lineup do you get that problem?

Instead of just touches you have to look at what the touches are like. Juggling touches and dribbling touches should count as 1. The more velocity on the ball the touch should be given more points. 1 touch pass should be given more points than a trap on the equivalent velocity ball. With long distance passes there should be more points for trapping the ball on the full. Header and volleys should be given more points. So if you get 30 points for heading or volleying the ball from a corner kick and 1 for juggling then you have a basis of comparison . The goal should be to say get 2000 points in a session.

I personally don't think counting the touches is as important as to go into such detail, as long as you are maximizing the amount and variety of touches then that should be enough imo.