Football/Soccer Session (Academy Sessions): Ball mastery and control

Warm Up-Technical Mastery (10 mins)

Organization:

Players in a circle all facing coach

Each player has a ball and cone to work with

Instructions:

Coach demonstrates a ball mastery technique, and the players repeat

Skills taught in this session are toe taps, side to side, sole roll.

Coaching Points:

Always light on toes

Stay balanced

Head up

Soft touches

Progressions:

Combine the skills together

Have the players race to complete x amount of the skill/s

The coach continuously changes what ball mastery techniques he is executing and the player must change ASAP with him (now they are forced to look up at coach and not down at ball to keep up with him)

Pirate's Treasure (15 mins)

Place all the balls (treasure) in the Treasure Island in center of the field. Split your players into teams of three or four and create a pirate ship (base) for each of the teams. These bases should all be the same distance from the Soccer balls.

When the coach starts the game one player from each team must run to the middle and use their feet to dribble one piece of treasure back to their pirate ship. When they return their ship they must 'high five' the next team mate so that he can go and get another piece of treasure.

When all the treasure has gone which ever ship has the most treasure is the winner.

You can then tell the players that the treasure is cursed and must be returned to the island using the same one player from each team method as before.

To progress this game when all the treasure from the middle has been collected players can go to other pirate ships and collect the treasure.

Players can not block/ or stop other players from taking the treasure. Have a countdown to end this version of this game. You may want to ask a parent to supervise each pirate ship to ensure that no blocking takes place.