Dear SoccerHelp,

I am a premium subscriber, and have been using all the practice games listed. Most of the games we have used are "Kick Across The Ball" game, "Run to the Ball & Shoot", "Pass to Space" and "3 Man Wing Attack". I have been running the games 3 nights a week for the last two months. I have seen big improvements in my u-10 travel team. We had our first travel tournament this weekend went 2 & 2 the 2 losses were both 0 to 1 lost in the last few minutes of the game. We had control in the front third most of the games we had fifteen shot on goal with out scoring. In practice they get it in every time, but under pressure they either hit the near post or go wide too far. Do you have any games that we can use to improve on this? I really like this web site it has helped a lot. I used the 2-1-2-2 formation you recommended and it worked much better than 3-3-1 for us with all the speed we have.

Thanks for your time,

Coach Brian

Dear Brian,

Here are some tips for the Dribble Around A Cone and Pass game. I worked with a team today and played this and it's very good:

It's great for U-10, easy to set up and teaches speed dribbling, turning, passing, receiving and quickly moving after receiving a pass. Put the cones 8 steps apart. Teach receivers to move toward slow or weak passes, and that they can one-touch block the ball in front of them to go faster.

For the Dribble Across game, vary the width of the square -- make it larger and the boys will learn to Speed Dribble when they get open space. Teach them all a Pullback turn, a Stop Turn, and Outside Hook Turn.

David SoccerHelp

---

---