WELCOME…
October 13 2010 Issue 181 Under 4s - Under 16s
W E E K LY
to the new issue of Soccer Coach Weekly in which we’re delighted to feature an exclusive interview with legendary England keeper Peter Shilton. He lists some brilliant top tips and tells us how he feels the game has progressed in recent years. Enjoy the feature and the rest of this issue...
RAPID RECOVERY
This move shows you how to give your players the best chance of recovering when finding themselves on the wrong side of the ball and having to chase down a quick opposition attack.
GETTING BACK GOAL SIDE
GETTING BACK GOAL SIDE
Every coach has been in the situation where his team loses the ball, the opposition race towards goal, yet his own players stand and watch the inevitable conclusion unfold. For younger kids especially, the idea of heading back to mop up the mess is generally taken as being ‘someone else’s job’, and even the most organised teams’ defenders can find themselves alone at the back with the opposition haring towards them.
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A simple warmup directs players back to the correct areas
So encouraging your players to get back and help defenders out is hugely valuable. It will add to a player’s game, enhance team spirit, and maybe be worth quite a few points come the end of the season.
How to set it up: • •
Use a standard pitch for a warm-up sprint drill. Also set-up an area measuring 35x10 yards with a goal at one end – this will form the main part of the session.
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Getting started: •
Start first with a sprint drill to teach defenders tracking back the key areas they should be running into. • Players should run as fast as possible and take the shortest route towards the danger area. Players on the wing should take a line back towards the nearest goalpost, while those in the centre of the pitch should run towards the penalty spot. • Now move to your 35x10 yard area. • Three white strikers attack one defender and a goalkeeper. • A second defender is 10 yards behind the play. His aim is to make it back to the ball to help prevent a goal. • The middle striker is a server and cannot move. He plays the ball to either of the two white forwards. As soon as he does, play begins and the recovering defender can move. • The lone defender must hold up the strikers until the second defender arrives. The recovering player must make one of four decisions. 1. Challenge for the ball 2. Cover the defender 3. Mark an opponent 4. Mark space between the opponent and goal
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When a move comes to an end, play restarts with the serving attacker.
Why this works: The move combines pace and awareness because players must concentrate on recovering by moving quickly, then supporting the other defenders. Another crucial part of this is in making sure that once your players have made it back they don’t turn off mentally and subsequently fail to complete the defending task. It can be all too easy to get back and think that the job is done, when really it has only just started!
The recovering defender sprints back as his teammate looks to hold up play
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On half a pitch, use 4v4 plus a keeper. The four attackers take on two of the defenders with the other two ready to move for a recovery run. Increase pressure on the defence by moving the exercise nearer to the goal, or by making recovery runs longer.
Y THIS! NOW TR
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COACHING COLLECTION SAID LIKE A PRO
This week we’re delighted to present an exclusive interview with legendary England goalkeeper Peter Shilton. He tells us how the game has changed over the past 20 years, plus presents four top tips to help any young aspiring goalkeeper in your team... “Having spent so long in the professional game, people are often not too surprised to hear that I don’t get involved in senior coaching so much these days. I much prefer helping out youngsters and seeing the next generation come through. When coaching professionals I always felt that the players should really know themselves what’s wrong and what’s right. At least with kids, they’re like sponges - they’ll hang on every word and there’s a passion and absolute commitment to wanting to learn, with a desire to improve their technique and habits.
“Talking of habits, I think getting into the right habits for a keeper early on is absolutely essential. The margins are so small for the man in the goal, and if they are practising the wrong way for any length of time, it can be difficult to break that mindset. “What is sad is that there is a lack of proper technique in some parts of the game. At all levels, it seems goalkeepers can be brilliant one minute and then error-ridden the next. Maybe the memory plays tricks but in my opinion there used to be a greater level of consistency in the game. Maybe the basics aren’t being taught well enough. If they’re not, goalkeepers are suddenly unable to rely on the fundamental rules of protecting the goal. “That’s why it’s even more important now to ensure that the young kids learning the game get the elementary stuff correct, eliminating any bad habits and focusing on the core philosophy of being a goalkeeper – to keep the ball out of the net! We can always overcomplicate, but if players can go in with a really basic mindset like that, it makes mastering the art so much easier. “My stance is that the simpler the idea, the better you can translate that to your students. Too many coaches seem to be complicating things with their methods and we need to get away from that.
