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Personally, I think the drill is excellent if the kids are not good at performing those tasks and my kids definitely are not.
They have been doing this drill during each practice and before each game and are WAY BETTER than they were 2 weeks ago at this drill.
Does it help during the game? I think it will. I asked my kids if they naturally take the ball across their bodies during games now and they told me “yes”.
Whether or not they know it, receiving the ball that way speeds up play.
For my kids this is far from basic. I’ve realized that none of them have ever been trained to do this, and they are in U14.
Thanks for the feedback and I agree with what everyone is saying.
What seems to be missing, shortly after this started was the participation of the 3four3 coaches, except for very few posts.
There are some “coming soon” placeholders as well that haven’t been filled that combination got me thinking.
I am just curious what “coming soon” means, how often they plan to participate in the forums themselves and perhaps what their vision is for next year and follow-up years.
I’m not lacking for good material from here. My teams only practice 2 times a week and can barely digest any of this as it is. It is a long slow process, I understand.
I love the idea of making the center player look over their shoulder. I’ll be incorporating this from now on. Taking a look and making a decision based on what they see behind them. Great idea!
I’m still forcing my players to do this and…
1. keeper can’t kick the ball far
2. central defenders sometimes forget to go to their spot
3. defensive center mid doesn’t realize to drop into space and then support aggressively
4. none realize how much effort it takes to maintain possession under pressure by helping each other, creating triangles of support, etc.
5. sometimes they give up and someone will talk someone else into just kicking it up the field and hoping for the best
6. keeper tosses the ball out to a teammate and an opponent gets to it first
7. keeper tosses the ball out to a teammate who kicks it back to the keeper (for good reason), keeper not prepared and a near own-goal. *phew*
It’s been an ugly 5 games but after the 5th game (or so) I’m starting to see some success and poise.
Because the keeper (whoever is playing at the time) is not always someone that can reach a wingback with a strong kick, I’m considering using someone else to take the kicks when necessary.
A work in progress but I’m pleased with the small morsels of success. Again, a hasty kick or toss out to the CD is usually the key to success. Get it going before the opponents are prepared.
I play in a few leagues and in my 40 and over co-ed league I told the defenders to get wide (either side of the penalty box) when advancing the ball from a goal kick or when the keeper gets the ball. When they remember to do so, it definitely helps. That’s all I’ve done so far but I plan on sending more info to the team later.
I think the biggest thing they learned from the short time they’ve tried this is that getting the ball into play quickly is their best weapon; before the opposition has time to analyze what’s going on and push people forward to pressure the situation. This allowed my team to be able to face forward and make decisions under less pressure. That, if nothing else, became immediately apparent in the one game they tried this. So the keeper was critical in getting the ball into play quickly.
Sometimes, as a warm-up, before all players arrive, I begin practices with a group of 5 cycling the ball with 1 or 2 pressure players trying to mess it up. I def. think offensive people should learn this as you’re also learning how to move, shift, lose your man, push up, backpedal, receive the ball across your body, etc. These are all beneficial for offense and defense type players.
If you watch Barca, they often form triangles and basically play keep-away with a lot of one-touches and sheilding if necessary.
Also there are certainly times when you check-away and check-back and still have not cleared space, an opponent still all up in your grill, yet the ball is headed your way.
These are times when receiving across your body and playing it forward might not be able to occur and perhaps, shouldn’t even be attempted.
Recognizing when to take the ball across your body and play it forward vs. knowing when it’s just not going to happen and be willing to dump it off to a teammate who CAN play it forward seems important.
It seems to me that this needs to be addressed so the players can make the right decisions.
I feel that the players need jobs to do on the field. Something concrete that they can picture themselves doing. By giving them patterns they now will see and feel themselves doing these jobs; things they have never done before, such as losing their man, moving toward a teammate, receiving a diagonal pass and immediately passing to an overlapping wingback. Those players that WANT to do well, but cannot tell you what their jobs are on the field will end up running aimlessly on the field, i.e., little off-the-ball movement, that actually helps.
Once they have the feel for how an elite team operates and once good habits are formed, they will be able to start to think for themselves and create opportunity by finding and filling spaces, executing timing plays and combination plays. At some point they will start to make runs, lose their man, overlap and various other “off-the-ball” activities without even thinking .
IMO, “Find, move to and exploit open spaces” is not something younger ages can picture, let alone execute, without first giving it to them in a very structured manner.
For years, I’ve told players to make overlapping runs, but rarely does it happen because I wasn’t able to teach the “when” very well and team shape was not taught very well, making it basically impossible. IMO, using patterns, good team shape, etc., it will happen automatically because there are triggers and it is their job to do so. Soon enough, the same players will make these same runs even when no specific pattern is being executed, and they won’t make a consious decision to do so. It will just happen.
From what I can tell, the patterns illustrated on this site aren’t new or unique… and that is good. They are just typical scenarios that happen constantly on the field from elite teams (watch any professional game and you will probably see them all in any 10 minute period). The benefit of these patterns, aside from what has already been said is that the players are learning how to execute “typical soccer scenarios” very very quickly, with precision.
Regarding the Attacking Patterns #1, #2, #3 … how are the kids coached to recognize when a pattern isn’t working and to move the ball to the other side of the field?
It seems with the younger ages, the kids will be trying to force the patterns instead of rotating out of them and to the other side of the field, if necessary?
In the training video, the front 5 rush forward to press High.
What about other scenarios: when the ball is lost behind the forwards? Is it as simple as rushing backward and setting up shop similarly except in the other direction?
Is there an area/scenario where, when the ball is lost, the focus goes from forcing the ball inward to forcing the ball outward, away from our own goal?
Gary,
When a player on the other team plays a long ball, I’m surprised that one of your two choices is to play a long ball right back instead of controlling it, maintaining possession and working it back up the field. Can you explain?
Especially for switching the field, passing across the body was the concept I was teaching, as opposed to receiving it across their body. This was for the obvious reason .. to keep the ball in motion, for the fastest switch possible. Now I can see the benefits of purposely receiving the ball across your body for other reasons, after reading everything here. Great stuff.
The kids are U14 and should know better. This is a newly formed team for me (as it is every year) so they might not know how adamant I am about playing appropriately.
I think what’s missing for most of these kids isn’t desire or the lack of wanting to do the right thing, it’s the lack of “Triggers” that tell them what to do in certain situations.
That is why I thought I might go overboard a bit and force them to switch every time a ball is dropped to help build a habit of thinking that way. Then, as the year progresses, alter that requirement and allow them to figure it out for themselves.
