Football/Soccer Session (Academy Sessions): Team bonding, dribbling & Introduction to tactical training - reflection from game (Start Time: 2021-08-19 16:30:00)

Warm Up (10 mins)

Key Factors

• High Intensity
• Engaging

Organisation

• Players to get themselves a ball each.
• The activity begins by having the players dribble around the large cone grid freely. 
• We then include conditions such as using one foot or using one part of the foot. 
• The session then progresses to an engaging skills acquisition where we include movements that encourage dribbling mechanics such as tick tocks, toe taps etc. 
• On the coaches command, players will leave their ball in the grid and run to the grid of the colour the coach will shout.
• They will then get another ball and repeat.

Progressions

• Speed up commands
• Take away a ball every time they go to a mini grid.

• Engage the players to ease them into the session.
• Emphasis on the mechanics!

1,000 touches (10 mins)

Key Factors

• Quick Paced
• Quality
• More realism here

Organisation

• Players to organise themselves around the cones on the first activity equally. They then dribble to the cone diagonal from them. This will cause congestion within the middle of the zone.
• On the coaches command, they will then switch over to the second activity where they are to dribble around the grid to find a free player waiting to receive the pass.

• Include more footballs as a second ball to increase tempo.
• If needs be, set up the 1,000 touches grid as seen in the diagram and include this into the activity.

Coaching Points

• Players should now be more talkative between eachother.
• Encourage keeping head up to avoid collisions. Players should be finding the space and the spare player.

Small Sided Game - Play from the back, exploit the wide channels and switching play (30 mins)

• Key Factors
• Play from the back
• Exploit the wide channels
• Switching play
• Body positioning on receiving and making the option
• Body positioning with defending  and knowing when to press and when to drop back and wait for the mistake

Organisation

• Place your defenders in the boxes closest to the goalkeepers. Place the wingers in the boxes the other side of them. These are labelled in the diagram. 1 player per box. Switch players throughout if more than 1. Place bibs in these boxes before the sessions starts and ask players to put them on.
• The rest of your players are to go in the centre down the bottom (where 4 players are shown in the diagram). These players are to put on bibs too. Get the players to organise themselves and give random numbers.
• The coach will shout out a number. Once that number is called, the keeper will roll the ball out to the defenders who will then have the decision where to play, down the wing, back to the keeper or switch. The player with that number will run into the grid and defend, try to win the ball back. 
• If the player does win the ball back, they can then turn to shoot against the keeper in the other side of the pitch. This would be a goal for them. However, if the other team completes a certain amount of passes or keeps the ball for a certain duration of time (decide based on your team and ability), then they get rewarded a point.
• Switch the teams regularly so no players are bored and everyone can have a go at different aspects.

Progressions

• Add more players to come in to make it an even more pressured environment and see how the players react to it in the game situation.

• Discuss the mechanics of the key points
• Include lots of demonstrations
• Talk to the players to educate them on how and why it is beneficial.