Soccer Drills Tips So Players Will Improve Faster
How to Teach Players to Win 50/50 Balls
Why it is Important to Teach Players to be the First Defender
If They Can't Win a 50/50 Ball

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Soccer Drills Tips So Players Will Improve Faster:

As you probably know, our Soccer Drills are Practice Games that are more effective and more fun than normal soccer drills. Below are 2 Soccer Drills tips that will make your practices more effective and result in your players learning faster:

1. Use the Soccer Drills as a teaching device that allows you to coach using a "Guided Discovery" approach. After each drill or Practice Game give "tips" about how they can improve. A simple way to give tips is to talk about what the players did who won the last Practice Game. This approach works well because there is an immediate "cause and effect" in the next game and the players who follow your advice will see improvement and start to beat those who don't. When that happens, even the players who weren't listening start to listen and they start to want your advice because they see that you can help them win the games. Think about it � your players will learn much faster if they are enthusiastic, paying attention, listening and following your advice. Your practices will become much more fun, energized and effective and your players will improve much faster. And since the practice games are competitive (the players keep score), they will practice fast while under pressure, which teaches them to play fast while under pressure.

2. Be Sure Your Soccer Drills stay Game Realistic. The Practice Games should simulate conditions players might face in a real match. Also, be sure to keep your attackers are focused on going forward as opposed to possession for the sake of possession. A problem in US soccer today is that players have been taught to "possess" the ball by passing it backward and playing "keep away" to the point that some have forgotten that the objective is to score. There are articles that mention this in the Soccer Journal. I've seen teams where players were constantly stalling the attack by calling for the ball to be passed backward.

What the Win the 50/50 Ball or be the First Defender 1v1 Attacking and Defending SoccerHelp Premium Practice Game Can Teach Your Players:

Keep in mind that the full name of the Win the 50/50 Ball Practice Game is "Win the 50/50 Ball or be the First Defender 1v1 Attacking and Defending" (http://www.soccerhelp.com/New_Articles_On_Soccerhelp_Premium.shtml). One of the main objectives of the game is to teach players to be the First Defender if they can't win a 50/50 ball. This is VERY IMPORTANT because it can stop a lot of goals that might occur on fast counterattacks. In the Game, the first player to gain possession of the ball becomes the Attacker and gets 1 point and keeps that point and gets 2 more, for a total of 3 points, provided he can get across the Line with the ball under control within 10 seconds (a definition of "having control of the ball" would be that that the attacker can control the ball within a step past the Scoring Line by having the ball at his feet). If the Attacker isn't able to cross the Line within 10 seconds, OR if the Attacker kicks out of the Playing Box without having it under control, OR if the Defender is able to kick it away or steals it, OR if the Attacker goes out of bounds (across the imaginary sidelines of the Playing Box), THEN the Attacker LOSES the point, AND the Defender gets 1 point for stalling the attack (basically, the Defender has taken away the Attacker's advantage and gets his or her point). IF a Defender can SLOW the attack for 10 seconds, his teammates will have had time to Recover to defensive positions and the likelihood of the opponent scoring on a fast counterattack is GREATLY reduced. This game will teach players that IF you can't win the 50/50 ball, then you MUST become the First Defender and slow down the attack for 10 seconds. On the other hand, it will also teach the player who wins the 50/50 ball that he MUST seize the opportunity and quickly blow past the Defender to launch a fast counterattack, or the advantage is lost. The scoring reinforces this point by taking away the point he got for winning the ball if he can't get past the Defender and cross the Line within 10 seconds.

David at SoccerHelp

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