“On the plus side, we’re seeing youngsters coming into the game now with a brand of fitness, agility and strength that would never have been seen 20 or 30 years ago. I think we have the modern professional glossy era of football to thank for that. Football in the 1970s often had connotations of being scrappy, dirty, and common. Now, it’s palatial in comparison, and I think that image rubs off on the players. They respect the game more, and therefore respect themselves more as footballers and athletes. It’s great to see.”
SHILTS’ STATS •
Peter made 1,005 senior club appearances across 31 years as a full-time professional
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When he retired in 1997, he was the fifth oldest footballer to have ever played in the English game
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His past clubs include Leicester City, Stoke City, Nottingham Forest, Southampton and Derby County
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He was a member of the England national team for two decades, making a record 125 appearances
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He also spent three years as a manager, with Plymouth Argyle
PETER SHILTON’S TOP FOUR GOALKEEPING TIPS: REACH FOR THE SKIES A goalkeeper must practise catching the ball at its highest point. Don’t wait for the ball to drop, because the more it loses height, the closer an opposition head will be to it, so tell your goalkeeper to get both hands on it at the earliest point. This is obviously easier if the keeper is tall, but remind him that no matter what his height, his arms fully outstretched above his head should reach higher than even the tallest of strikers!
THE PERFECT POSITION Make sure your goalkeeper has a good body position when playing. This could be in the instance of going for the ball, if being confronted
by a striker, or even just when kicking. When the keeper gathers the ball, always make sure he has his shoulders well positioned and bent. Ensure his head is forward and check that his stance is similar to that of a boxer. That will mean he can drop down quicker to protect the ball.
COMPACT = COMPLETE Every time I hear coaches telling young goalkeepers to spread themselves in oneon-one situations I wince, because there are times when that can be the worst advice. It goes against what you’d expect, but the best thing to do is to make your keeper adopt a compact stance so that shots cannot go through him. In that way, he can collapse on the ball and get in a position similar to that of a parachute jumper. He must form a barrier to prevent the ball getting past him, but he’ll get better propulsion
reaching out from a compact position than he will spreading himself too early. Think about it, how often do we see keepers getting balls dinked over them when they’ve gone to ground at the first opportunity?
STAND TO ATTENTION Following on from the last tip, this one is to encourage goalkeepers to stand tall and to stay on their feet for as long as possible. They have to try to make the striker go they want they want him to. Make sure your goalkeeper doesn’t give the striker an opportunity to make a simple decision. Instead, get him to force the forward into rushing his effort. If he does that, he has won. If the striker still beats him, then fair play, it’s probably a good finish, but the keeper has to trick him first into thinking he is in control.
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COACHING COLLECTION DAVID CLARKE’S TOUCHLINE TALES
This is a great game for angles of defence and changing roles in attack.
THE VALUE OF PLAYING FOOTBALL UNDERCOVER Last Monday I moved training for my Under-10s indoors, something which has advantages and disadvantages, as I was about to find out! When I turned up, I had the whole session planned, but soon realised that trying to get the players to do what I wanted on the first night in their new environment may not have been as easy as I’d hoped. In short, they came into the indoor training area and thought they were at a birthday party! They were exploring their new training surroundings like intrepid adventurers, and because they were quite safe they felt they could run and kick the ball at things to see what happened. Yes, the ball does come back off a wall at different angles, and yes, it is hard to kick it into a basketball net! After 10 minutes of charging around they calmed down and started thinking about training. So that they could get used to the
equipment around them I started the session with a game of basketball using the hoops on the wall. I find coaching by playing games like this is a much easier way to get players to understand about support play and movement, and it helps the idea of getting into the right positions to receive. I played quick 2v1 and 3v2 games with ‘first to score a basket wins’, so there was a good turnover of players. Once they began to see how support made it easy for teams with overloads to move the ball into a position where they could score a basket, I changed the game from basketball to soccer. Using a square we did some technical work before playing a small-sided game. The indoor arena made for a pacy encounter where the ball was constantly in play and requiring skill and good technique from my players.
