Football/Soccer Session (Academy Sessions): Day 3 Post Contact 7 - Task 5 - Fitness in a Functional Practice (Start Time: 2017-08-10 22:10:00)

Screen 1 (15 mins)

This is an exercise I've borrowed from Gary Curneen's book "The Modern Soccer Coach: Pre-Season Training"

Whilst it is primarily a shooting drill,I believe it can be seen as a Function because it takes place in a specific part of the field and has opponents; the keeper (obviously) plus the time pressure placed by the Blue team racing around the pitch

Organisation

The squad is divided into three teams of 5 plus at least one keeper. (If you have two, they can swap out as often as desired.)

One team starts in the corner (Blue team), the second (Yellow) start behind the goals and the third (Red) each stand by a cone just outside the penalty area.

The team in Red are first to shoot - each player has to do one press-up at each cone (sliding over quickly from one to the next). When they reach the last cone, they run to the coach who serves a ball for the Red player to shoot at goal.

After the shot, the Red player runs back to the first cone and again does a pres-up at each cone.

At the same time, the Blue team must sprint around the full pitch until all of them are back at the start point. The time it takes for the last Blue player to get back into position determines how long the Reds have to do their press-ups/shots.

The Yellow team are resting for this period (and also act as ball-boys ensuring the coach has a supply of balls).

When their shooting time is up, Reds go behind the goal to recover, Blues become the shooters and Yellows run around the pitch.

A competitive element can be introduced easily by keeping score of goals scored.

Because I was keen to maintain the intensity of this exercise, I only asked each team to do two sets (i.e. each team had two goes at each stage).