Does anyone else find one of the most taxing parts of coaching is finding a way to keep everyone interested when practicing 5v4 scenarios etc where there is one or two players waiting for their turn. Of course it would be ideal if we could use all players all the time in our games but sometimes one or two players sitting out is inevitable to practice certain situations.

With young players sitting out I find they will just talk to themselves or sit down and not pay attention to the game. The best way I have dealt with it is always asking questions of the players sitting off about the game. Even doing this I find it hard to keep them interested, they are at the age where they are only interested if they are involved directly.

Anyone have any situations where they have dealt with this effectively?

(P.S I would only have the players off for 2 minutes or so at a time.)

I usually find playing a game of group-juggling or circle ball if there's enough sitting out, or just solitary juggling, keeps them ticking.

This. The best coaches I've had drilled it into our heads that if he was busy you straight away went and found a ball to either juggle with, to tap between your feet or to do simple step over and touch drills by yourself.

Because of my 25 year career as a professional infant teacher, this is probably my greatest strength as a coach. Utilising all players to be active and busy all of the time in any training session. Even the top coaches don't always do this well. Over a season, too much time can be wasted on the training track if it is not addressed.

If you are playing a 5v4 scenario, the left over players can do the following football SSGs:

2 left over players - play a 1v1 game. This is, players taking in turns to play the ball to the other one in a small grid of about 16 metres long by 10 metres wide.


4 left over players- the 3v1 rondo. You probably have a copy of the FFA games for training ground. I think I sent one if you asked a few months ago, but I can't remember who I sent them to. There were about 17 I sent out. I've decided the rondos are the best, because there is always an opposition player in BPO and the BP players play possession in a triangle.


6 left over players - the 4v2 rondo. The 4 play possession in a diamond shape, with two defenders. Change them over every 2 minutes or so the 2 in BPO are alternated. A key oblective inthis is to for the 4 in BP to spit the 2 in BPO with the killer pass. Again these are in the FFA practive games.


7 left over players - the 5v2 rondo. That is the players in BP assume a diamond shape with the dot ( one in the middle).


8 left over players - 5v3. Again the players in BP assume the diamond with a dot. The BPO players assume a triangle. I won't go into specific instructions for the players in BPO here, but when they win the ball, they can then play against the BP player in the middle, or the dot in a 3v1 rondo.


3 left over players- a 2v1 rondo. Not ideal, but this is very hard anaerobically and doesn't have a triangle. Krones has also posted a pretty good passing exercise on here for 3 players.


5 is my worst left over number.:-k It could be a combination of 2 player and 3 player scenarios listed above.

Dirk Van Adidas's thread on Academy sessions, a sticky at the top of this page is good for diagrams of variations on these games.
OIf you look at the Arsenal Academy sessions, the first few passing exercises have variations of these Positioning Games. The first Ajax/Dutch one also is a useful Positioning Game.

These practices are used by a lot of top FFA coaches in Australia and the Dutch KNVB. Arie Schans and Ad Derkson from the KNVB use these.

Rob Baan, Han Berger, Rob Sherman, Norm Boardman, Mike Edwards ( Matildas assistant), Dean May (Aus under 20s assistant), Anthony Alexander ( FFA NC SAP curriculum writer), Kurt Reynolds (former Tassie FFA TD) and Darren Cooke ( Aus amateur coach of the year in 2012) all use these types of Positioning Games.



TJ, it is also great if you have an assistant coach to oversee the spare players.

Unfortunately, this is not always possible.






Edited by Decentric: 8/8/2013 08:16:53 AM

Edited by Decentric: 8/8/2013 08:27:59 AM

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx5b3V0aHNvY2Nlcmxlc3NvbnBsYW5zfGd4OjRmYzA2ZWQ0YmY4MWUyY2E


Try this Warm Up, Exercise 1 in the Dutch/Ajax session for 6 spare players. If you have 7 you can make two bouncers at one end instead of 1.

If you have 8 you can have 2 bouncers at both ends instead of 1 at each end.

This is very good for fast one and two touch passing, and, movement in tight spaces.

The correct nomenclature for this exercise instead of Warm Up is a Positioning Game.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx5b3V0aHNvY2Nlcmxlc3NvbnBsYW5zfGd4OjcyMjY4MDExZTE4YTliNGU


In this Arsenal Academy Possession 2 and Possession 3 exercises, these are variations on the 5v2 and 5v3 rondos.

The difference is that the players in the diamond 4 in BP are placed outside the grid, instead of inside the grid. These are exercises known as Player In The Soup.

In this exercises it is also very effective to have 4v1, with only 1 BPO player inside the grid, against 4 on the outside. In a traditional rondo it is too easy for the players in BP.

These Arsenal, Chelsea and Dutch/Ajax Academy sessions are outstanding. One of the top FFA staff coaches in Australia has looked at these and thinks they are excellent. However, he emphasises the how and when when using them.








Edited by Decentric: 8/8/2013 08:12:31 AM

I think ultimately juggling is best performed in pairs.

The ball is coming at a more realistic angle, as in a game, for maximum time.

Somewhere I've listed about 20 stationary 1v1 ball techniques on here.

I've seen a lot of elite coaches lately. If juggling is employed, they often use it as a warm up before training. One in particular, favours the 3v1 rondo as the fill in exercise. With the technical quality of the players he produces, it is difficult to argue against.

He usually uses left over players to juggle if there are not multiples of 4.

Edited by Decentric: 8/8/2013 08:29:14 AM

I should add that the former state TD posted an article interviewing Barca's Xavi on the FFT website.

At Barca they use a lot of the 3v1, 4v2 and 5v3 advocated in the posts above.

They do this stuff better than anybody else.

I struggled with this for a while and found that I needed to be prepared for whatever numbers showed up. Once I did this coaching got a lot easier. When I plan my sessions I write down the max number of players I'll have and the minimum, from there I'll have a plan for each drill/stage of training based on those numbers e.g. 9, 10, 11 or 12 becomes 4v4+1, 5v5, 5v5+1, 5v5+2 (where +'s are neutral) or 2 games of 3v3. To do this you may need to prepare 2 different drills and pick the most suitable for the numbers as not all drills scale up and/or down well. The drill isn't so important its can you coach what you need to. To take this a step further I plan alternatives if my keeper doesn't show up etc. It also helps to plan in blocks say 2 weeks worth so you can move things around as needed.

Sometimes you can use the extra players as rolling subs but you need to ensure the intensity of the drill is high enough so the players will be happy to have a rest.

This may just be my experience, but I've found if you have more than one group and they are doing different things they will invariably want to do the other and get distracted. It's always caused problems regardless if I've got help or not, the only real exception is goalkeepers.

Edited by Kicker: 12/8/2013 03:50:16 PM

Most of this is standard practice for a teacher on a day to day basis. Planning is a major component of being a teacher. As you suggest, the more thorough the planning for various contingencies, such as different numbers of players, the more successful a session is likely to occur.

What do you mean by 'Rolling subs' , Kicker?

With multiple groups, it is so good having assistant coaches who are confident taking control of various drills. This year, with 13 and 14 year old boys, it seemed better to have a competitive element to every exercise, to intrinsically motivate them through extrinsic goals.