The session wasn’t entirely as I’d planned it, but we all improvised well, and the kids agreed it was great fun. I know they are raring to go for the next session. But had I not allowed the players to explore the new training area themselves and changed my session to fit in with the equipment around us, they would have been distracted and unable to concentrate. So experiment, and always use what you have around you to your benefit, even if it doesn’t follow convention.
SCW SURGERY THIS WEEK’S COACH: ANN LEAVER GROUP: GIRLS
Ann Leaver is a soccer coach who runs ladies and girls teams in Northumberland.
Q
Is the holy grail of women’s football the US, or have we got enough to be proud of here in the UK? Maxine Shears, Aberdeen
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Q
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I think the biggest thing women’s football has gained is credibility. It had a very unfair reputation in the 1980s and I think football followers of all standards look on it differently now.
The motivation and energy will come from inside you – you just need to find a way to convey it. The ideas, well, they are all around you and there are many good information sources with which you can equip yourself as a coach... indeed, you’re reading one of them!
We absolutely have enough to be proud of. If you look at how the game has developed over the past 20 years we have come a really long way. And we’ll continue to build on that success.
The fact that female footballers are now role models is a superb thing for the game, and their visibility across TV and the media is increasing all the time. The biggest thing is in ensuring that the women’s game is self-sustaining so that clubs at all levels can continue to attract support, both in terms of people watching, and in sponsors putting their hands in their pockets. If that happens, then future generations can enjoy the fantastic thing we have.
I have just started coaching a girls team in Kent. What advice can you offer me? Jay Milham, Hereford Coaching women is no different to coaching men or kids. Okay, the training programme will vary slightly, but so much of what a coach offers is motivation, energy, ideas and inspiration.
And as for the inspiration, well the best piece of advice I have given during my coaching career is to always make each player believe that when they cross the white line they are the best on the pitch. Confidence is 80% of what makes a footballer who they are. If you can instil that belief in them you will get the best out of them, and they’ll be doing things on the pitch that even they didn’t think possible.
Many of my girls ask when the opportunities will be there to play professionally. To be honest, I can never give them a proper answer. Can you help? Toni Moon, York Well of course the options in the UK are minimal, but even though women footballers at professional clubs are semipro, many Premier League sides will give jobs to the team behind the scenes – for instance, working with club foundations, that sort of thing. Of course, the US now has a fully professional women’s league, and it is much easier over there to play football for a living, but the competition is increasing all the time and the game is growing rapidly. But the chances are higher than before. And there are also professional women’s teams in countries like Sweden – so if your players want to get paid for playing there are places for those who have true natural talent and can work hard at it.
Got a question for SCW Surgery? Email it in to us at james.evans@coach-soccer.com
Soccer Coach Weekly is published by Green Star Media Ltd, Meadow View, Tannery Lane, Bramley, Guildford, GU5 0AB, UK. Email: james.evans@coach-soccer.com Tel: +44 (0)1483 892894 Fax: +44 (0)1483 894148 Editor: James Evans Publisher: Kevin Barrow Managing Director: Andrew Griffiths Customer Service: Duncan Heard Contributors: David Clarke, Paul Dargan, Steve Southern, Steve Watson © Green Star Media Ltd. All rights reserved.
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COACHING COLLECTION
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THE ART OF COACHING CHILDREN
INFORMATION STATIONS
Ensuring that your kids turn on and tune in, without dropping out... Even the most patient children have a limited attention span, and this at some point is bound to impact on your sessions, unless of course you can find ways to improve your players’ concentration, and with it, retention of information. Here are four brilliant methods that should help:
CHUNKING
regarding each development as something new, whereas their attention would have waned quickly if the whole exercise had been introduced in one go.
“Coaches love the tactical, logical, intuitive part of the game and can talk about it at length, but kids just want to get out there and get on with it.”
Break your training sessions into short chunks and don’t put too much information into each one. I saw this done really well a few weeks ago when a coach was introducing a rapid pass and move technique.
REVISIT TO REINFORCE
He demonstrated it and asked the players when they might use it in a game. They then spent a few minutes practising in threes. The coach then mixed pass and move exercises with more physical pressing and shielding techniques. Because they were learning in chunks and assembling those like building blocks, you could see that the players were
Keep revisiting skills and techniques you have taught your players. A newly taught skill should be revisited over and over again until players are proficient. This might mean you do ‘chunked’practices for the same skill over the course of six or seven weeks, but press home the repetition and it will become second nature to them.
ACTIVE LEARNING Children learn by doing so this needs to be the main focus of your training. Limit explanations and demonstrations and get to the activity. Once players are active stop every two or three minutes and give them another small bit of information then get them active again. Coaches love the tactical, logical, intuitive part of the game and can talk about it at length, but kids just want to get out there and get on with it.
HUNGER Always leave players wanting more. Don’t work on a skill so much that players become bored as this will only lead to bad habits developing. Short, sharp focused bursts of activity will ensure your players are still hungry to learn when you revisit the skill another time.
FORMATION FORUM THIS WEEK: 4-5-1 INTO 4-3-3 AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LONE STRIKER. We delve once more under the surface of the tactical formations that famously make teams tick...
As portrayed by: Jose Mourinho in his Chelsea years. The legacy: ‘The Special One’ used the adaptive 4-5-1 formation to its fullest potential, winning two league titles, two league cups and an FA Cup with the wing play of Cole, Robben and Duff, midfield support of Lampard and the rampaging lone forward moves of Drogba.
BACKGROUND: •
The perception of having a set midfield and attack disappears. Each of these areas is split up into smaller parts. • It can be as fluid or rigid as required, depending on whether the team needs to press forward or defend a lead.
KEY ELEMENTS: •
The lone striker is the most important part of this formation but it’s imperative nonetheless that the team know how and when to use him, so as to prevent him from becoming tired or isolated. • He needs to be big, strong and mobile. • In straight 4-5-1, he’ll hold up play as a target man, letting midfielders and wide
men feed off the second ball but with slow build-up. • Yet once reverting to 4-3-3, his movement might be such that he switches to and from the flanks to help facilitate wingers pushing forward. He might even play as a ‘false number nine’, dropping deep when necessary.
MAIN STRENGTH: The modern 4-5-1 can be transformed very quickly into a 4-3-3 by utilising precise, fluid and well-constructed counter-attacks as shown by Chelsea and, to an extent, Barcelona. But the formation’s flip side is its ability to suffocate the game, particularly in letting five players sit in midfield, whilst allowing a solitary lone frontman to chase into corners and battle for possession. In short, it’s brilliantly adaptable.
KEY WEAKNESS: Some view this set-up as reactive and not pro-active. Teams might respond to going in front by settling back into a strict 4-5-1 pattern, thus stifling the game. As a result, it has its critics.
A standard 4-5-1 formation option
Merging into 4-3-3 wingers and striker interchange, while midfielders progress forward
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GAME ON
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SMALL-SIDED GAME
4v4 LIVES
A team game of survival played as individuals...
How to set it up
SKILLS
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4v4 LIVES
Positioning
Mark out a circular pitch • Attacking that is 30 yards in diameter (use markers or cones if • Defending necessary). • Tackling • Place four goals at equal distances around the circle so that each goal is opposite another. • Use four teams of four players. • One player from each team starts on the pitch.
The rules • • • •
Each team has four lives. Pass a ball onto the pitch to start the game. The object is to score in any other player’s goal. Any player who concedes a goal is ejected from the game, his team loses a life, and a team-mate comes in to replace him. • The winner is the last team with a player left on the pitch.
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Start off with 1v1v1v1
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Why this game works •
First and foremost, this is a simple game that needs players to be able to switch from attack to defence quickly and effectively. Speed of thought is also essential, but the biggest benefit is in giving players the realisation that they have many options around them in the circle. Here, they’re offered three goals in which they can score (or, if they are so minded, one goal to defend), but transfer the habits learned here into match situations and you’ll find players open up to passing options that are more plentiful and, most likely, more ambitious too.
If a player concedes, he’s out. A new man comes in but the team has lost a life
3 The winner is the last man on the pitch
Let us know how you get on. Soccer Coach Weekly is always keen to hear your feedback, so email in to us at
james.evans@coach-soccer.com
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